Dec 14, 2009
Price: $199.99
Available From: www.pmr-technology.com
There are a lot of things that we get asked to review here at iCreate, and we pretty much always say yes. But when we were asked to review this business card scanner we came very close to saying no. There are a couple of reasons for this: it’s not really going to appeal to our general readership, in as much as not everyone uses a Mac for business purposes and they wouldn’t therefore have much need for a product of this kind. The other main reason is that generally products of this kind aren’t that good. It’s a good job then that we will test everything we receive to see if it’s suitable. So, it’s with a fair amount of delight that we present you with the WorldCard Mac. This dinky little business card reader immediately scores points for the way it’s designed. It’s about the size of two iPod classics side by side and is as tall as two on top of each other. It comes in classic Apple white and has a nifty trap door that houses the scanner input. This can be opened and closed as and when it’s needed. It attaches to your Mac via USB and runs using its own software. This is where the magic happens. You simply feed a business card into the reader and it will magically appear in the software viewer as an image in a very cool Cover Flow system. This in itself is pretty smooth. Not only that but the details form the card have been converted into text and are viewable in the window above the Cover Flow section.
From here contacts can either be imported into your address book, searched, edited and sent to other people, or they can even be looked up on a map via the web. It really is as slick and as smooth as you could possibly want. We did experience some tiny issues with odd sized business cards and there were some isolated occasions where we hadn’t put the card in straight and the image consequently came out warped and the information was not read. Apart from these problems, which were more to do with our hurried attempts to have cards read rather than the software or hardware failing to work, the system is exceptional.
If you are a person that gets business cards and can never be bothered to tap contacts into your address book then this is an absolute must-have accessory. It’s not cheap, but it is worth every penny. WorldCard Mac is a great marriage of software and hardware that looks cool next to your Mac and just works. It’s a perfect combination.
Pros: If you think you’ll get use out of it has to be the best of its kind on the market
Cons: It’s a tad expensive, which may be off putting to some
Verdict: Five out of five stars
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If you liked this gadget, you may love actually doing what it does (or close) right on your iPhone! Give it a try – we just released ScanBizCards for the iPhone 3GS. ScanBizCards scans business cards – or any image – and lets you add all the information to your iPhone address book in one touch. Processing is done right on your phone, nothing is sent over the network. Think about it as a time-saver similar to physical scanner devices, except it’s right with you so you can process a new card within a minute of getting it (or on the plane back home), add notes when the conversation is still fresh in your mind, follow-up with an intro email etc.
Read more about it at http://www.scanbizcards.com and please send me any feedback.
I have been looking for something like this since switching from Windows and was pleased to see it become available. However i have been very underwhelmed by its performance. It is frequently not recognised by mac when cnnected, the registration process is dire, the website is a shambols, and it frequently mis-reads (that is when i can get it connected). All in all I regret the money spent on it.
It might be a good scanner… BUT it does not sync with Addressbook – what a waste. One can import into Addressbook, but make sure you select the right ones. Moreover, on pictures etc. will be exported, except you predefine this. Why would one scan the cards anyhow? Big wast of money.
VERY IMPORTANT! Be aware before you buy this. It is for Intel-based Macs only. The review above did not mention that important detail.