VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner

I purchased the

I am a doctoral student in Italy, and the university libraries here do not loan out their books, so this scanner is a real game changer for me. Ive used a DocuPen RC-800 scanner in the past, but the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand works much better for me, especially since I use a Mac. Let me give a little comparison of my impressions of these two devices: The DocuPen is only slightly Mac compatible; the software it uses to integrate with my Mac has almost no options, and is quite cumbersome to work with (the PC version of the software is much better). It is very slow to download the scanned images to my computer, and just as slow to erase the originals from the scanner. In high resolution mode, you have to drag the scanner quite slowly and carefully, or it will mess up the image. The scans that it makes are are decent, but somewhat uneven and grainy. The VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand is better in every way. It has a longer scanning surface, so you can easily scan bigger book pages. You can drag it across the page at almost twice the speed as the DocuPen, and the image still comes out great. Downloading and erasing the originals is a snap. The scanner saves each image as a .jpg file, and when I plug it into my Mac via the USB cable, my computer basically recognizes it as a camera. It automatically opens iPhoto and downloads a whole load of images in a matter of seconds, and then I can delete the originals from the scanner even faster than that. This is a VAST improvement over the DocuPen. Here are a few other helpful hints: When scanning from a book, take a thin sheet of white cardboard (I use the back cover of a spiral notebook) and place it underneath the page youre scanning, all the way up to the spine of the book. Make sure the scanning surface begins as close to the spine of the book as possible, and then drag the scanner from the spine outward. Perfect scans every time! Once my scans are in iPhoto, I drag the whole batch to an empty folder on my desktop. Then I select the entire batch, right click (or control click) on the entire batch, and tell it to open with Adobe Acrobat Pro (you will have to purchase this program, obviously. Its not too expensive if youre a student). When Acrobat opens, it asks you if you would like to turn all of these files into a single PDF. Just click yes, and your whole document is brought together. Then just use Acrobat to do an OCR conversion, and you have a beautiful, searchable PDF of your source document. This collation and OCR process takes a bit of time for the computer to process, but its worth it.

There arent many companies making these devices so the choice was an easy one to make. The Magic Wand by VuPoint is a decently built very handy device to have in any laptop bag or even as a main scanner on your desktop. The open design is a real benefit when you need to scan documents from a bound volume. The scanners CCD does not go all the way to either edge of the wand so you cant scan the area right up against the center binding (of a book lets say) but you can scan in any direction and correctly orientate the resulting picture later on your computer. If your printer has a USB connection on it you can hook the scanner directly to the printer and print without having to open an image editor on your computer. The scans are pretty decent and easily readable. Colors come out great and no corrections are necessary so again, you can print directly from a printer if you want. One thing to remember: the Magic Wand does NOT come with a MicroSD card. This is plainly stated on the packaging and in the directions so be sure to order a MicroSD card when you buy the wand. Default scans in color come out at around 500k and the higher resolution (600 dpi) scans are double that (approx. 1MB) each so a 1GB Micro SD card will go a LONG way. We bought a 4GB card for 10 bucks. Very pleased so far. Would order another Magic Wand immediately if we lose or break this one. A nice soft sleeve protects and keeps the scanner glass clean between uses.

I saw this in an ad and bought it almost as an impulse buy---at Staples---but it is cheaper at Amazon. If you have tons of paper to keep track of (I do) you will kiss this item every day. You need a micro sd card (unless you want to use it with the cord to connect to your computer---you can do it that way, but its a hassle to keep track of that cord). The card is $9. I slip it in and push the button to turn it on (you can choose with another button whether you want it to be high or low resolution). A green light will come on and you slide the wand over your paper. Thats it. Then push the button and turn it off. That creates a file so that when you pop the SD card into your computer, it will show up as a storage device. You click on it and it will have each thing that you scanned in a separate file. Then you can save that to MS word as a document and rename it. When you open it, you have a scan of the document (JPEG) and this is the best part---you trash your original. I went through a pile of bills and bank statements, which I would normally file---grrrr and never be able to find if I need them. Now I tear them up and have the file right on my computer. I just went to the bank to deposit some checks and I scanned each one before I handed it to her. Soooo awesome. And if you get those flimsy receipts that fade in a month, scan them immediately and trash them. Its just so awesome. It comes with a CD so I thought there would need to be some sort of software put into my computer---no. I do already have MS word, so you need that if you are going to save it there, but they give you a lot of other ways to save the document. You also have some sort of a white sheet of paper you have to run the thing across to white balance it. I did that at the get go and had this terrible feeling (what with the CD) that it was going to be a nightmare to get this thing figured out. But its cake. And the results are so amazing, you will want stock in this company. I LOVE MINE---best thing I have purchased this year!!! and I buy a lot)

