Customer Reviews

CardScan Personal v8 Card Scanner

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

This product definitely saves time, but it's NOT 100% accurate. Company and people's names aren't always scanned properly, nor are they put in the correct category (company name, mobile, etc.)

Admittedly, many fonts and logos on business cards make the company name hard to decipher (even for me!) so I can't totally blame this on the scanner. Considering how many diverse types of business cards exist in this world, it does a pretty good job.

The good news is that this product seems to understand NUMBERS very well, and I generally find numbers the most challenging characters to enter since I actually need to pay close attention (and therefore take more time).

Another aspect I like about this scanner is that it's highly portable. It small in size, includes a USB cable (which powers the device), and comes with a carrying case that accommodates both the scanner and cable. Definitely a nice feature to have.

So far I'm pleased with this item. I scanned, organized and "verified" 40 business cards in about 20 minutes, which I think is decent time. Typing them into Outlook would've taken me about 2 hours, or 3 hours factoring in "distractions."

Overall, I feel this is a good business tool to have, and Amazon's low price makes it a good value overall.

This is the third CardScan device that I have owned. The last a few years ago. Got sick of looking at the piles of business cards in my desk drawers. Decided to pick up this super compact baby. Installed with out a hitch, and started scanning.

The stacks of cards are disapearing and I've got a accessable database with great data.

Showed an associate and he was amazed at how well the Card Scan software works.

So after scanning my first batch of cards (which it worked great for), the scanner simply stopped working correctly. It couldn't be recalibrated and won't read any more cards. I called tech support only to learn that this is a known problem, there is no fix available and that it's likely due to their outsourcing of the manufacturing of this product. I'm returning the one I got and I'd strongly recommend against getting one until the quality issues are resolved.

CardScan Personal Card Scanner. - Bill Dubovsky, S.I. Business Trends, "Bits & Bytes," July, 2008.

Situation: You have just been to a meeting, trade show or business mixer and have a slew of new business cards. You put a rubber band around them and promise yourself to enter them into Outlook, ACT!, Goldmine or other contact manager and follow up with each contact. In many cases the only time you will touch those cards a second time is when the rubber band decomposes and the cards are all over your desk drawer. If only there was an easy way to get that information into your computer, smart phone or PDA data base without having to re-enter each card! That solution may be here.

What is it? The CardScan personal is a small USB connected and powered scanner that you can take on the road, scan in each business card, and have it saved as an image, an address card file, or synchronize with most of the major contact data bases and smart phones. The system I reviewed is the CardScan personal by CardScan, Inc., about $153 on Amazon.com.

How it works: You first install the software which is provided on a CD-ROM. Next you attach the cord from the small scanner to a USB port on your computer, and start up the software. You follow directions to set-up and align the scanner.

To scan in a business card, just feed them into the scanner which is a little larger than an eye glass case. It feeds each card through one at a time, taking only a few seconds per card. Once they're in, you can review the actual card (on the bottom half of the screen) with the text (on the top of the screen). At that point you can check for errors or missing info and add it or move it as you would with any text editor. When you're satisfied with the text you click on "verify" and the business card data goes into a data base. You can also classify a card as to prospect, vendor, etc. and you can de-dup the list looking for doubles of cards. Editing can be in the "drag and drop" mode, reducing the chance for mistakes, or you can delete or add your own information, comments, or notes at that time.

You can actually use the CardScan software as your data base and print out your card information in many formats. You can even just print out a page with the actual card images on them (if you have cards with photos on them) and you can use the data in a mail merge function or even create mailing labels from them.

Other features include a quick search function, one-click emailing, creating mailing labels with a DYMO LabelWriter Printer (automatic connect), synch with your other database software and "safeguard" which allows you to back up and save a copy of your data on-line so if your computer crashes or you lose your PDA or smart phone, you can always retrieve your contact data.

What you need: Microsoft Windows XP or Windows 2000, a Pentium or later processor, 64 MB or RAM and 90 MB - 120 MB of hard-disk space. The CardScan personal scanner comes with all software, hardware and cables you need to connect to your computer.

How hard is it to use? I connected my CardScan scanner to my MacBook Pro, using the Bootcamp Windows XP partition and got it working within 10 minutes.

Findings: It worked as advertized. I always like to check the users' comments and reviews in Amazon before I buy anything, as they seem to be an honest assessment of what you can expect.

