VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner

This is definitely a product you need to practice with to get good quality scans. Its easiest if youre scanning something large and flat with sufficient white space on all sides of the intended scanning area. Small items require using either a clear sleeve or tape on the back to hold the small item still. For scanning pages in books (which is the main purpose I bought this) its tricky. The scanner doesnt go totally from end to end. Leaving the user to figure out which direction is likely to yield the best copy...So, for example with text that goes almost into the inner binding, youd probably have the best luck holding the book in front of you with the scanner held vertically - and then scanning from the inner binding side of the page to the right margin. Does that make sense? I picked up a tip from another review, which suggested that you use a piece of stiff white paper under book pages or for book covers (front or back). The reason is that there are small wheels that need to be engaged in order to keep the scanner on and then tell it when its done off. So, if youre scanning a book page from top to bottom and you get to the end of the page, you actually need to scan past the last section of text, for it to be included in the scanned image. If you dont extend the page by using a piece of white paper (like craft medium tagboard) the scan will stop as soon as both wheels stop turning and you wont get everything in the scan. I tried to explain this as clearly as possible, but, I suspect it would make 100% sense if you actually had the scanner in hand. That workaround isnt terrible. But, it was a disappointing discovery that you cant, for example, be reading a paperback and come to something you want to scan and just roll the scanner over the page. With a paperback, it wouldnt do anything unless you had a large enough piece of paper under the page - large enough to come in contact with the wheels on either side of the scanning window. There might be other scanners with simply turn scanning on and off with a button and dont require physical wheels to control ANYTHING. To clarify, there IS an on/off switch for the product, and you DO click it on to start, but, it stops scanning once the wheels arent turning. This will make sense if you can find an image of the bottom of the scanner - or, of course, if youre actually holding it! Good luck. I decided to keep it and figured Id have to use bookmarks for pages and then have a second step where Id set the book up on a flat surface with a piece of tagboard (which I bought) and then scan all the pages I wanted - just not as Im reading. Too bad! A positive: The color quality is outstanding the the detail is also outstanding. I happened to get a part of my tablecloth in a scan and I could see the threads and the color was incredibly true! I hope this helped!

I like it, but it does NOT last long on batteries. Even after re-charging after downloading images scanned from a 32GB SD card, I can barely get another 12 images from the yearly Calendars Ive bought. I forgot to do this for 2016 and will be scanning them in 2017. I will try scanning while usb is plugged into an outlet on computer, but I bought it to scan on the road also. It needs NEW batteries after about 30 scans. How ever at least you provided software which my Poloroid scanner also did but stopped working and I got NO help trying to get software upgrade which stopped with Windows 10, which I hate this software. Be that as may, if this scanner could scan 17 inch by any length, and more battery back-up or re-charging a built in lithium battery, I would buy again at even more expensive because I could go into ANY library and scan ANY book or map I wanted. One of the benefits of this type of wand scanning is that you do NOT have to destroy a document to scan it, like most other hand scanners that you feed a page into a scanner means you MUST tear the page from the documents, books, magazine, maps etc. This hand wand works for what I generally wish to do, but if you built one where the scan size was 17 to 24 inches wide by and length and added better battery, Id pay another $200 for one.

This is a review for the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand portable scanner. I rarely write reviews about products, only if it is really good, or really bad. In this case I am happy to say - this is a really good product. It works just as well, if not better then advertised. This was a Mothers Day gift to my wife from my kids (dad bought it, lol) and she loves it as well. By the end of the weekend, she had scanned every picture in every photo album we have, and we have alot of pictures!! I have read many reviews about not only this portable scanner, but others as well, and alot of them, the Magic Wand included had many negative reviews which I do not understand at all?? Possibly they got a bad unit? But the complaints they had are some of the things I like best about this scanner. It was said multiple times that if you dont keep your hand perfectly steady when scanning something, that the image comes out really bad. Im sorry b/c I know I dont have a steady hand, and the scans come out perfect 99% of the time. This device is so easy to use, my 10 yr old uses it all of the time to scan pics out of magazines, and stuff, and they come out really good. I have even started using it to scan stuff for work, like my job orders, and inspection papers. Again - perfect. The only thing that I would change is that it would be nice if it came with the micro SD card, and an adapter. Even though it doesnt, they are relatively cheap at a Wal-Mart or Target, etc.. I have an 8GB card in mine, and it has plenty of room - and then when you get close to full, just dump it onto your computer HDD. Overall, I would defanitely recommend this product to anyone. Great value, especially for the price!

