Header banner
Revain logoHome Page
Johnny Bloomer photo
1 Level
1342 Review
53 Karma

Review on πŸ“š CZUR Shine Ultra Smart Document Scanner: A3 Book Scanner with OCR Auto-Flatten & Deskew for Windows & Mac OS by Johnny Bloomer

Revainrating 2 out of 5

I really, really wanted this, but it had some real problems.

I have many old books that I would like to read on my Kindle when he is not at home that are not available in this format. I thought this scanner might be the way to get them in Kindle format so I decided to give it a try. I was SUPER impressed with the look of the device when it arrived. very nicely packaged, and the processing of the device appears to be of high quality. However, the first snag I encountered was with installing software. I used the CD that came with it, entered the long serial number and opened the app, but was told to check the CZUR website for a newer version. The site presents different models, but not this one. I chose a good match, installed it, changed the serial number and tried it. I was happy with the speed of getting images and they seemed nice and clear - when the subject is perfectly flat. As soon as I started trying out a few books, the pages showed noticeable curling issues near the spine, so much so that the OCR process only produced gibberish. That was really disappointing as CZUR's videos feature people happily reviewing books and reporting success. I also noticed that every scan showed my fingers holding the books open. There is no way to crop them and apparently this has to be done after scanning. In the videos, some users used small plastic tabs called "fingerpads" to hold the books open, and the software happily removed them. Well, there are no finger rests in this model. It's also not possible to automatically copy things like chapter titles or page numbers that appear on every page - at least not during scanning, I would say. CZUR should clearly state which model does what. Your site does not have a table of characteristics by model. In fact, this model does not even appear on the first page with the list of available products. I checked the user group and found, I'm not the only one finding this out the hard way. Video showing how you can make wonderful books, apparently for other models. I re-read the Q&A section on this on Revain and saw that CZUR recently replied to someone that this model is for FLAT items. Well, since I needed it for the books, it's on the way back. I will definitely consider the latest CZUR if it actually does what they promise in their videos, but it's not on their website, not on Revain, just a crowdfunding site. I think the company has a lot of potential but it really needs to get easier to learn which scanner has which features. Other thoughts - OCR was fast enough, but each file came out with an underlined word every time. Some tooltips were only available in Chinese, even though the rest of the app displayed English. The automatic gripping when turning the page was a very good idea and seems to have been implemented well. I think the company has a lot of potential, but it really needs to become easier to learn which scanner has which features. Other thoughts - OCR was fast enough, but each file came out with an underlined word every time. Some tooltips were only available in Chinese, even though the rest of the app displayed English. The automatic gripping when turning the page was a very good idea and seems to have been implemented well. I think the company has a lot of potential, but it really needs to become easier to learn which scanner has which features. Other thoughts - OCR was fast enough, but every file came out with the underlined word every time. Some tooltips were only available in Chinese, even though the rest of the app displayed English. The automatic gripping when turning the page was a very good idea and seems to have been implemented well.

Pros
  • Document Camera and Scanner: Works as a ZOOM compatible document camera for distance teaching and learning and as a document scanner for scanning documents and converting/OCR files. Can scan over 180 languages and convert to JPG, PDF, Searchable PDF, Word, Excel and TIFF on ABBYY platform
Cons
  • . I don't remember but there was something