Iris USOA447 IRIScan Express 2 Portable Scanner Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Nota bene: I am a Mac user, and this review is only about the products interaction with Mac OS 10.5.
The IRIScan express 2 beats the DSmobile 600 hands down in terms of Mac compatibility, but that was still not enough to encourage me to keep the product. Despite the great OCR functionality of Readiris Pro 11 and the promise of convenience of Cardiris (which I did not get a chance to use), the software interface and workflow has a "we just managed to get this out the door" feeling to it. The interface is not at all Mac-like, and the scanner does not, on the Mac, provide a TWAIN or Image Capture driver. That lack forces you to use the provided clunky applications to make any scan.
Despite Readiris's outstanding OCR performance, the PDF output is less than optimal. The Windows software included with the DSmobile 600 (the only portable, sheet-fed competitor that claims Mac functionality [and doesn't deliver]) produces perfect facsimiles of scanned pages and adds OCR text to the PDF that allows you to search and index it without losing the character of the original document, just like Amazon's "Search Inside This Book" feature for those of you who haven't experienced PDFs like this. Readiris Pro does not have this feature. Its PDFs are what you would get if you took the text document output and printed to PDF: disappointing and not at all useful for archival purposes, my motivation for purchase.
Also, the scanner is EXTREMELY slow, and all-caps are deserved in this case. The scanner takes more than 60 seconds per page. This is impossible to use if you are looking at a stack of documents you need to digitally archive. Enough said. If you are looking to do paperless office on the Mac platform, you need to use either a sheet-fed all-in-one machine from Canon or HP or, even better, get the Fuji ScanSnap, which at $600+ is insanely priced but works like a charm... so I've heard.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Iris USOA447 IRIScan Express 2 Portable Scanner

The Iris USOA447 IRIScan Express 2 Portable Scanner is a light, small, USB connected multi-purpose color scanning solution that is ideal for your remote scanning needs. This highly portable scanner lets you scan all your paper documents, from receipts to legal size documents, your business cards and even your photos directly into in your computer.
Advanced Editing and Conversion Features With the IRIScan Express 2, you can scan and convert all your documents to PDF, Word, Email, Excel, etc. With the included extended software suite that features Readiris Pro 11--one of the most powerful OCR programs on the market--you can quickly and accurately scan virtually any document into fully editable and searchable text files. The software also lets you convert PDF to Word, Excel, etc. just as easily.

The applications for IRIScan Express 2 are virtually limitless. After a busy weekend at a conference, you can use the scanner to convert all your business cards into Outlook contacts with the included Cardiris software. This advanced program allows you to export all the data they contain, including the card images, into Outlook, Address Book, Act!, CSV, etc.

With the included Roxio Photo Suite 9 Special Edition, you can even convert a shoe box of photos into shared digital memories, and you can even fix and enhance your photos with the software's powerful editing, effects and touch-up tools.

Worldwide Language Support The IRIScan Express 2 includes software that recognizes 124 languages. Asian character recognition includes Japanese, Korean, P.R. Chinese (Simplified Chinese) and Taiwan (Traditional Chinese). It can also read and recognize Middle East languages, including Arabic, Farci and Hebrew characters.

Included with the scanner is Promt translation software that even lets you translate between the languages you scan, with 11 language pairs that include English, French, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The IRIScan Express 2 measures 1.9-by-9.7-by-1.3 inches (HxWxD) and is compatible with both Macintosh computers and PCs and is Windows Vista compatible.

What's in the Box IRIScan Express 2 portable scanner, software suite (Readiris Pro 11, Cardiris 3, Promt, IRIS Desktop Search, and Roxio Photo Suite 9 LE), travel case, and cradle.

Get 27% OFF

Click here for more information about Iris USOA447 IRIScan Express 2 Portable Scanner