If all you want is to scan an article or recipe, where the quality of the scan isnt so important, this would be a useful product. I purchased it to scan images from antique books that would be damaged if placed on a flatbed scanner. I found the product extremely disappointing, for the following reasons. 1) The scanning portion of the wand is recessed at least 1/2 inch at the end of the wand, which means that if youre trying to fit it against the inner margin (gutter) of a book, youll end up losing much of your image. Basically your margin has to be about an inch wide for it to work. You can try rotating the wand, but if you scan over a surface that is not COMPLETELY flat (e.g., an open book), youll get distortions. 2) Distortions. Again, if the surface isnt completely flat, if you dont scan completely straight, if you jiggle the scanner at all, youll get distortions. If there are curves to the surface of your page (again, common in an open book), theyll show and distort the image. Youll find that a square picture will come out skewed. So if an EXACT reproduction of a page or image is what youre after, this isnt going to do the job. 3) Going off the edge of a page... This scanner works pretty well if you can scan a flat document on a solid flat surface (e.g., a single piece of paper on a tabletop). But if youre scanning a large book, you have the problem of the scanner dropping off the edge once you reach the bottom or side of the book. You may not have reached the end of the portion you wish scanned when the scanner itself runs out of room. 4) No ability to remove screening. If youre scanning photos or color illustrations from a book or magazine, there is no mechanism to get rid of the moire patterns that result from scanning a screened image. Most flatbed scanners have a descreening option that enables you to get rid of this. Since its just about impossible to get rid of a screen moire AFTER the fact, this greatly reduces the scanners usefulness. 5) No ability to view the image as it is being scanned. If you want to see how it came out, you have to stop work, plug it in, go look at the picture, then click on the remove device icon to remove it, go back, scan again, and so on... It would be helpful if you could plug this directly into your computer and see the scans as you make them. I havent quite decided if Im going to keep this product or just give up and try to resell it (the return-by date being long gone), but again... it depends on what you want it for. If youre a student and you just need to be able to scan in material to study, but it doesnt have to be a perfect reproduction (just readable), I think this would be very helpful. But if you need a high-quality image, its going to be very, very frustrating.

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)

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.

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.

It has been way too long since anyone made a really usable hand scanner. Ive been looking for one for years. So I was very excited when I saw a review of the Magic Wand on one of my news feeds. This product does the trick. You have to be fairly slow and steady to get a good scan, but hey... its a hand scanner! So no surprise there. The scan quality is quite acceptable for a device of this type. Not what you would get from a flatbed scanner, but hey... its a hand scanner! Print is readable, photo quality isnt fantastic but might improve as my scanning skills get better. The scanner is bundled with ABBYY Screenshot Reader, which extracts text from an image. ABBYY is one of the major producers of optical character recognition (OCR)software. I have a document scanner that came with and ABBYY OCR program. But I have never seen a screenshot reader before. This product allows you to select an area on your computer screen, and it will extract text from that area and put it in your clipboard. So when you scan an image with the Magic Wand, you can connect the scanner to your computer with a USB cable (included); open the image in a picture viewer; and use Screenshot Reader to capture the text. You will probably have to do a bit of touch-up after you paste the text into another application. I have yet to see an OCR program that does perfect text conversion. One trick that helps a lot is to zoom in on the text to make it larger. OCR programs work better with larger text. I am very pleased with the Magic Wand. I keep it next to my laptop in the living room (yeah, Im a multi-computer geek, and I do side surfing while Im watching TV) so I can quickly scan things out of magazines or books. And its small enough to toss in my computer bag when Im on the road. Along with my Planon Printsitk portable printer (

This is a pretty good scanner for the price paid. The resolution is high enough for keeping copies of documents and pictures. Its very compact so its easy to carry around. I carry it with my laptop because it fits in perfectly. It comes with software but I dont use it. I just take the micro memory chip out and put it into its adapter and into the laptop. Images scanned are in jpg format, black and white or color, so its very easy to use. Works best on FLAT surfaces, okay on others. Downsides are you always have to have a white background when scanning any size documents, otherwise youd have the background scanned into it as well; and you have to be careful in your scanner rolling. Speed is not a problem, fast or slow, image still good, but direction is key because the image often times comes out distorted. The rollers on the bottom do not often roll straight so an aligner is recommended so scanned images come out straight. Nothing you cant fix with a little photoshop, but its a hassle. Also, the scanner will slide the paper with it if you dont hold on to the paper, especially towards the bottom of the paper. It uses batteries instead of usb charge (batteries included, usb cable also included, memory chip NOT included). If you only need the info and dont mind the quality, then this is PERFECT! I would recommend this for students especially when they need to copy notes, test questions, encyclopedias, etc.

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.