I just got this on my doorstep today and I couldnt wait to try it out. My math teacher only uses the new version of our math book (I got an older edition to save money). The concepts are still the same, but with some changes to the exercises. So in order to do the correct homework problems (he only assigns a few problems per chapter) without having to buy the new edition book, I wanted to be able to scan pages from a peers book. From the test scans that I did with my book (which I will post), I think this will be perfect for me. I dont need super clean scans -- I just need to be able to read the content. I just need to figure out how to scan the entire page without the edge getting cut off. With a little more playing, I should be able to get it no problem. There are also guidelines on either side of the device, which are very helpful to keep the scan straight and ensure that you are actually scanning the content you want. As it says in the description, the files are saved as JPEG. Super easy to connect the scanner to my laptop via the usb cable provided. No software needed -- its recognized as a storage device. So I just drag the files to my desired folder on my laptop, then delete them off the memory of the scanner (or really, the microSD card). It also comes with a carrying bag that has a little bit of extra room in case you want to keep extra batteries along with it (barely enough room for the usb cable if you squish), and a wipe cloth to protect the scanner part of the device. I can see how this scanner can be very useful in the future and not just for my original purpose. I seriously love being able to scan just about anything. I watched the YouTube video about this scanner, and I can definitely see myself scanning curtains, carpet, wallpaper, tables, etc to be able to have accurate colors and textures for decorating and other craft projects (as long as its flat enough to scan). Usually, its been guessing from memory since pictures from our digital camera arent very accurate in color because of lighting in the room or the flash of the camera. For fun, I also scanned other things around me, including a place mat, my curtains, and my leg (well, really my pajama pants) -- Ill post these pictures as well. Overall, I am happy with this. Ill have to see how this plays out in the long run, but I would recommend it for anyone that especially needs a portable way to scan book pages or random things like fabric patterns and the like. *Edit: This might be a duh for most people, but I finally realized that I wasnt getting the edges of the pages I scanned because the rollers on the bottom werent being engaged, which is necessary for the scanner to start scanning. There doesnt seem to be a way for me to completely scan a page out of a textbook without missing pieces, so now I know I will have to scan a page twice (flipping the orientation of the scanner) in order to get the entire page. Ill post another picture of getting the edge of the page.

My intention in purchasing this magic wand scanner was to get a good reproduction of a pinball playfield so I could create a vector file and reprint the art. Unfortunately, this is not the tool for my job. The package contained the wand, a cloth sleeve to store it, and a USB cable to hook up to a PC. A Micro SD card is not included in the base model, so that will need to be purchased separately as there is no on-board storage. I eagerly brought this out to the shop where the pinball machines are kept. I wanted to get a proportional scan of the entire playfield art of a pinball machine to reproduce it. Unfortunately, it was impossible to take any scan and get the image to come out with no distortion. Any small imperfections in the movement of the scanner will throw off any consistency in the image. This could come from minor imperfections in the surface of the image being scanned (bumps etc) or issues with the guide wheels not properly moving in sync with each other. In the end, trying to stitch multiple scans together into a single image was impossible due to flaws in the scans. My use was very specialized and it didnt work out for the use I needed. That being said, the color reproduction and the resolution was actually quite excellent. Using this to scan photos or documents would be a no-brainer. I would highly recommend this for scanning items that fit within the 8.5 parameters and do not require absolute perfection. I still plan on keeping it for those purposes.

