if you look at the previous woot, there was a youtube video demonstration of how quickly can scan receipts and business cards
I would jump on this if there was an update to the mac software
Try this link. It has tutorials on it
My wife had me order her the Pandigital PANSCN06 for her for Mothers Day and she loves it. It is for scanning pictures straight into a SD card or computer. She loves it and does tons of scrap booking. The Amazon link is here:
And it is a lot less than the NeatDesk and has good reviews.
Scansnap vs NeatDesk…
Scansnap is a much more robust and featured device… (most Scansnaps are NOT TWAIN compliant (proprietary scan engine) but. for the cost, the later versions of Neat (4.0 and 5) and Neatworks have come a long way since the earlier days of Neat…Not sure if this version comes with the PDF voodoo (importing a PDF into the neat software to be filed as well as a virtual Print to Neat printer)
In short… if you can afford it, the Scansnap hardware is made for higher volume, higher resolution scanning and import… the Neat solution is very good at handling mixed media (reciepts/cards/paper)…
For those who want a comparison between this and using most consumer all in ones… Both Neat and Scansnap handle multipage and sheetfed paper better than your average all in one, some models of scansnap even going to far as to double sided scanning…
If your doing more than a page or two, or a card or two, the difference between a dedicated device and your flatbed is very significant in convenience and time savings with positioning as well as settings…
However if your scanning a lot of photos, these document scanners can have trouble feeding the glossy paper and can damage photos… Scansnap offers a carrier envelope to run photos through there device… (clear pouch with a backing… Not sure how the neat does with photos… If your scanning primarly photos, your better off with a flatbed or film scanner
just heard of woot and now i just placed an order … will be telling ma friends to try them too cos i think it is the best
rubysoho – Did you try using WINE to install your scanner? Look at this post: Developing SANE scanner drivers without documentation
I’d be interested to know how nicely this will play with Ubuntu…
[QUOTE=LarryCebula, post:4, topic:353813]
I want a scanner that will quickly scan my boxes and boxes of photographs at a decent resolution and automagically crop them without any effort on my part beyond loading the pictures into an autofeed. Is this what I need?
[/quote]
Nope
Pass…
Youll probably damage most of your photographs feeding them through this…
You need a flatbed or photo scanner…
You dont want to autofeed photos… really…
This might work with a carrier envelope but still your not gonna get a quality photo scan out of it
Honestly this is not the best for photographs. It is an autofeed; there is no kind of preview, and it feeds very very quickly so often a photograph will get skewed by being fed at an angle. Plus, the NeatDesk program it comes with does not have any kind of options for retouching, white balancing, or anything you’d want.
Don’t get me wrong - it will scan photographs, and do so quickly, and the resolution is not bad, but they are clearly not what this thing is made for.
This is a pretty decent product. Essentially I just use it as a good, low-volume double-sided scanner to PDF. I don’t use the OCR all that much but it seems to work reasonably well. The nice part is with one click you can change it to full color, double sided scanning with a single pass.
I use it with a Mac and the software is decent. You can file your documents into a custom folder hierarchy with metadata and you can easily print or export to PDF. I would not rely on it for budgeting (the OCR is good but not flawless) but I do use it to de-clutter my desk. Basically whenever I have a piece of paper that I might need and therefore don’t want to throw out, I scan it, file the document somewhere and toss the original.
If you expect this to compare to business-class bulk scanner you will be disappointed. For personal or home office use it is perfectly fine, though.
I purchased this item when it was previously offerred by Woot. I received a refurbished unit. It appeared to be complete and I installed the software that came with it and connected it to my laptop. The SAMSUNG laptop does not recognize the scanner. No scanner connected error message is returned when I try to exequte a scan. I contact NEAT and they gave me a website for the latest release of the software. Please upon NEAT advice I made sure my Windows 7 OP SYS had the latest updates. Still the scanner is not recognized. I substituted a know good cable to make thge connection to rule out a defective cable. I suspect the connector inside the scanner is defective. I am going to call NEAT again tomorrow to see what they say.
Got one from the last woot. The hardware seems fine, but have tried it on Win 7 32-bit and 64-bit. On both computers, the software crashes as soon as the scanner completes scanning the stack of documents. Still haven’t gotten successful scan #1. Info on their forums didn’t work (it seems other people have the problem too). Sent info from the event log per their request but haven’t had time to work with them yet since their support is only M-F and closes at 5pm pacific before I get home from work. Ugh.
You know Woot was bought by Amazon a couple years ago, right?
I bought one and returned it replacing it with a cannon laser printer with a double sided scanning feature for about the same cost. The main reason was the software interface…it was just too slow compared to scanning with a printer directly. It zips through the machine quickly enough, but then it takes FOREVER for the software to process the pages. It is too resource intensive to use another program while it scans too. Not the holy grail I was hoping for.
I was wondering about this myself. Is the power of this device in the software?
I cant seem to see how it’s the scanner hardware? Neat design for it’s application.
Still waiting for an adjustable tray. I have many docs that do not fit the preselected feed tray. Why have the not come out with an adjustable tray option? This has been asked before by many.
Hell’s bells, I was about to press the “Want one” button but you guys have talked me out of it. Thanks for the honest reviews, Wooters!
I love my old Mobile Scanner that I got here on Woot a couple years ago (My review Neat Receipts Keeps Me On Top Of My Receipts » Finance, Reviews » Russell Heimlich). I scan my receipts weekly to stay on top of them from piling up.
The 5.0 software update is awesome because you can scan a bunch of receipts at once and let them process in the background instead of waiting for each scan to complete. Would I consider getting this desktop version? Probably if my current set-up wasn’t completely adequate for my needs.
I thought this sounded good, too, but reading the reviews, I once again say…NO. Just say No to products with too many negatives. Thanks to all the those who are not afraid to share why not to buy.
I have purchased from Woot, and have been very happy with everything so far. I do use your suggestions and it has saved me a lot of grief.
I took the plunge and picked this up last time it was on woot. Here’s my thoughts on it after having used it since then:
Overall, I’m happy with my purchase. I already had the mobile scanner version of it, and I also have the acclaimed Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. I will be using all three. It may seem redundant, but they each have their own strengths, and I’m more than willing to drop the money if it helps to keep me organized and de-cluttered. And so far, it does help.
Pro-tip: it appears that you can download the newest version of Neat (version 5) for FREE on their website. Just say that you were a previous user of Neat, and they take you through a couple of screens and give you a download link and a software key. Easy peasy. So if you lost your disc or didn’t get one, use this.
I did have one issue, at first. When I set up my Neat database “filing cabinet”, I put it on my secondary hard drive. After I spent 4 hours scanning a box of receipts, I closed the program and re-opened it later. It said that my database was corrupt and no longer able to open. What Tiny Flowers?!
Well, it looks like it “forgot” where I had put the database and looked to its default location. When it didn’t find it, it freaked out and said it was “corrupt”. Yet the database was just fine. So, I simply moved the entire database from my original location to where Neat defaults to and it worked fine. Not an issue since. Strange, but I’ll live with it.
Overall, happy with my purchase. Thanks, Woot!