Pros: It actually worked better than I thought it would. Standard business cards worked the best, while "artsy" cards with unusual type fonts did poorly. It really got me to take notice of the design of people's business cards. I found that the more professional cards, from more established businesses, scanned easily with little or no corrections necessary. Amateurish cards with lots of text and graphics didn't do as well. They were even hard to read when I reviewed them visually! The CardScan software also allows you to scan the backs of the cards and keep the both sides together.

It was convenient enough to export the information to my contact manager, ACT!, and to make address cards for Mac's Address Book, which could be stored on an iPhone. CardScan also markets a similar scanning system for tracking business receipts and expenses.

Cons: Because people's cards are so diverse in design and layout, I had to review each card for accuracy. While editing and "drag and dropping" data from one field to another is easier and less time consuming than entering all the data into the database, it's not automatic.

Bottom-line: I was impressed at the software's ability to handle the job and felt that the price was a fair value. It actually worked better than I thought it would and I would recommend the unit for businesses or organizations who collect a lot of business cards, especially after business shows. The unit also has other features and functions which I don't need at the current time, but appear to be useful and impressive, especially for people who don't use contact management software.[...]

Got a brand new device and after scanning about 15 cards, it stopped working. The scanner just failed. Called tech support and they agreed that the device malfunctioned and I should call customer service to get it replaced.

This is where the misery really starts. I have held for someone to come on the customer service line for 20 minutes each time but no one comes to the phone. Finally, I left a message and haven't heard back from them yet. Just horrible, I wouldn't buy CardScan products.

Its a shame. I really like this scanner and the software that comes with it. Unfortunately the manufacture does not intend to keep the software and drivers current and that is a big problem. For example I bought a new computer with Vista 64. No drivers. I called the customer support people and they told me that they have no intention of providing 64 bit drivers for Vista or for the new Windows 7. Not just that they haven't gotten around to it but that they have no plans to support future operating systems. Hmmm.

Also, if you look you will see that they are not keeping current with the latest versions of other software such as ACT 2009 or 2010.

It makes me wonder if they eventually plan on dropping these products which would be too bad. The device works really well. It is pretty accurate and I love the drag and drop capabilities of the software.

I haven't used this type of product before, so have nothing to compare it against. I am very happy with the time saved in scanning cards, and impressed with the recognition capababilities (address, title, etc.) It still takes some time to review cards and move around a couple of fields or fix the occasional typo. I send the data to outlook. It would be nice to be able to sort by what was already sent and what has not been sent (rather than "sync"). It would also be nice if the additional information ended up in "notes" in outlook (maybe a mapping matter).

Overall, I am very happy with the product.

I'm very happy with the scanner. It is surprisingly accurate and considering the wide variety of cards I am scanning, it has sorted out even the most highly designed or poorly printed. Has saved me a TON of time manually entering information. Very happy indeed.

I am a salesman by occupation. I am constantly receiving business cards from customers and potential customers. I used to have them in a pile in my office waiting to be filed in a business card binder. I never seemed to get to it. After purchasing Card Scan and spending an hour or two loading them, they are now all in order and broken down by catagories I determined. They are always readily accessible on my laptop and they are also safely stored on the Card Scan server so I never have to worry about losing them. This is a "must have" product for anyone who wants to maintain an organized record of business cards and reduce clutter and confusion in their office.

Let me give some background to this. I'm an intern this summer and I was asked by my boss to get 300+ business cards on the computer and in his Microsoft Outlook address book. This is where I turned (Amazon has the lowest price on this good from anywhere by far).

The good things....
-It was an easy set up
-The software is very friendly and easy to convert to excel or outlook
-The system makes mistakes but its not very hard to go through and check each business card after everything is scanned. The software keeps track of which cards you "verify" which is a nice check on the occasional mistakes that the machine makes. It also shows you the image of the business card that you scanned when you correct the info.
-It impressively tells the difference between phone numbers, fax numbers, and cell phones, direct lines. Everything.

The cons
-Its not super easy to feed cards into all the time. I'd have a streak where I would place the card in the feeder and it would go through no problem, and then that would stop and i'd have to fiddle with how I was feeding in the card. Not a big deal, and you quickly get used to the process.


All in all it saved me a ton of time and got the job done for me. It can do the same for you.