IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe GPEN200N (Black)
by IOGEAR
|
List Price: Our Price: $100.00 You Save: $29.95 (23%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Personal Computer See more product details |
|---|
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe GPEN200N (Black)
Customer Review: Recording a signature for a Word or PDF Document
Summary: 4 Stars
I was trying to find an easy way to sign reports that I was going to send digitally in PDF format. This worked pretty well, although the instructions need to be improved. There is actually a pen with ink to use for this, but it gives no instructions on how to refill it, or obtain refills. I'll have to figure that out when I run out of ink. The pen is a little awkward and uncomfortable, so I don't recommend it for taking extensive notes.Customer Review: as expected
Summary: 4 Stars
The device works as expected. What is sad is that the product is discontinued, so soon gone. I couldn't find it here in Finland from anyone, fortunately there is amazon.com.
The vendor says this does not work with Windows7, but don't tell that to my systems. It works as expected on both my Windows7 and WindowsXP systems.
Customer Review: Great, but
Summary: 4 Stars
Great tool, does what it says. Absolutely zero Linux support. They don't hide this fact, but nevertheless its a negativeCustomer Review: Does its job
Summary: 4 Stars
Handy little thing so long as you're realistic about what you hope to get out of a product like this for this price.Customer Review: A product with potential
Summary: 3 Stars
IOGear's Mobile Digital Scribe is a fun gadget that almost any electronics junky would enjoy. It works well for getting handwritten notes and drawings into one's computer. It is, however, a product that needs to be refined to fulfill its potential.
I have used my IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe (GPEN200N) in mobile mode and with the reciever unit tethered to computers via the included USB cable. I have tested it with both Windows XP and Vista. In all cases I found that the hardware (which consists of the pen and a receiver unit) worked fine. I can use the pen to input an image of my handwriting or drawings quite easily using the included IOGear software. Images of the writing or drawings can be saved as JPG files. However, the handwriting recognition software was virtually worthless. It couldn't make heads-nor-tails of my handwriting. In fairness to the software, my writing is not especially pretty, but it is quite legible to human readers. One can upgrade the "lite" version of the software for 59.95 euros (about $94 in US dollars[...]) and that is supposed to give you the ability to train the software to recognize your handwriting. I wish that the device came with software that actually worked out of the box.
In addition to using the pen as a device for inputting writing or drawings, one can use it in "mouse mode." I found the pen to be a less than satisfactory mouse; it was difficult to use in this capacity. It seemed awkward and I had difficulty getting the pointer where I wanted on the screen. But then again, perhaps it might grow on me with practice. I disliked using a mouse at first, but the mouse became a very natural pointing device after some practice. Perhaps it would be the same with the pen?
One of the other reviewers commented that the pen is worthless once it runs out of ink because "there's no office supply store that sells this little tiny ink refill cartridge of this dimension." That isn't exactly true, but I did have some trouble finding the refill cartridges locally. Two stores that I went to -- a store with a large office supply department and a pen shop -- said that they could not help me and referred me to other places. A third store, OfficeMax, said that they did not carry the refill in the store, but could get it for me. A fourth store, Staples, had a refill in stock which worked. After looking at the refill cartridge, the lady at Staples suggested that I try a refill made for a Staedtler Multi-Action Pen. The Staedtler refill worked fine. One can also purchase refills through Amazon.com.
I agree with the reviewer who complained about the small spring-loaded clips which are meant to secure the "receiver" to one's paper. Securing the "reciever clip" to the paper is important because even a slight movement of the paper in relation to the receiver can mess things up. As the other reviewer said, the clips built into the receiver are too small to handle more than a couple of pages at a time. These clips really need to be altered to accomodate thicker stacks of paper. I did, however, find a way to work around this problem. I purchase pads of paper that have a strip of cardboard across the top. Instead of trying to clip the receiver to the pad (it won't work; the clips are too small) I simply taped the device to the cardboard strip. It is a makeshift solution, but it works.
Another refinement that I would like to see is a way to adjust for different paper sizes. Also, the images show up on the computer screen with a yellow background (similar to the color of post-it notes). I would much prefer that the images show up on a plain white background. Others might prefer other colors. Why not make the background color adjustable?
I can see where this pen could be very useful. As a healthcare professional, I often make written notes which are later scanned into a computer. It would be wonderful if my pen could "remember" what I wrote and then download the information into the computer at the end of the day. The IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe could become a very useful business tool someday, but refinements are needed.