Customer Reviews

Visioneer Strobe XP 200 Sheetfed scanner (Windows)

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

 

 

I have to admit, there is a lot of power to this scanner and its software and many options to choose from. But I have only had 3 out of 10 scans that were successful. The machine doesn't grab regular office paper well, and there is a plastic flap on the back that you lift up or down depending on the weight of what you are scanning, but it comes falls off when you try to adjust it, and for me it has yet to feed regular copy paper through the light weight paper setting. It is sleek and small, but the 2 large cords take away from the space saver point of view. Thanks

GOOD review follows! First, this is NOT the best choice for PERFECT scans of photos or fragile documents. It does a perfectly adequate job with snapshots and newspaper clippings, an EXCEPTIONAL job with color or B/W letter-size material. It scans for fliing/fax, OCR or color images, up to 600 DPI.
If you are careful, you can easily feed sheets into this device without trouble. Be patient. It has an included software application that allows scanning multiple succesive sheets to one document, for convienence...but you can separate the pages later! Cool. Or you can group different scans to one document later. Cooler!

The image editing software is pretty darn good. Why? Because it has a decent selection of tools while not being overly complicated to use. You can use it as a desktop-type filing system too.

Some versions of the "Paperport" software export scans to PDF! If you understand what that means, you'll jump for joy...

But you know where the Strobe REALLY excels? You can quickly scan a document, drag it to Word and have about 95% immediately recognized as an editable Word file. Very little re-typing. How many times do you need some information IN your computer at school or work that exists only in a printed form? Wow! And you did this in about 30 seconds...

The Strobe is not perfect, but it does many jobs well enough to overlook that it is not the best solution of any ONE job. But it's the 90% solution for a TON of jobs! Buy it. You will not regret it.

The biggest problem, mentioned by another reviewer, is that sometimes a vertical black line will appear in scans and persist even with cleaning and recalibration. The problem is that ink or debris transfers from the page passing through the scanner and blocks one or more photosensors, which then causes a black line to appear. If the cleaning sheet doesn't solve the problem, it's probably ink transfer, and the following solution has worked for me. Gently moisten a cleaning sheet with absolute alcohol or isopropyl alcohol and feed it through the scanner several times. Allow the alcohol to evaporate completely, or feed a dry cleaning sheet through. Repeat if necessary. So far this has solved all my black line problems. I' grateful, because the scanner has greatly simplified my record and paper management.

This can be a little workhorse if you have several hundred documents you're trying to digitize instead of buying another filing cabinet. The size is just right, not taking up too much real estate.

The Nuance (formerly ScanSoft) software has always struck me as clumsy as it doesn't have the same look and feel of most Windows applications, but I eventually figured it out. The biggest issue is that occasionally a dark horizontal line will appear on the scan. Recalibration doesn't always help. I'm mechanically inclined and disassembled mine, but couldn't get to the part where the paper is acually scanned. I suspect there's a hair or something lodged in there. Ran some compressed air through it, but it did not resolve the problem.

10Dec08 update. I still have this and am still running it on the same computer, but would drop this to 2-stars instead of the original 3-star rating I gave it, if Amazon allowed ratings changes. The device and software fail too often. I am at the point where I avoid Nuance products.

I purchased the Visioneer RoadWarrior about 6 months ago and use it every day, 4 days a week. I travel extensively and put the scanner in my computer bag so it stays with my on my carry on bag. I have absolutely no issues at all with this scanner. With the bundled software, the scanner get the job done for me. I clean it every couple weeks and scan probably 20 pages a day. I absolutely love the scanner and haven't had one issue with it. I do wish I had gone with the model above it with the ADF but the size of the RoadWarrior is great for traveling!

had to send it back
screwed up my computer had to reformat drive to get all the things off\ tech support was worthless!!

This scanner is a hit with my staff. It is one page at a time but quick and clear. Good with a Laptop and can substitute for a desktop for small jobs.

Visioneer has always been a difficult vendor to deal with. They package their scanner with software from another difficult vendor (Scansoft by PaperPort).

If there was an alternative product I would try it. I continue to buy Visioneer products because it seems that they provide the only small footprint, sheetfeed scanner.

The one I purchased about a month ago developed a problem yesterday and I expect to have to return it.

But, I am a slow learner. This unit is the fourth or fifth purchased since their line of small footprint sheet feed scanners was introduced at least a decade ago. When it works it is very handy and fast.

The installation is too difficult. It took several attempts, even with an experienced technician. When feeding paper into the machine it fails to pull the paper through resulting in a black page often. When it does pull the paper through properly it works great.

the Strobe XP 200 is a nice page scanner but the Onetouch 3.0 driver isn't very reliable and doesn't work easily with PaperPort. I uninstalled the 3.0 driver and downloaded and installed the OneTouch 4.0 driver and the scanner now behaves. It makes nice scans and is very easy to use with the 4.0 driver.