Review: Brookstone Scanner Mouse

She says she needs a copy of my receipt. She says she needs it immediately. I have the receipt on my desk, so I ask the lady on the phone to wait just a moment. I glide my mouse in one swoop over the paper slip, then I choose "Share" from a popup menu and e-mail it to her. She says she got the receipt. She says she got it immediately.

It's just another day in the life of the double-duty Brookstone Scanner Mouse.

It looks just like a conventional, inexpensive wired mouse – left and right buttons, a scroll wheel in the middle, and a laser sensor on the belly. But on closer inspection, one notices the sensor eye on the bottom is housed in a larger-than-normal opening, and that there's a thumb button on the left side labeled "Scan."

Somehow, Brookstone has cleverly incorporated a 100- to 400-dpi scanner into the mouse. Also, in the box is a CD with some capture software for Windows and Mac OS X.

My tests produced surprisingly good scanned images. I simply pressed the scan button with my thumb and slid the mouse over the documents. the results can be saved in half a dozen file formats, including JPG, PDF, and DOC.

The actual scanning process is as easy. I used paintbrush-like movements, swooping from left to right, then right to left, working my way down the page to capture a document. As I scan, the document appears on screen and the software works to adjust the edges and complete the image.

The included OCR software can convert scanned text into a Word document, an Excel sheet, or plain text that can be read by any editor. Saved scans can be shared via e-mail, or uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr, all without leaving the included scan program.

For the most part, scanning was fluid. But for letter-size (8.5 x 11-inch) pages, I needed a wide open space on my desk to slide the mouse completely across the page and not get restricted by the long and stiff USB cable. For this alone, a wireless mouse version would be much easier to use.

Clearly, the Scanner Mouse is no substitute for a full flatbed scanner, or even a larger portable model. But there's no doubt that for short, in-a-pinch jobs, this device screams convenience.

WIRED Conventional-looking mouse incorporates a scanner that captures images with natural mouse movements. Best for small documents such as receipts and business cards, but handles letter-size paper as well. Drivers can be downloaded if you don't have a CD drive.

TIRED Long USB cable can interrupt fluidity of image capturing. Software, because of its versatility, requires some concentration. May not work properly with the built-in scan capture software that ships with your operating system.