Ectaco C-Pen 3.5 BT Bluetooth Handheld Scanner

• Can scan and load printed text to your computer with no strings attached.
• Bluetooth design allows on-the-go scanning up to 30 feet from your computer or mobile device
• Perfect fit for both left and right handed users allowing text to be scanned in a simple and comfortable way.
• Scanning speed up to 15 cm/sCharacter size 5-22 points
• Abbyy FineReader OCR Engine 8 with support for PC/Mac

After seeing all the positive and negative reviews for the Ectaco C-pen 20, I decided to take the dive and buy the Bluetooth version of Ectaco's handheld text scanner for my wife. I was apprehensive because there are no reviews for this product, but figured we could return the scanner if it didn't work.

My wife uses the scanner pen to scan text and notes from her law school classes. She stinks at typing, so being able to scan all the text she needs into her class outlines is a *huge* timesaver for her.

Caveats: we are on Vista as our operating system.

Pros:

Easy setup (make sure you follow the directions; DO NOT plug in the scanner prior to loading the software).

Scans accurately and quickly when plugged in via USB; see Cons for the story on Bluetooth mode.

Picks up the following kinds of text without problems: highlighted texts, text in books (make sure the pages are flat, though), or underlined text (provided your underline doesn't go through the text; see Cons)

Picks up kooky symbols, like the ones I found in some of my wife's textbooks (deltas, ampersands, etc.)

Cons:

Doesn't scan text well if you have underlined text and some of your underlining moves up through the printed text.

Doesn't scan very well in Bluetooth-only mode. Essentially, you have about 2-3 seconds to scan your line of text before the light on the scanner goes out and it transmits to your computer. I have no idea what the heck the deal is, but if the Bluetooth part of this scanner is really what you're looking for, I would recommend you *not* buy this product.

Scanner doesn't seem like the most well-constructed thing in the world, *but* it has held up well so far, so that might be a non-issue.

Overall: This text scanner does just fine when it's plugged in to the computer via USB cord. My wife really does save a lot of time in her studies. But, as I mentioned above, the Bluetooth really doesn't function very well at all. I originally gave this product 5 stars because it did exactly what it promised, but I'm changing my rating to (a very generous) 3 stars now that we've found out that the Bluetooth part of the show is so bad. Hopefully Ectaco will fix this in their next system update?

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I am an Information Systems Analyst and one of my tasks it to check on the assets we have regularly. This involves taking serial numbers of PCs laptops, monitors, etc. I was finding a way of making my inventory check simple. Since it involved having to look at a serial number, writing it down, crosschecking and then finally inputting it into an excel sheet.

After searching for something that could make my life easier, I found the Ectaco Bluetooth C-Pen

I just finished testing the device this morning and I must say I was very impressed.

It comes highly recommended.

It can scan data from any printed material even invoices.

It can also scan

* Dell service tags pasted on the system unit.

* Serial number on the laptop adapter

* Computer names we print with the labeller and paste on the PCs.

* Phone serial number on the phone box/packaging.

Because it can also be used wirelessly. It can also scan from a range. I've only tested up to 5meters.

One of the things it has problems with when scanning is scanning anything on a shiny surface eg. The OPTIPLEX 780 on the front of the Dell machines and the serial numbers on the sollatek ultima 800 UPS.

Aside that, I believe it will be a great device to make our work easier and to keep us on top of our assets.

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I'm using c-pen 3.5 to scan text from books written in English and in Polish (lots of additional diacritic signs so challenging for any OCR) on a Macbook pro with Snow Leopard system. For that purpose and on that system cpen 3.5 works just great. When its connected to the USB its very fast and accurate. When it is connected via bluetooth it works bit slower and with some errors but still with impressive quality.

Its true that it doesnt recognize underlined text very well but beside that I didnt notice many problems. I was using it also when book was on my knees and accuracy was bit worse then.

I had some problems at the begining as I couldnt switch the default language to Polish but I was helped by support and they fixed the problem in 24h by giving me line of code to write in the terminal and that fixed the bug in the software. I was told that they are going to fix that in next version of software.

Installation and pairing with bluetooth could be more intuitive from the point of view of macuser. I cant switch of the sound of succesfull scan which of course can be eliminated by turning of system sound but its a bit annoying. But other than that the product does all I need. So far worth its price.

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First I should caveat my critique with the statement that I don't have very good eye-hand coordination and my hands shake a lot. People that don't have these problems might have better luck with this product.

What I had hoped to accomplish with this product was to scan in single words for translation. I'm trying to learn Spanish and I thought what a great thing it would be if I could just scan a word and get the definition. Previously, and still, I would read Spanish text with my fingers on my keyboard and type the word I didn't know into www.spanishdict.com hit enter, and get the answer. Well I don't type that well and this is an awkward way of reading a book. This product would have been perfect for me had it worked. Since the button on the C-Pen can be defined to be "enter" I would only need the book and the C-Pen. What could be better than this?

Well it doesn't work for me. I'm not that precise. If the pen projected cross-hairs on the text perhaps I'd do better, but I can't tell where the scan starts and where it ends. It's very difficult to scan a single word. If the word ends in punctuation I would challenge anyone to scan just the word.

Well I never got around to returning the product within the time limits so my only hope now is that someone writes and publishes a plugin that filters out single words. If I scan "\i someone wh( " (actually scan) the filter should pick out "someone" as the target word. If I had this I'd be happy even though getting a connection through Bluetooth is an ordeal.

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I think this is my first review on Amazon. Been buying stuff for ages, but felt I should finally contribute. There wasn't a lot of reviews on this compared to other products on the market, but this seemed like one of the top ones (based on price) and I was in a hurry to get a pen reader so I got it shipped next day.

One con, no software seems to be included. I had to go to their website to download the software to run this on my PC, took a min or so to install.

Once I had the software installed I plugged it in, tested it out and it really blew me away. This is my first pen/portable scanner and this is going to save me TONS of time! I have to enter long alphanumberic codes into boxes all day. Doing it by hand led to mistakes and wasted time. This thing is super quick, I scan the code and glance up at the monitor and its already all typed in perfectly with spaces and everything.

For what I need it to do, it does it wonderfully!