| PLANon DocuPen RC800 Portable Scanner |
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DocuPen RC800
Testing the DocuPen RC800:
We ran a number of tests on the RC800 to see the standard and low resolution image file sizes as well as battery life and overall usability of both the software and the hardware.
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| Maximum Resolution | Low Resulution |
Click on the Photo for a Larger Image
Its clear by looking at the samples that the lower resolution image has less color but whats not immediately apparant is that both images were scanned in at 200dpi. The DocuPen drops down from 24 to 12 bit color when dropping resolutions. This is a bit confusing as changing the resolution changes the color depth and not the actual resolution at which the image is scanned in at. The images are saved as TIF files and if done at maximum resolution 1 scan of the document above was about 6.5 MB which the second image scanned at lower resolution took up about 6MB. It became immediately apparant we were going to need more memory to make the DocuPen RC800 usable for more than a few scans. The scanner is equipped with a red X indicator that informs the user when the scanner is being moved to fast. We found that the light only came on when we moved the scanner to fast during color copies at high resolution, otherwise we were able to scan an entire 8x10 page in about 7-8 seconds.
Upgrading Memory:
Thankfully PLANon has made upgrading the memory a very easy process. Simply lift off the easy to remove cover on the back of the pen and insert your Micro SD memory card. What we find as a potential negative is that the device only lists official support for 128 and 256MB memory modules. This allows for approximately 20 scanned pages using a 128MB card and 40 scanned pages using a 256MB card. This is of course if you are scanning at full size and color depth.
Black and White Scanning:
If you are scanning in black and white text at low resolution don't expect to be able to read the text. The PLANon DocuPen RC800 provided almost unreadable text when set on Black and White and low resolution.
Click on the Photo for a Larger Image
Software:
The DocuPen RC800 comes with three small quickloading applications and a profile manager that allows you to set the dpi and color depth of the scanner at each setting. This profile manager is an awesome addition to the DocuPen and really allows the user to set their preferences and expands the usability of the RC800 quite a bit.
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The Page Viewer software was adequate for average editing and provides tools about the equivilant of MS Paint. For any serious editing the user will desire a better picture editing software. The Paper Port software provided a nice easy way to arrange and organize scanned documents as well as quick access to FTP a document or range of scanned items to an FTP provided the user knows the connection information.
On to Our Conclusion
| « Features and Specifications | Conclusions » |