Customer Reviews

Visioneer Strobe XP 300 Duplex Mobile Scanner PDF TWAIN (SXP3005D-WU)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I am a 10 year user of the Visioneer Strobe line of scanners. When my first one died, I purchased the cool new XP100. It was cool, but didn't work very well at all and I went back to the strobe. Now it was time to get a new scanner -- the XP 300. Sound promising, but I found they removed all kinds of features and there is a flaw in the paper return mechanism that they know about, but keep shipping the product. Firt, the paper return. When you push it to the open position, it is supposed to return the paper to you, but instead, it just keeps feeding the paper out the back rather than back to you. Visioneer reports this is a known problem, but still promote this feature in their manuals and marketing. As for the drivers, when you use the One Touch 4.0 driver, it uses a very old version of the Adobe Acrobat conversion utility (v.1.2). The issue with this is that when Paperport picks up the scan, it thinks all scans come in at 150dpi and 24bit color. The problem is that unless the image is at least 200dpi, Paperport won't let you manipulate the image in page view mode (rotate individual pages, despeckle, straighten, etc.). Also, they removed the ability to set the delay to begin automatically scanning. The issue is that it begins to scan so fast that it misfeed the top couple of inches of the paper and causes distorted scans at the top. Further, it is extrememly hard (as on the XP100) to get a piece of paper lined up quickly. With the old Stobes, the paper path was conducive to quickly inserting paper, but with the XP300, you have to align it perfectly or the paper guides snag the paper.

All of this creates too much frustration for me. I was advised to downgrade to the XP200, which retains all of the features and functionality of yesteryear. They really took two steps backwards with this product. It is a shame!

DO NOT BUY THIS SCANNER. I have owned six Strobe scanners over the years with satisfactory performance until now.

This scanner has THREE problems that are all acknowledged by Technical Support, however Customer Service will not offer any remedy whatsoever. First, the Strobe scanners are designed to start scanning when paper is inserted. The Strobe XP300 is the FIRST Strobe scanner that does NOT allow the user to set a 'scan start delay time'. This was typically 0.8 seconds and allowed the user to insert the paper straight before the scan starts. The XP300, however, starts scanning immediately - before the paper begins to feed - and results in 1/2" to 1" of horizontal lines at the top of EVERY PAGE. Technical Support says Visioneer knows this is a problem, has been unable to come up with a fix, PLUS they tell me the ONLY remedy is to manually initiate every scan.

Second, the XP300 will not feed thin documents, such as receipts. Therefore, they include with the scanner two sizes of clear plastic document sleeves in which you are to place the thin sheets. Unfortunately, this does not work which is the THIRD problem - the scanner jams with the thickness of the document holders.

Feel free to call Technical Support (it's a toll call, by the way); they will acknowledge that the XP300 is their worst product and no one is satisfied. One has to wonder why it is still advertised as an AutoScan model when there is no way to obtain a quality scan.

As I have owned (or sent back) all previous models in this range, I feel I can confidently say that this is the worst constructed, most problematic model yet. It has two protusions in the paperpath that make it difficult to feed paper - and this is made worse by a microswitch the paper has to hit to start the motor. The paper guide actually makes it even more difficult to feed letter-size paper. Previous models were cleanable if you weren't afraid to open up the case - for the XP300, only one of the sensors is accessible. After a while the other one will gunge up; good luck cleaning it. Build quality is low (those lips on the front bezel are just pathetic). If Visioneer cared about their customers, they would withdraw this model from sale.

Like another reviewer, I'm also a long time customer of Visioneer. I was excited when this new XP300 was released, but after setting it up (which was easy) I discovered that it performs horribly. In previous models, the paper flowed very smoothly through the scanner, but in the XP300, it often wiggles as it is scanned, causing the image to be blurred. Everything I had loved about the Strobe is now gone. It's a piece of junk.

Instead of this product, I highly recommend the Fujitsu Scansnap. It works far better and has a built-in automatic document feeder.

This new Strobe sounded great on paper but couldn't be worse in reality. They apparently have no clue why people have liked their sheetfed scanners in the past. Each time a new version comes out, it gives up some good features from the past and adds several bad aspects. All we ever wanted was a bit more speed combined with better ability to automatically adjust lightness/darkness. Now the quality is worse, the paper insertion is worse, the duplex feature is a joke, the paper size has been constricted. I sent mine back within the 30 day return period.