So far I like this little scanner. I was looking for something low cost, simple to use. My main usage is for scanning documents to a laptop. Overall the scanning can be done so quickly with this device that its not a big deal if I have to repeat one because I did a poor job moving the scanner over the document. My only negative so far is the instructions that came with the scanner. I didnt get that I had to purchase or already have a microSD card--I thought that was an optional thing if using the USB cable to scan to a computer. (Plus, I had read a few customer feedbacks indicating their computers would not recognize the device, so since my computer wasnt recognizing the device, I was already thinking maybe mine was defective too.) Anyway, when I went to send it back, the seller asked me to contact the manufacturer first for support, and when I went to the website to try and do that, I found the manufacturer had better user instructions on their website, instructions that completely resolved my issue. All I had needed to do was buy a microSD card, put it in the scanner, and not plug in the USB cable to the computer till I was done scanning. Heres the procedure that works for me when scanning (I choose to use the USB port rather than transfer the microSD back and forth from scanner to laptop): 1. Make sure good batteries are in the scanner. 2. Connect USB cable to scanner but not to the computer yet. 3. Make sure MicroSD card is in scanner. (In my case, I bought a new one and I chose to NOT format it.) 4. Turn on scanner with button (hold till its on). 5. Push button to scan (once) and observe the scan light is now on. 6. Scan document. 7. Push button again to stop the scanning. 8. Plug other end of USB cable into computer and observe that the computer recognizes the device (sometimes this takes a few seconds). 9. Thats it -- the scanned files are now under the DCIM folder of the device folder of my laptop.

For what it does, I dont think there is anything out there that does it better, but really that isnt saying too much. I bought this scanner as a substitute for a textbook since it the text book cost over $200, and this thing only cost about $100, after I got the case and Micro SD card. Unfortunately, not only was scanning the pages tedious, but a lot of the times the scanner didnt line up right and the scans were horrible, also there is only about a 1/2 inch on each side of the scanner where it wont scan, but that 1/2 inch bit me in the but to no end. And though it is marked where the scanner will stop, it is just a complete pain working around it when scanning a book or even notebook; especially if they are the more expensive notebooks, like five-star, and have a big ring holding the pages together. Honestly, after 2 chapters of scanning the textbook I bought the thing for, I pretty much gave up and just bought the thing. I didnt feel like returning the product so I kept it around for copying notes from classmates when I miss class or for sending in handwritten homework via e-mail, but honestly these are very rare occasions. On the plus side, you do get better at scanning, and if you are scanning a single document on a flat surface it should work flawless, but this is just rarely the case. So if you dont mind not having the last inch of a page when scanning a notebook or textbook, or if you are just going to use this to scan documents on a flat-surface, then I can recommend this product; otherwise it would be best to steer clear until something less fallible comes along.

This is one of those items I wasnt sure why I purchased it but would probably find some uses for it. Not that I have money just to throw around but I love gadgets and this was to interesting to pass up. As it turns out I have found quite a few uses for it such as scanning entire pages of old photo albums at once so I can preserve the pictures on CDs & DVDs. This method is much easier than removing and scanning one photo at a time. As for the scanner itself its very well made and very easy to use. If you have some specific projects or uses in mind for this item than I think youre going to be very happy with it. Just remember to order a Micro SD Card along with it because it doesnt come with one as you might think it would. Im using a 4gig card which will store hundreds of images on it. And one more thing, make sure you push the small SD card in all the way or you might think the scanner does not work, um like someone I know thought at first.

This portable scanner is very convenient and has been great in helping me get rid of the amount of paper I keep. However, the quality of each individual scan depends completely on how smoothly & straightly you slide the device over the paper. Because of that, a lot of the documents I scan have a weird warped appearance to them where the scanner started to slant while I was sliding it. Its not terrible, but depending on what your intention is for scanning the documents, it may be unacceptable. For example, I wouldnt recommend it for photos. If you use it for typed text, you will still be able to read it, however one end of a line of text may be normal sized while the other end is a little squished, for example. Again, for convenience, this is a great device, and its simple to use. Note that the default setting is Low Resolution, so hit the DPI button each time you power it on if you prefer the higher resolution. It saves nice quality jpeg images onto a MicroSD card (not included, so be sure to add one to your order, as well as whatever adapter you need to plug the microSD card into your laptop). You also have the option of plugging the scanner into your computer via a USB cable, but I have not tried that yet. Also, it comes with a nice microfiber bag to store the scanner in. Nice touch.