Pen scanners are nothing new, as they've been around for years from a variety of different scanner manufacturers. What makes Planon System Solutions' DocuPen R700 stand out from the rest of the pen scanners on the market is that it can scan entire pages of data nearly as fast as a flatbed scanner.

The R700 is 8-1/2 inches long and less than 1 inch across, and it weighs only 2 ounces. Since the scanner is as wide as a letter document, it's able to scan an entire page in a single pass. Planon says it can take as little as 4 seconds to scan a page, and we were able to come close to that number. Even at the high-resolution setting, a full-page scan took less than 10 seconds.

At 200-dpi resolution, the R700's scan quality isn't going to replace that of your dedicated office scanner, but it delivers images decent enough to be usable. At the 100-dpi setting the scans go more rapidly, but it's usually worth the extra time for the sharper images. There's a bit of a learning curve to get the hang of using the DocuPen, but after you have it down, it's almost enjoyable to scan pages so quickly with such a small device.

The 2MB of onboard Flash memory is enough to hold up to 100 pages at the lower resolution, so you have a decent amount of room to store scans on your business trip. The lithium-ion battery inside the R700 automatically recharges when connected to a computer via the included USB cable.

Planon includes a light version of ScanSoft's PaperPort optical character recognition software, but you'll want to make sure that your scans are of text that is 12-point or larger to get decent results from the OCR. There's also a handy leather carrying case that protects the DocuPen when you're on the road.

The DocuPen is for black-and-white only, so you can't use it for capturing color images, but if you need an easy-to-carry scanner that can quickly input letters and documents, Planon's DocuPen R700 is one of the best there is.

Pro: Light and compact, quick scans.
Con: Black and white only, costly.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Planon System Solutions
5484 Tomken Road, Unit 19
Mississauga, Ontario L4W 2Z6
888-507 3926
http://www.planon.com

Warranty
3 months