I'm really confused by the reviews here. I was thinking about buying this scanner a little while ago and was put off by all the negative reviews. However, today I found the manual at the Visioneer site and some of the complaints are addressed in the manual. Specifcally on page 119, it shows that the autoscan can be disabled, and if it is enabled the paper pickup delay can be adjusted. Are reviewers here saying that these features don't work, or are they simply unaware of the ability to choose these settings? Wish I knew!

Update: So I just got off the phone with tech support - because I can't stand unanswered questions - and the gentleman I spoke with was truly one of the most pleasant and helpful techies I've ever called. No joke. Definitely not the rude, indifferent people described in the other reviews! He informed me that you CAN in fact set the autostart delay if you want to. He said it was an issue when it was first released, but that it HAS been fixed. He also said that since the XP 300 is designed to be able to handle thicker items like driver's licenses, etc., that it does handle thinner items like receipts a little differently than the old scanners which were not designed to do this.

I loved my old strobe scanner, but as good as it was, even it could be finicky at times. It was a small price to pay for the convenience, though. Another thing to consider for those of you who have experienced connection issues or other weird behavior - CHECK THE CABLE. So often we blame the equipment and we forget the usb cables and the power cords we connect them with. They DO go bad! Back in the early 90's, our first computer was having numerous weird problems and I kept telling my husband to try a new power cord. He didn't listen, and kept trying more "likely" solutions. I finally convinced him we had nothing to lose by trying. New power cord, ALL the problems went away. I've run into this with power supplies, too. They weren't bad enough to quit, just bad enought to mess with things.

The other reviewers basically summarize it all. I am going to return it. After complaining to the company about some problems their reply was: "You are right, these are known problems, no solution yet". Every new model gets worse. They have a great idea for a product but simply don't get it. Total idiots.

I bought this scanner a few months ago and just got around to setting it up in the past few weeks. I was disappointed at first with the scan quality but once I realized it was set up to scan FAST and not at high quality I changed the default settings to 600 dpi, color .pdf and I am now very happy.

This is not designed to be a replacement for a flatbed scanner but I use it to scan invoices and documents for email instead of sending a ton of FedEx packages across the Pacific. For what I need it performs well.

I found this scanner difficult to use, especially trying to line up the paper to feed through the scanner. The software is poorly designed and organized. There is no on-off button and no light to let you know if the scanner is on. It is stupid beyond belief to not have an on-off switch or at least a light to indicate the status. As to the software, what were they thinking? Badly designed hardware, badly designed software, what was I thinking? (Actually, it was made by Visioneer so I thought it would be pretty well designed--I won't make that mistake again. I really wonder if when a company releases a bad product they ever consider what effect it has on the company's reputation. Obviously, Visioneer does not and I'd say that reflects the poor leadership of the top person in the company.)

I am a long time Visioneer fan.

It started with my initial parallel-port attached STROBE, windows 98 (95?) and the SUPERB paperport desktop.

When the paperport (now Nuance) people offered a special on the Visioneer 300, I assumed (sigh) they had tested it and found it a good match.

NO!

1. The lack of insert delay is HORRIBLE as you can't get the stuff aligned before it grabs it.

2. the feed rollers are feeble. Any excuse to "skid" (not continue to scan in the paper) is a problem. When the paper leading edge hits the teeny resistance of the curve of the exit, (when trying to feed it back to you like my old paperport did - this one is totally unacceptable in only sending it out the back another inch higher), -or- when there is any input resistance - a slight down-fold in the paper (like every tri-fold sheet comes in the mail) then it again skids.

2a. I can even PUSH THE PAPER THROUGH THE FEED ROLLS, because they are so unbelievably feeble.

3. My $59 or so Canoscan LiDE 35 has a wonderful "text enhanced" mode, while the $300 or so XP300 doesn't.

I don't believe I have ever spent so much money for something as completely unusable for its designated purpose.

I am tempted to take it apart, and wrap some surgical rubber around its toy feeder wheels, so it will at least grab the paper. If I break it in the process then I will no longer have to be unhappy with it.

SHAME SHAME, Visioneer!!! This should never have made it out of development engineering prototype phase!

OH AND FINALLY, silly me, I thought since PaperPort is SO nice, they would, with the xp 300, become a "feed paper onto your virtual desktop", but alas, no, you have to push so many buttons, have to destack everything (since single scans are SO unproductive due to all the button pushing)... I've written some MacroExpress macros so alt-S scans and alt-D is done, but still...

So shame on paperport/nuance for not really trying it, and most of all shame on me for buying it without looking for reviews such as this one!

P.S. "Yay Amazon". Much of my Christmas shopping, etc. Great!