IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe GPEN200N (Black)
by IOGEAR
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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 |
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Customers in the UK,
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for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe GPEN200N (Black)
Customer Review: Does the job
Summary: 3 Stars
Nutshell: 5/10. Good for specific purposes; just don't expect to use it for artwork and e-mail.
The pen is solid: I use it for tracing portions of diagrams, and it's like having a realtime scanner. As a mouse, there's a bit of lag time (ymmv) which makes it about as useful as the eraserhead mouse on my laptop. The 'click this spot' mode switch (between scanner and mouse modes) is not really responsive.
The MyScript software that comes with it is so-so. Good for turning etch-a-sketch line diagrams into clean boxes and arrows. WRT writing: like all handwriting-recognition software, it relies on you learning a way of writing that it can recognize. Okay for diagram captions; I get too many errors to bother 'writing' paragraphs of text. The diagram editor isn't Visio (or even Dia), but good enough if you're starting from an existing visual --- e.g. 'writing' on a notepad what someone else has drawn on a white board.
One upfront hurdle with MyScript was, the free part of the software requires an activation license (!?) and none was included with the package! I phoned iogear tech support and got one.
Customer Review: Wasnt as awesome as I expected
Summary: 3 Stars
I liked that it looked like a regular pen and wasnt too big. I'd give it like a C+ for doing it's job though. I guess because my handwritting is a mixture of printing and cursive, it couldnt recognize a lot of words, even though I write very neatly. Not to mention that the software is only a minimum version and if you want it to convert text better and also convert pictures, then you need to spend another [...] bucks or so on the program upgrade. The batteries work for a really long time (like a month or so) and you can find refills for the pen at Staples (Telescopic 4-C for Zebra's Telescopic Pen, Rubber Sharbo, or Pocket Pen)and batteries (SR41 watch batteries) at walmart all for very cheap. It wasnt complicated to use or anything, I just wished it recognized my writing a little bit better. In the time I wasted correcting the mistakes, I could have just typed my notes myself faster. but it was kind of nice to have a scanned picture of my notes saved just in case something ever happened to my notebook. So its alright but dont expect too much out of it.Customer Review: Does work on Mac
Summary: 3 Stars
This product does work on a Mac, if you upgrade the firmware (using a PC!):
http://www.pegatech.com/_Uploads/Downloads/Software/M210_MAC.zip
It lets you download the text and drawings as Tiff files (i.e. images). The quality of the Tiffs is very good and the text was captured rather well. Handwriting recognition does not work, but that is partly because there is no software like My Script Notes which runs on a Mac. If you want, you can also enable Ink in the MacOS preferences and try to use the pen with Ink's handwriting recognition with the unit acting as a mouse. This works kind of, but not very well. If you need the conversion, then installing MyScript Notes under Parallels or Vmware Fusion is the easiest way to go. The Lite version is not very good, when you have text mixed with images. The upgrade to the full version is [...] Euro (less than $[...]), which is no too bad.
Customer Review: Surprisingly good with some caveats
Summary: 3 Stars
I was quite surprised at the handwriting recognition capabilities. Contrary to my prior beliefs, this device does not simply capture an image of one's writing and then run OCR on it. The device actually captures data about how the strokes were made in order to improve recognition. One problem that I am experiencing is that if the receiver isn't positioned correctly, the captured text may slope up or down. This causes problems with the recognition software such that it may break lines of text - positioning the end of the line above or below the current line. There doesn't appear to be any built-in correction for this. Also, if you use Vista, you cannot position the receiver in the corners, you must position it at the top of the page only. XP allows all positions.Customer Review: IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe
Summary: 3 Stars
Found it very difficult to download it onto my system (Vista) kept getting a message to reinstall it.
However the support team were very good and replied to my questions by return and I finally manage to get it load OK. Most of the writing is recorded in a readable format but I think it takes time to adjust to my hand writing. At present it is all working OK, but I can't find anywhere that sells the refills it takes, plus I found that the postage was very expensive for the small packet.IOGear Mobile Digital Scribe GPEN200N (Black)