8. Improvement To Detail Needed

• DocuPen DPEN-R700 Pen...
• • Buydig.com
  • $156.88

There are three things that could stand improvement:

Although it takes just under four seconds to scan a single-page text document in 100 dpi, until the scanner is ready for use again, another six seconds have passed. This is the time it takes to write the data to memory. The time difference gets out of all proportion if you scan a page of ads in a magazine at high resolution. The actual scan takes around ten seconds and the save to memory takes the same again. That makes more than 20 seconds.

Another annoyance is the scanner's painfully slow interface. It takes around a minute to transfer ten 100 dpi pages of text to the PC. If the Docupen's memory is full, you have to sit it out for some five minutes before the data is finally on your PC.

What we would say is that we expect the manufacturer to spell out somewhere that only 75% of the 2 MB memory is actually available for data storage. At any rate, we were unable to get the scanner to use the full 2 MB of available data storage space.

Video

Because a picture says more than a thousand words, we shot a small video that shows the Docupen R 700 in action.

Conclusion

Whether you use it privately or professionally, you'll quickly come to appreciate the qualities of the world's smallest and lightest black-and-white full-page scanner. It's never been so easy to feel like James Bond without Q's assistance. With the Docupen R700 you can scan texts, blueprints and sketches on the road and at home and send them as an email attachment, for example.

The cheap-looking casing and the slow download speed via USB tend to limit the enjoyment of the Docupen R700 a tad.

At a recommended retail price of $200 (190 euros), the handy and cool office device is not a bargain either. But if you are looking for an ultra-compact scanner for texts and images, you probably won't want to do without this device.