Customer Reviews

NeatReceipts Neat Business Cards Mobile Full Color Card Reader/Scanner

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Out of all the business card scanners I have tried, including the ones that friends and associates use, the neat business card bundle is the best. The character recognition is very good, but it has some trouble with really small characters. Sometimes I have to scan a card a few times to get it centered correctly, even after cleaning the unit. All in all this is a great product and one that I recommend to anyone who collects alot of business cards.

I did my share of research online, and read reviews on a quite a few websites. In retrospect, I think I should have paid closer attention to the other negative reviews. Of the positive reviews, I doubt that the posters recognize what happened "behind the scenes" with their hard drive and operating system (see last paragraph). To be fair, the unit I received may have been defective, but keep reading....

I received the product and downloaded the most recent software and drivers. Went through the install process as described. Tried scanning my first card. The scan quality was so horrible that I think I may have received a defective unit. Each scan looked like a blur of colors and lines. After 10-15 tries, the software was able to pick up the NAMES (just the names!) on the business cards about 1 out of every 4 times.

I decided to uninstall the software, and this is where things got messy. The install program apparently installed multiple programs to Windows XP. The main program is a resource hog. Uninstalling doesn't remove everything installed. This is extremely sloppy programming and shows a lack of "respect" for customer's home computers. Even if I HAD received a defective unit, the software and install/uninstall experience deserve the 1 star. If you are like me, and like to keep your computer clean and running well, the software with this product makes a mess of your hard drive and operating system. I had to sift through my registry manually and run specialized software just to ensure that everything was removed- and I'm STILL not 100% that I've completely erased the traces of this software. Even if I could get a new unit that actually scanned well, I wouldn't. The software and install/uninstall process is just sloppy. Inexcusably sloppy.

I used to have drawers full of business cards when I came back from CES and other trade shows that I go to every year. I would have to sort through them and try to find names and numbers. I never got around to putting them into a physical file, and really, it was just a mess. This is a terrific solution to that mess. I simply drop cards into the scanner, which doesn't take up much space on my desk, and they're into my database. I love that I can make notes on each, so I can remember where I met people and what we talked about. Works just like it said it would.

The installation CD will not work on Windows XP SP3. An installer is available for download but it is difficult to locate on the support web site. Let me save you some time: it is available in the support article for the NeatReceipts product and its support of SP3. Towards the end of the article will be a link for a Neat Business Cards installer. Tech support was not terribly helpful. Scanning directly into Outlook is far more convenient than the way CardScan works but the field assignment logic does not seem as intelligent.

Despite the system requirements section stating that this product is Vista compatible -- it is not. The software will not run in Vista which was confirmed by the company's tech support. Don't buy this if you're running vista.

I'm a software/hardware guru with over 16 years software/hardware development experience plus a Ph.D. of EE ...
Never saw an implementation from a decent company can be called a product in this kind of quality.
Bought it a year ago, expected to use it with my outlook address book. It crashes after scanning 4~5 business card due to memory leak, the company admits it but has no plan to fix it. When it crashes, you have to reboot Windows XP to reset the application. And it is only one of the many issues with it...

I wasted too much time trying to work around its bugs because the company is not willing to provide bug fixes. I decide to give it up now.

Indeed, the product works very well. It pulls information from the business cards quickly and accurately, and is very small and portable. Something important to note is that, as of the writing of this review, the company has not provided software that is compatible with Windows Vista. This has caused some problems for our business. To make sure the product will work smoothly, I recommend reading the technical requirements carefully.

The set-up process was a little problematic on Windows XP Professional. I ended up downloading some additional software to make it work. The OCR software is about 90% effective with my first batch of 300 business cards. The case that came with it is big enough for the unit and cords with room to spare. All in all this is a time saving device for me as a business traveler that receives way too many business cards to keep track of. This small device when used with my laptop and BlackBerry helps me stay more efficient.

Recently got this as a gift from my girlfriend. The software never came up after installation. Tried uninstalling, re-installing and downloading the new software version on the website - still no success. Everytime I click on the software, the error message comes up: "Unexpected Error while using Neat Business Cards. Please contact Tech Support".

Spent 10 days emailing and reminding Tech Support about the problem. No alternatives or solutions were offered, and I know I am not the only one that faced this problem.

If you want to waste your time trying to get the software running, go for it. Otherwise, get something else - there are much cheaper alternatives that at least work.

I haven't used yet this myself, but my assistant has, and he question whether it's worth the trouble; given the time he's spent checking and correcting inaccurate scans, he probably didn't save any time compared to manually entering the cards. (If anyone's figured out how to do better, let us know.)