User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
TopScan is better and cheaperby morchilinaa - February 24, 2010
Pros: could not find any
Cons: Slow , and not as accurate as other manufactures such as TopScan Text Scanner
Review: I used the wizcom for awhile, once I got the TopScan I understood how there are better devices on the market. I bought my Topscan on www.text-scanner.com for a great price.
The TopScan Scanner is Faster and very Accurate.
User Rating: 1.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Couldn't be more disappointingby - January 20, 2004
Pros: Lots of promises...Great idea if it worked. BUT...
Cons: Far over-promises and underdelivers. It's been a long time since I bought ANY product that completely failed to live up to its claims. The company should be sued by Consumers Union for making a "97% accuracy claim". I was so excited to use this product
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User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Great product, but...by - October 22, 2003
Pros: This is a pretty good text scanner. You can scan each standard line of text (on an 8.5" by 11" paper) in about 3 or 4 seconds, with a 1 or 2 second delay before being able to scan the next line. Character recognition is pretty good, very few errors if y
Cons: It took a couple of hours of set up time, but worked fine after that. A couple of things to note: It comes with a 9-pin serial connector that most newer computers (or at least my laptop) cannot connect with. Newer computers mostly have a USB port, so ma
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User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Fun and useful toolby - April 3, 2003
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Review: I bought this to summarize stacks of journal articles. I used to highlight them and then type the highlighted sentences into a document. Now I can do it all in one step. There is a bit of delay and it can make mistakes, but its still faster and more accurate than my typing. It performs better with certain fonts and is more accurate with an original than a photocopy. The software is easy to use; I was up and scanning in about five minutes. After trying mine, five of my friends have also bought it. This isn't a miracle device, but its worth the money.
User Rating: 2.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
It doesn't workby - October 7, 2002
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Review: I'm skeptical these days for a reason. Out of the box, we got about a 20% accuracy rate. This was black text on a white background. Even after enlarging the copy, it had problems. The only thing it scanned wonderfully was the "test" sentence that came with the "Quick Setup" instructions. This is not a business solution.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Grrrrreat simple and easyby - June 9, 2002
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Review: First computing product I bought on line, ComuServe Special, and well worth it. I am engaged in extensive research and the pen allows me to leave the lap top home when at a library doing research. Did away with bulky 3x5 cards also. Prior to start of material scaning, scan the reference info and then dump into Excel spreadsheet with a code number. Great tool I highly recommend.
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
What's the point?by - May 28, 2002
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Review: The usefullness of this thing escapes me. I don't own one, and I'm just giving my opinion based on the review here, but this looks like a useless techno-toy to me. Why not just buy a cheap 1-megapixel (or less) camera and take [faster] snapshots of pages? That way you get the text _and_ any images on the page as well. Do the OCR later [and more accurately] on your notebook. I don't know.. maybe there's an advantage to having the OCR built into the device. No, there isn't. Just get a camera. This thing's a great implementation of a bad idea.
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
So far---REAL goodby - February 8, 2002
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Review: I was skeptical in buying this product, because--as the saying goes--"If it's too good to be true, it probably is". Well, so far, that's not the case. This pen scanner is performing the way I had HOPED. I just got it out of the box a few hours ago, and learned the very basics--scanning and converting it into a text file. It took me a few minutes of learning the feel of how it works, and after 10 minutes of trial and error, it performs nearly FLAWLESSLY. On occasion, it may mispell something, however, for what I want it to do, it will save me a TON of time. It DOES have difficulty picking up text on colored backgrounds. However, it had NO problems reading yellow or pink highlighted text on a white background. I gave all categories a "4" rating, based soley on quick, intital impressions. In sumary, if you feel this product would save you time---buy one. Based on my brief experience thus far, I'm very satified (and mildly surprised the gizmo really works).
