Pen Power Super Scan Eye

[choisum]

I'm about to go buy one these...does anyone have any experience with it?

Has anyone tried it with the Palm TX?

[choisum]

OK, I bit the bullet and bought one today. It does what it says on the box.

It can scan short passages of text and provide English using the built-in dictionary or send the results to the Palm/PC via infra-red/USB.

[xtenhome]

I am thinking of buying one. Can you tell how much you paid for it and what your experiences are ?

Is it worth getting one for learning chinese ?

Thanks.

[choisum]

I paid HKD1480 and bought it from Cyber System Computer, 2/F Wanchai Computer Center, Exit A4 from Wanchai MTR. The shop is next to the stairs, they have a display of Penpower products. You'll need to ask for the Wireless Pen Scanner as it's not on display.

The scanner won't magically imbue you with Chinese grammar nor will it shortcut the necessary grunt work of learning hundreds of characters.

I think it's useful for reading printed matter, newspapers and magazines where you understand the gist of things but run into characters/words you haven't come across.

The character recognition is fairly accurate, though it's fairly tedious scanning more than a sentence or two. For that you'd be better off with a flatbed scanner.

The onboard dictionary isn't fantastic,but you can transfer to the PC or PDA for dictionary lookups or text-to-speech.

Overall, it works for me, your exact mileage may vary depending on what you are hoping to achieve.