Brookstone Scanner Mouse

I teach for a living, this scanner mouse makes it very easy to scan text from books, articles, and other sources without having to try to fit the entire book or document into a scanner/printer. The mouse works very well, and is easy to set up and use. Well worth the money.

I bought the Brookstone scanner mouse primarily to scan postage stamps for my stamp collection. I have now used it for several days and am familiar enough with it to offer some judgments.The software installation was effortless and the scanner and mouse functioned immediately with no problems. While a wireless mouse would be preferred one can work around the wire. For example, it is not necessary to have to precisely position the object prior to scanning, as is necessary with a flat bed scanner. One simply passes the mouse back and forth over the object filling in any blanks as you go. The scanner will compensate for missed sections and fill them in as encountered. Once the scan is complete the program lays down a rectangular mask around the object. Ninety degree rotations then can be made to orientate the scanned object vertically and horizontally. Images are easily saved to file but need to be converted to .jpg to work with Windows Office applications.The image quality is very satisfactory and the scanned color is 'infield ball park' acceptable. Stamps come in a large variety of colors and the scanner does a reasonably good job of picking up on these subtleties. The color editing program permits some improvements but is fairly basic.The mouse function works acceptably well.The unit can be removed when not in use and fires up automatically when re-installed.This scanner provides images of equal quality to my flat bed scanner at about a third of the price. It should be acceptable for most projects involving small objects.

What I blankety blank think of this scanner is unprintable here. I get blank pictures, scrambled pictures, small fractions, everthing except a scanned document and I was planning for important stuff like resumes. You download an updated version, it's not any better. Just don't waste your money unless you've got some really small papers or cards or pictures to save on your PC.

I bought this for my husband, thought it was neat.It wasn't really- he said his hand can't scan it clearly. Too shaky. Maybe for a quick small scan it would be good. Dunno. I still thought it was a clever gift. Maybe I should take it from him and use it myself. Oh, I forgot. The cord is too short.

How many stars? The concept deserves five. Like many brilliant ideas the scanner mouse is blindingly obvious once it has been implemented. After the optical mouse, the next step, a scanner mouse seems in retrospect a natural development.The implementation, at least the Mac version, is less brilliant. The scanner software does an excellent job. The Optical Character Recognition software is remarkably accurate. But perhaps the Macintosh version was written as an afterthought - one of the few disadvantages for a Mac user. So the performance gets four stars. It is great when it works! But it crashes often. I keep a copy of the installation software on my desktop and reinstall whenever required. In the month I have had my mouse it has been necessary seven or eight times.For Brookstone's customer support department I give a reluctant one star. They are accessible, polite, friendly and totally clueless. When I called to report the software instability problem, their representative stayed patiently on the phone while I reinstalled and immediately crashed again, then assured me they would get back to me "it might take 48 hours." I still await that call.Still, despite its problems, I plan to keep this device. To have a scanner immediately at hand with no warm-up time required is worth the grief - and perhaps Brookstone will upgrade the software at some time in the future.P.S. I sent an email advance copy of this review to Brookstone to give them a chance to comment. They responded that I would receive a telephone call "within the next 24 to 48 hours." Five days later I am still awaiting that call.If Brookstone do not resolve their problem, I intend to write an AppleScript to perform a "one-click" reload of the software. The reload takes a couple of minutes and is, at least to me, worthwhile. Perhaps I can convince Brookstone to include it in their installation package!P.S. Three months later. I have loaded the software onto a thumb drive do that I can reload it in a couple of minutes. Irritating but a work-around for the inadequate software.

i got this at a bargain price, probably because it's pre- windows 8. it is a terrific little device. the pictures i've scanned come out quite clear and true to the original. and the picture-to-text feature is a bonus.

After I downloaded driver for Mac the scanner worked as soon as I plugged it in. I had read other reviews and agree the cord can get in the way and the mouse works great. It takes getting used to but is easy. I am currently having yellow stripes on my scans so I have to figure that out, the troubleshooting page only has one item listed and that is not my issue. I was hesitant at first but for this price it suits my needs.

Used the mouse/scanner two times and it quit working. Purchased as a present, and when I tried to demonstrate how to use it, it would not even work as a mouse. Would not recommend this product.