Pen-Sized Color Scanner Reviewed

moto writes "ThinkComputers has a review up of a cool pen-sized scanner, the Planon RC800 Portable Color Scanner. From the article: 'I've noticed one major constant about most technology, as it changes it gets smaller. Take scanners for instance, I have a few of them, an older one that is pretty big, you could use it for a computer case if need be, if I lined them up in order of age you would find that they get smaller as they get newer. Today for review I have the smallest scanner yet, it's from Planon, and they actually made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.'"

Comments

Re:This is old news.

[SteelV]

It is possible that it's just too new, so it isn't ready for market yet--that could by why the items aren't moving. Of course, I'm sure the first iterations of this product won't be amazing, but as time goes by, they'll probably improve.

Of course, the idea of having such a tiny scanner is amazing. It would be great to one day have a normal pen that you can just slide along a piece of paper anywhere and it will save the image. Later, you could upload it to your computer wirelessly. I would definitely pay a few hundred dollars for something like that, if not a thousand. It would be great in class to quickly scan in and then throw away every handout, so I don't need to keep them in a folder somewhere collecting dust.

Re:This is old news.

[dattaway]

It is possible that it's just too new, so it isn't ready for market yet-

or the dozen or so patents haven't expired yet for a community to develop and release an improved version without bugs.

I remember my first scanner

[Ralph Spoilsport]

300 dpi, 3 pass scanner, 8.5in x 11in, slow as mollasses and cost me $1500.

Now I have an 8.5 x 11 scanner that does 2400 dpi in a single pass and it only cost me $89 on sale at Best Buy.

Amazing what happens in a dozen years...

RS

Re:I remember my first scanner

[kfg]

Indeed, however, even though your older scanner is quite a bit larger I'll wager its form factor is still determined by the size of a piece of paper.

The worlds smallest playable violin is only 4 inches long, but you're not likely to see people lining up to buy it. There is an international standard now for the "correct" size of a violin, because:

For every technology there is a right size. A working automobile the size of a peanut would be a remarkable bit of manufacturing technology; and useless.

KFG

Re:This is old news.

[kfg]

Apologise to the hoes now.

You're right and I'm sorry. The hoes are professionals.

KFG

There's a reason scanners are big

[fm6]

While a handheld pen-sized scanner may intrigue, it's not very new...

Indeed, Slashdot's sibling site, ThinkGeek, used to sell little monochrome scanners meant for OCR work. I actually bought one, but found it too hard to hold it steady enough to work reliably. And come to think of it, the first scanner I ever bought was a little handheld thing. I didn't buy it (ten years ago, I think) because it was small, I bought it because it was cheap. But again, too hard to hold steady.

If you look carefully at a typical $100 scanner, you'll realize that the electronics contribute very little to its size. Most of the bulk is due to the mechnical stuff that holds the paper in place and moves the sensors across it.

That kind of mechanical engineering has clearly hit its fundamental limits in terms of size. To get a real breakthrough, you'd have to find a way to do without moving the sensor over the image. You can already image a piece of paper with a digital camera — and some digital cameras are very tiny indeed. But they don't include the ability to correct the image for the arbitrary positioning of the camera. Invent that, and you'd have a handheld scanner worth talking about.

usable with Linux?

[srk]

Does anybody know if it works with Linux or Mac? Manufacturer's web site has only Windows as a supported system.

Re:usable with Linux?

[srk]

There are lots of products for which manufacturers do not claim any Linux compatibility. However, such products are often perfectly usable with Linux either because there is a community support or a product is built to some standard. For example, I have not seen a USB key claiming compatibility with Linux but 99.99% of them work fine.

I wonder if somebody tried this scanner with Linux? Also this scanner can use microSD card to extend its memory. It may store the files on the card in some usable format.

All I want from scanner manufacturers

[melted]

All I want from scanner manufacturers is come up with a model of scanner that can scan _multiple_ pages, from _both sides_, _automatically_, bundled with decent OCR software and archiving software. I'd just feed all the paperwork I receive in a week into it and have a searchable archive. Unfortunately, the industry is run by morons and it's not gonna happen.