Sliver Scanner

This is a review of the Magic Wand Portable Scanners for Documents, Photo, Old Pictures, Receipts, 900DPI, Scan A4 Color Page in 3sec, 16G Memory Card Included, MUNBYN Photo Scanner for Computer, Laptop. I am an author and I got this scanner to scan in almost 20 years of handwritten journals that contain the basis for many of my books. This is my first time using a portable scanner, it really doesn’t take long to get up to speed with it, though. This little wand scanner is not heavy, and not difficult to work with. It produces clear, good quality scans. I am using the medium resolution setting, and the scans are very clear. Here are the important points I have noticed: 1. Your document needs to lay flat when you scan it. This necessitated me taking all the pages out of each journal in order to lay them flat. If you try to scan from a book, the scanner will cut off much of the inside margin and sentences. I could not find a way around this. In the YouTube video (search MUNBYN on YouTube) that shows how the scanner works, you will see the two markers on the scanner that mark the edges of the scan area. The quick start guide included with the scanner gives the URL to download the free scanner software to your laptop and the instructions say NOT to update it during the installation. A mini-CD came with mine but I have no drive for it, so I was glad to find that link. And for whatever it’s worth, I am running Windows 10 and that software integrated seamlessly without any further configuration on my part. 2. You must move the scanner slowly. If you move it too quickly, the red light comes on to warn you. I have had to rescan a number of pages due to this. 3. If you are scanning many pages that need to be in a particular order like I am with my journals, scan them in that order and download the images from the scanner all at one time. Like most scanners, this scanner names the scans IMG0001, IMG0002, etc. and there does not appear to be a way to override or change this. If you download some of them and then start scanning again before you have all of one project (or journal in my case) scanned, you will have to rename a bunch of them. In retrospect, I wished I had numbered my journal pages before starting, and I plan to with subsequent journals, so I can tell when a page is missing and if I have them in the right order. Have plenty of AA batteries on hand if you are scanning a large project. I scanned maybe 50 pages before I had to change the batteries. It could be those first batteries I put in were not fully charged, (the scanner did not come with any batteries) I did not test them before using, or maybe I am just slow and that created the drain on the batteries. I will update this review if I get a good feel for how many pages I can consistently scan on one new set of AA batteries. All said, I think this little scanner is a very handy tool and I’m glad I purchased it. Highly recommend.

I'm really happy with this scanner. It's easy to use and produces results that are better than I expected. A good value for the money.

I wanted the scanner to scan a few recipes from cookbooks, that otherwise aren't very good and that I plan to get rid of. It does the job. Are the scans first quality -- no. Are they readable and useful -- very much so. For $63 I think it's a great deal. I found it very easy to use after the first few stumbles. I have a Mac so I didn't need to load the OCR software since it doesn't work with a Mac. At first I wanted to transfer the images to my Mac using the included USB cable, but that didn't work. So I just take out the MicroSD and use it with my computer to read the images directly. Since I'm not scanning a huge number of images, I always do two or three scans of each page (it only takes a few additional seconds) and then choose the best of the bunch.

I would put new amazon Aa batteries in turn on scanner and it would immediatel;y flash error and show the batteries drained. Put new pbatteries in ...same thing. It is being returned. Why would amazon sell such a defective product and what a waste of my time.

I am of two minds on this product. I bought it to take to my 80yo mother's house to digitize her old photos from 1930-1970. When set to high resolution, it does a good job. I'm very pleased with the results when it works. What cheeses me off is: (1) These are old photos - and many are a bit curled. The scanner catches the edge of the photos and stops and you have to lift it (not good when you're scanning). But if you want to start fully on the photo and the photo doesn't have a big white space edge, then you're cutting off the first part of the photo and it's not a full image of the original photo. This became so frustrating as we were working. (Note - even when the images are not curled, it often caught the edge. Boo.) (2) It shuts off spontaneously. So - you'll start scanning and within 3-4 seconds the light goes out and it stops scanning. If it did this once in a while - fine, whatever. But it's moody - it'll start doing this and continue to do it as long as you can tolerate it before you have to stop and leave the process (sometimes overnight) while it gets over whatever the problem is. This is maddening when you have a stack of items to scan and you have to stop for hours and hours. In short, it works in bursts and fits and requires tremendous patience when it doesn't. (3) The USB cord to dump the photos to your computer doesn't actually communicate with your computer. This is a known issue (or at least when I googled it to figure out what to do I found a number of similar inquiries on this same product). This means you have to go out and buy a micro USB reader if you don't already have one in order to get the images off the memory card. Grr. (4) It says the micro USB holds up to 40 files...and it probably does, but I've never gotten more than 30 images on it before it stops working correctly (it stops scanning - see above comment), which might be resolved by dumping the photos onto your computer and deleting them all from the drive. I know why folks say it captures blurry images: I really think this is a user error. You have to go slow (!!!) and you have to keep it in a straight line. If you have a big space to work in it's not hard to keep the scanner moving straight, but if you're in a tight space, it takes a bit more finesse. TL/DR: When it works it's great (!) but it doesn't reliably work. You will likely need a microUSB card reader to get the images off of it.

I wanted to be able to scan documents in my husband's van, while we were in transit, returning feral and friendly cats after they had surgery. We volunteer to assist someone who does cat and kitten rescue, and since she gets all the hard copies, it is a bonus if we can scan in Invoices and Patient Charts and have an off site record. I have access to a scanner on our big laser printer at home, but the Patient Charts need to stay with the cat they relate to, so I only have them in my possession during the journey from the spay and neuter clinic to the rescuer's home, where cats are temporarily housed during recovery. I had seen portable hand scanners and thought this was what I needed, so as usual, I searched on Amazon and read reviews, to see what was available. The Munbyn hand scanner got mostly good reviews and an added benefit was that if you use a MacBook or iMac, you can download directly to your computer using the provided cable. When I received the unit, I was surprised to see how simple the whole thing was. I read the instruction book and tried a few practice runs and was immediately comfortable I could do what I needed without much effort. Today we picked up three cats from the clinic, and I was able to scan each Patient Chart on my lap, using a sheet of cardboard under the documents. I did several passes, as I knew I would not have the documents available once I was able to view them on my computer. All the scans were readable and would be acceptable if the hard copy was lost or unavailable. Because many of the cats and kittens are passed on to adoption agencies, and they require proof of testing, vaccination and spay or neuter surgery, this will be excellent backup.

Great tool

I needed a hand scanner for my teaching ministry. I often use digitized textbooks, but more often than not, I need to pull additional hard copy from a book. I looked at the different options available and settled on the Munbyn Portable Scanner. When it arrived, the very next day, I might add, I put it to work. It was a no-brainer to get it started, and after a few practice runs, I was ready to go. It worked very well. After that initial use, I set it aside for about a week and then reached for it again to scan additional material, but for some reason, it would not work. I reviewed the documentation, checked out online videos, but nothing helped. Sadly, this item was going back to Amazon. Preparing to send it back, I noticed my "return window" had expired the day before. I was dead in the water. There was a sticker on the scanner that provided information for customer support. It stated 24/7 service. Sure! How many times have you seen that before? I had nothing to lose, so I sent off an email late that evening. A few hours before heading to bed that same day, I reached for my laptop to close out the evening. To my surprise, I "already had a reply from Munbyn"! It had only been a couple of hours, and they were on it. Munbyn provided several suggestions, including links to some additional videos. After checking these out and a couple more email exchanges, it was determined that my scanner was finished for good. Munbyn set up a replacement! I find this type of "online" customer service to be off the charts!