Review: Halo Scanner Mouse- for your portable scanning needs #holidaygiftguide

UPDATE- Dec. 18, 2013

Did you catch my review on the Halo Pocket Power? It’s a handy little portable device that charges your electronics like your phone or camera. The Starlight version even has a built-in LED flashlight! I also received a Halo Scanner Mouse and mouse pad from Halo2Cloud.com.

Halo Scanner Mouse- easy to use and convenient. Find out more on My Life: A Work in Progress

I’d like to introduce you to Ruth, a new contributor to My Life: A Work in Progress. Ruth brings years of writing experience to MLAWIP. She’s also an attorney, wife, mother, and grandmother. You’ll see her review products and contribute from time to time. Welcome to her first review! -Elisebet

From Ruth:

The Halo scanner mouse from Halo2cloud.com is a great product. It works as a regular mouse and a scanner. Just plug the mouse into your device, swipe over a photo or printed document, and save or share. I’m very pleased at how it functions, but my husband is practically ecstatic. He wants to take it along to the coffee shop, office, etc. (Great gift for the man in your life!)

You will need to download the software (disc provided for Windows users or available online for MAC). The Halo memory is sufficient for a photo or one-page document at a time. The scanned doc can then be saved in a multiple of formats (PDF, JPEG, TIFF, etc.) or shared via email, Facebook, etc. There are multiple resolution settings possible and editing functions. A special mouse pad (fits 8/12 x 11 inch pages) is available (and I would recommend, though not obligatory if you just want to quickly scan a paragraph in a book or small photo).

Halo Scanner Mouse- easy to use and convenient. Find out more on My Life: A Work in Progress
Halo Scanner Mouse with redacted court document. The mouse is great for office, home, or travel. It scans photos too!

In addition to coffee shop, hotel, and office use—the Halo can be used at meetings where literature is being passed around to attendees. With your laptop and Halo—just scan the pages and email back to your office for printing. Printing quality is good for the documents and photos that I have tried, though if you need something that will be passed out at a business meeting (or in court!)—you may want to spend a little more effort with the editing function to get perfect printed copies.

On the other hand, if you just need to save and/or print for yourself—it’s fast and no particular editing is needed. It’s definitely user-friendly (I’m no computer geek).

The mouse works as a regular mouse for your office or home computer; however, my husband is going to want to keep our Halo mouse in his notebook case for the coffee shop! Halo sells the mouse online for $111.95 and the pad is $10.95.

Halo Scanner Mouse- easy to use and convenient. Find out more on My Life: A Work in Progress
The mousepad is not necessary for the Halo Scanner Mouse to work, but is recommended.

UPDATE- We had a reader ask whether the mouse would scan through glass. Ruth tried it out, and this is what she had to say:

The Halo mouse scanner works fine under glass.  The Halo mouse pad that can be purchased with the scanner actually has a plastic overlay that you insert your photos or documents under, so under the glass does not seem to be any problem.  However, I actually found it easier to still use the mouse pad–inserting the photo under glass under the plastic sheet of the Halo mouse pad. (It’s just easier to get a quicker, clean scan when using the mouse pad.)

The original “old” photos attached were scanned under their glass, using the Halo mouse scanner and mouse pad with plastic overlay.  I did no editing of either photo, though this can be done, as well, with the Halo mouse scanner program. (So you can see the scratch in one photo and red smear courtesy of one of my children with a red marker years ago.) By the way, the pictures are of my Great-Aunt Mary and of my father with one of his older brothers.

 photo Halooldpicscan_zps6710bd77.png

 photo Halooldpicscan2_zpsd3e5d747.png
Visit Halo2Cloud.com to see what they have to offer.

Where would you take your scanner mouse? Business trip, coffee shop, or somewhere else?

General Disclaimer- Floral

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42 Comments

  1. Hi Ruth! Congratulations on your first blog! You got good stuff that you recommend. I might get one of those … someday!:)

  2. I have some professionally framed old family photos (heritage) that I can’t remove from the frames. I’d LOVE to find a way to scan them. How is this over glass?

    1. Hi Madeline, are you saying that it doesn’t work well with glass? Ruth tried the scanner on glass this afternoon, and had good results. I will update the post shortly with photos and what she had to say about it.

  3. Thanks for your comments. Today on QVC, this product is 69.98+shipping and tax. If you’re interested in the product, it would be a good day to purchase it.

  4. I remember the term paper days when I would sit at a desk surrounded by source books looking for the page numbers in 20 or more bibliography source books to insert in the body of my paper. The scanner mouse would have been great. You could just scan the relevant paragraph or quotation when you first find the reference; either save it with pg # and book name or author in your computer save or insert a small sticky note with that info in the scan itself. I think it would be a great time saver for student papers.

  5. I started doing Genealogies back in the 1980’s and remember going to the Pennsylvania Historical Society to look through too books with contained a number of images of my ancestors. You couldn’t very well drag a scanner in with you, and taking a photograph was about the best way of copying them. THIS; however, is going to open so many doors for me to scan old family photos from various family members, with no chance of damaging them. What an AWESOME invention! Thanks. I never watch QVC, but came across it last night and something said “You need to watch this!”. I did…and ordered it from QVC last night, so it should be here by Christmas Eve. Can’t WAIT to use it. I can also use it to scan photographs I need to restore.

  6. Hi Ruth, Very helpful review. I`m just wondering, how do you get free mouse scanner to use for this review? Do you just contact the company and ask?

    Thanks

    1. Phil, I contacted the company and asked. Keep in mind that “free” is a relative word when it comes to blogging. The worth of the product doesn’t usually reflect the amount of time we put into blogging, all the behind-the-scenes work, promoting, writing, photographing, testing, etc. I do it, because it’s a fun hobby and outlet. -Elisebet

  7. I have noticed a green tint to the scanned photos in both your review photos and in the QVC TV promotion they had in December.
    Did you also notice that the scanned images of photos have a green tint, or am I mistaken? Thanks.

    1. Hi Carol, I’ll see if Ruth can scan some “modern” photos and what happens. The antique photos she scanned to have a greenish tint to me. I’m not sure if that’s because of the scanner, or because of the glass over the photos, or because the photos themselves are old. I’ll see what she says. Thanks for your question!

    2. Hi Carol, sorry for my delayed answer. Ruth did get back to me right away with a response, but I forgot to post!

      From Ruth:

      Hi,

      The green tinge that is noticed on the one photo scan is actually not on the photo but rather the photo matting. The matting is apparently made from some sort of copper alloy (supposed to look like gold leaf); copper alloys typically turn green with corrosion. (I used to live in Ottawa; the parliament’s roof was a case in point until they redid it. I haven’t seen it lately; maybe it’s turning green again.) At any rate, I believe this is the source of the green tint–perhaps something in the scanning process adds to the corrosive effect, but that’s beyond anything that I would know about.

      I did not remove the matting to do the scan. (The photo is the original, and I don’t want to remove it–it’s pretty solidly connected to the matting, as well as to the glass.) The actual photo itself is just the oval portion that you see.

      Other than the matting, the only “tinge” that I see is the brown which is found on the old photos themselves. These scans were totally “untouched” as far as editing goes; the Halo program does include the potential of editing (including shades, hue).

      I hope this answers your question.

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