Scanners For All: WorldCard and Xerox
Yesterday, we took a look at a great all-around scanner. Now, it’s time to look at two single-purpose scanners, aimed at helping people who handle a lot of business cards. We’ve also reviewed a business card scanner before, but it’s been a while- can the new models up the ante?
We’ll start with a name you might not recognize- WorldCard, maker of the WorldCard Ultra. They have a pretty broad range of business card scanners, including a Mac version, but we’ve been trying their latest PC model (that can connect to Intel-based Macs, but using inferior software). Their site doesn’t work so well in Firefox, and you can see that tell from their software that they haven’t quite gotten the interface quite right. The hardware, though, is nice- pretty small (about the size of two decks of cards), and cute in black and orange. It’s lightweight at about 6 ounces, but travels pretty well, and is plug-and-play simple to setup via USB.
As with other business card scanners, the speed and DPI matters- here you’re looking at 600 dpi color, which is pretty nice, but it doesn’t scan very quickly. Integration into other programs, like Outlook and even ACT! is decent, and the very best part of the unit was how it handled other languages. The ‘world’ part of WorldCard definitely comes this strength, and since the device was made by an Asian company, it can support many other languages that some scanners cannot like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and even some interesting European ones such as Dutch, Turkish, Polish, and Hungarian. Both models reviewed here today are about the same price- $180- and both can handle a variety of cards. The WorldCard Ultra, though, isn’t quite as fast nor does it offer as intuitive software, but for those with cards from many regions or countries, it is clearly the superior choice.
For those who have larger batches, the Xerox Card Scanner 200 might not be quite as pretty, but definitely gets the job done. About 50 grams heavier, it still ends up feeling quite light, and offers a similar feature set- USB, easy install, PC-focused. We liked the inclusion of the travel pouch- a small thing, perhaps, but handy- and also that it could do checks as well as business cards. The hardware was durable, and we appreciated the speed- it could churn through cards, taking about three seconds each at a lower resolution (300 dpi, the unit can handle 600 dpi though).
The software was also quite good, with flexible settings, OCR technology that was pretty impressive and easy exporting to Excel, ACT!, and GoldMine. Business cards often feature odd fonts and text placement, and while about half of the cards required editing and updating with the WorldCard, around 15% did with the Card Scanner 200. It still wasn’t perfect, but records were straightfoward and easy to modify, and also offered simple PDF formatting (searchable, too). On the other hand, it did choke on some Chinese and European cards that we had handy- the software simply didn’t handle them very well. All in all, at $180 or so, the Xerox Card Scanner 200 is definitely an improvement on previous business card scanners we’ve seen, and is a great tool for those who attend conferences, conventions, and meetings and end up stacking up cards. Available online and in stores.