User Rating: 3.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Very bad software, No USBby - January 31, 2002
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Review: We were so excited to get this pen for a research year in germany. It scans german well and recognizes the characters, however, after spending a week reading a book and enjoying using it as a highlighter, we were absolutely unable to get it to transfer to our toshiba satellite with a usb to serial converter. We loaned it to a friend who had a serial port and he was only able to get the data off by using the backup function. The software is very bad and cannot be reinstalled. It always freezes my windows ME machine and has never been able to performe pc controlled communications. Technical support was very patient, but ultimately could offer me no other solution than to buy a new computer. They did not even offer to send me a software upgrade to see if that would help. Just this month, I became aware that USB to IR adapters are being sold, and I am curious to know if they would work properly. Any information? please email nmcbivens@hotmail.com
User Rating: 2.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Handy, but still more a toy!by - September 2, 2001
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Review: It does not scan red on white, or black or blue, due to the colour of the scanning light (red). The OCR is worse than flatbed scanner that now sells under US$100. It is also annoyingly slow, about 5 seconds for 30 alphanumeral. Despite it is meant to be stand-alone, it works better when in the PC-Communication (direct scan to computer) mode, as correction has to be done with a keyboard, and there are at best about 5% error in each paragraph of journal scanned. More of a gimmick and toy than a professional tool.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Great Support, Great Product!by - August 28, 2001
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Review: I found the QuickLink Pen to be indispensible -- it is accurate, easy to use, and I just love it. As a student, I could not imagine living with out it...
User Rating: 2.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
the IR Does not workby - July 9, 2001
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Review: I bought it in france. While using it I found first that it was slow then that the IR does not work. Ic can communicate with the PC but only via the cable !! Then I try to contact the company in france. They broke !!! No way to found them !! Even their web site dissapeared !! The telephone of the company has been cut down ! How CNET can evaluate such a software with such a bad support ....??
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Perfect for business use in combo with a PDAby - June 26, 2001
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Review: I have used my QuickLink Pen for a year now and love it. With the Professional level Character Eyes software, it meets all of my needs. I can scan to my Palm or my PC. Often short on time and not interested in becoming a touch typist, I scan in parts of documents for incorporation into other presentations at a later date. Take it anywhere and collect background information from documents of which you only require one paragraph: why carry five pages or a laptop for that? I would not part with my pen!
User Rating: 2.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Inaccurate, slow and cumbersome.by - April 6, 2001
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Review: I was disappointed with poor accuracy. I had difficulty obtaining accurate scans, even on clean copies with font 11 text. If you are looking for a product to increase efficiency this is not it. Returned mine after a week.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
It exceeded my expectations....by - April 1, 2001
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Review: I was desperately needing something like the QuickLink Pen for an upcoming project. I did my research online, including reading the user reports on this site. I was a little sceptical when I ordered it, however, I'm very happy that I did. I had to call Customer Support to help me link the pen to my laptop. They helped me solve my problem (my Palm HotSynch was turned on) and gave additional advice on setting the pen up and using it. With practice I now have few problems with scanning accuracy. My son uses it with his homework. I've already decided to give it as a gift to a techy friend. I love it. It does everything I need it to do and it will end up saving me a great deal of time.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
An amazing aid for reading in a foreign language.by - January 28, 2001
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Review: I bought the Quicktionary II, which is the version that translates scanned text into another language. I use it for reading foreign language books for enjoyment. It is perfect for this, and frees me from dragging around a dictionary; and looking up an unknown word is ten times faster with it. It isn't perfect: some words don't scan correctly, and you have to hold it just so. But its dictionary (I'm using French-English) seldom lacks the word I'm looking for. I wouldn't want to scan a lot of text with this, but for the occasional word or short phrase, it's marvelous! It can be upgraded to hold several other languages, and I intend to try several of them.
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
More promises less deliveryby - January 20, 2001
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Review: I am glad I tested the pen almost immediately after I bought it ! Now it is returned and my search continues. 1. It does NOT recognize text in clors particularly orange/red. 2. Very poor recognition reading small text. 3. Trouble shooting guide does not even mention scanning and poor recognition in any detail. Save your money and wait.
