Portable scanners are nothing new, but the DocuPen from Planon System Solutions is small enough to make James Bond jealous.
Released in January and priced at $199, the DocuPen measures 8 inches by 0.5 inches and weighs just 2 ounces. Its diminutive size doesnt affect its capabilities, though: The DocuPen can scan and store as many as 100 full pages with its 2MB of flash memory.
Using the scanner on the go, however, takes getting used to. The DocuPen must be manually pulled across a page. I had no problem scanning documents at my desk, but performing the same task in the cramped confines of an airplane seat took practice: If I moved the DocuPen too quickly, the scan was blurry. If the scanner was moved crookedly, the entire scan was crooked.
Once you get the hang of it, the DocuPen can scan a full page of text and/or graphics in 4 seconds. The device works in 100-dpi and 200-dpi modes, and scan quality is decent.
The scanner comes with ScanSofts PaperPort optical character recognition software, which lets users translate scans into editable text. The DocuPen connects to a computer via a serial port or USB.
The scanners only major drawback is its use of expensive 1.55-volt silver-oxide watch batteries.
For more information, go to www.planon.com.