The ReadingPen TS is a portable, hand-held Personal Reading Assistant" with an easy-to-use touch screen and icon-based menu. The ReadingPen TS provides immediate word support to readers of all ages. It also includes audio pronunciation (in English) of the scanned or typed words. The ReadingPen TS is an ideal tool for anyone in need of comprehensive English language support and is especially helpful to students who have reading difficulties. Easily switch between dictionary and thesaurus. Includes both children's and college level dictionaries and thesauri. Play educational word games to help improve vocabulary and fluency. Windows PC connection allows upload to PC of word history list and download to pen of text files (such as test questions, instructions etc.), for read back and definitions. Recognition of a wide range of printed font types and sizes (6-22 points - up to 8mm), including inverted text on contrasting backgrounds (except red on white, white on red, blue on black and black on blue). Recognition and automatic merge of hyphenated text. High resolution touch screen - with up to five lines of text and easy access to icon-based menu. Virtual keyboard for manual insertion (using a stylus) of words or text editing. Easy to use buttons, simple on-screen navigation with the stylus and straightforward menus. Predicts words as you type. Supports both right/left handed users. Auto shutoff to preserve battery life. Package includes - carrying case, USB cable, headphones, adaptor, training foot and batteries. System Requirements - WIN XP/VISTA - Pentium 500 MHz with minimum 256 MB RAM and 100 MB free disk space

User Reviews about Wizcom ReadingPen TS - Text reader - 400 dpi - USB

The ReadingPen TS works as specified.

I purchased this device for someone who has a reading disability. Their comprehension and retention is much better when something has been first read to them. After the first reading, they often can re-read text without difficulty.

What isn't immediately obvious from the product description/technical specifications is that you can only scan one line of text at a time. Therefore, if you're needing an entire page or paragraph read, you'll have to pause after each line and listen to that line being read before moving to the next line. This makes it a very slow and tedious process. I returned it because of this limitation.

The reading voice is a standard computer type voice. Nothing earth shattering but, once you get used to the voice, you can hear the words fairly easily. For me, this is acceptable since it pretty much represents the current technology capabilities of most all retail devices that read "text".

With regular frequency, I did find that a scanned line got completely messed up and had to be re-scanned. You have to be very steady and smooth when scanning a line.

We didn't look much into the other capabilities (i.e. translation, games, dictionary, etc...) since that wasn't the primary purpose for buying the device.

It didn't have any problems with different font sizes/styles.

I definitely could see where the pen could be of great use to someone with greater needs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: No problems with returning the ReadingPen and folks at J&R (vendor) were very helpful with the return. -- Useful Depending on Needs