User Rating: 3.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
I had trouble at first, but got great supportby - January 20, 2001
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Review: The unit is light weight, controls are easy to learn and are logical. I had trouble at first, but both times I called the support number I was helped. First with getting the pen to read at all, and then to connect to my lap top. The second time they took all the time I needed and even gave some extra information about the unit. I have only just started using the pen and look forward to continue to do so.
User Rating: 2.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Wait for something better to be on the market.by - November 16, 2000
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Review: The product is too slow. It takes me 3 times as long to get my reading done and to scan all of the relevant information using this product. I would honestly hesitate to pay $50 for this product. Plus the software has to be restarted after several "scan to PC" operations (and locks up a lot generally, even on my Dell 700). You can't even control the pen through the software when it is linked to the computer. Plus it does not come with a USB cable. If it did, you could save money on batteries if you scan directly into your computer. I've authored some programs before and I don't think it is asking too much to have a few more subroutines written to make the software more versile. In any event, the software needs some serious debugging which should have occured at least by the time its update was released. I am returning my Quicklink and waiting for some other manufacturer to come to the rescue of consumers and force some competition because this product can be fairly analogized to a basic caclulator when compared to a computer. Sorry Wizcom but you can do better than that. M.D.
User Rating: 3.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Nothing spectacular, but functionalby - October 13, 2000
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Review: As a medical student, I found using this pen helpful...good way to condense mountains of notes to a few short pages. The recognition is not very good however, with much less than the 97% recognition they claim. I don't know if this is totally the fault of the OCR however. Medical texts have many words I suspect would not be in the OCR, an thus i think the pen takes longer and may get confused often. I am quite satisfied though, because I does an adequate job, I can beam to my compaq IPAQ 3600 (WIth accessory software) and edit it later. Because I am trying to memorize and learn information, going through and editing the text line by line helps me learn the information. If you are expecting to use it without editing, you will be sadly mistaken... Customer service sucks. I called on three occasions and the people didn't even know what a windows CE unit was. Two of them pretended to know, the other one told me he would get back to me but never did. Don't expect good customer service...Price is OK. Don't know why they decided to ship a serial cable. USB IR adapter would make much more sense, as it is a pain to use the unit when there is this cable hanging off the back...
User Rating: 3.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Very good product destroyed by poor customer support.by - September 28, 2000
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Review: Given the amount of research I perform, I was anxious to try this product. In terms of performance, I agree with the CNet and Justin Maag reviews. However, given the price, I find it to be a great value. That is until you factor in the technical support which is terrible. I could not get the Pen to communicate with my PC. The site FAQ's repeated the information in the manual. When I called Wizcom, I was told to leave a number and someone would return my call. I attempted this three times without a call back, including right at the opening time. Overall, if you are successful in getting everything to work and not having to deal with Wizcom, you may find the product useful. Otherwise, delay your purchase until the company improves its service or a better competitor comes along.
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
If it includes barcode scanning,you've got something!by - September 20, 2000
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Review: Ten years ago, while filing a patent application, I wished for just such technology, as I dreaded taking notes. The only problem was that the internet was not yet in existence and I wondered how I could transfer my notes to my electric typewriter. Well the "pen" has arrived, and if it includes scanning barcodes, do I have a project for you! Sincerely, Dot Laganowski
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 24 user reviews
As a student I have found the QuickLink pen excellent.by - August 23, 2000
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Review: The more I use the pen the better the scanning gets. I have about 85% accuracy at this time. I'm sure with more use, the more accurate it will get.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 24 user reviews
Slickby - July 27, 2000
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Review: I'm am extremely pleased with the Quick Link Pen. I find the address book function very usefull. I have been using the pen during research, copying text much like you would with a highlighter. My e-mails to technical support were answered very quickly.
The good: Cordless design; full-featured menus; big, easy-to-read screen.
