CZUR Shine Ultra Pro A3 Scanner Book Scanner 24 MP Portable Document Scanner with OCR, High-Speed Scanning for Home Library Schools and Offices, Czur Scanner Support HDMI, Windows/macOS/Linux

Great product easy to set up quality is great and super easy and quick to scan large text book/notepads

I was a little unsure having read the negative reviews of this and similar models & products, but glad I took the gamble and purchased it. My use case it to scan diaries & scrapbooks with photos from a WWII veteran before they fade away. The books could not be scanned on a my HP flatbed printer scanner. The quality and ease of scanning seems good to me. The main gotcha is its connector for the pc/laptop is old style USB so if yours have only USB-C then you will need a USB to USB-C converter.

Very easy to set up, portable, excellent quality and quick to scan, low power consumption.

As above, I got a bit blinded by the stream of fantastic reviews on YouTube...people who received a nice freebie. I think you're paying for the convenience and flexibility of these lightweight scanners. Very susceptible to changes in ambient light in the room, can't use the provided light for scanning anything glossy as it shows badly on the scan. Biggest issue for me though was the fact it repeatedly cropped off the top of the brochures I was trying to scan in...as per attached picture..there should be a cm gap between the writing and the top...it missed this 9 times out of 10....for every page where there was text at the top of the image. Aside from that, decent quality scans, lacking a bit of colour but frankly, not as good as my much cheaper Epson flatbed. Returned rather quickly unfortunately. Just didn't work for my type of useage. Probably great for scanning books and text.

This document scanner fills the gap between just taking pictures with your phone, and a dedicated flatbed scanner (and in some ways may be easier to use than a flatbed). The setup is simple with a camera and a light that fold out from a rotating tower. The tower base contains a USB C port (and some cable channels so it will sit flat with the cord connected), and fits into a notch on the scanning mat. The scanning mat doesn't lay especially flat out of the box, but it's mostly just there to provide a neutral background so that is fine, and it is flattening out with use. There is a power button that turns the light on and off. The tower can also be rotated to use the camera as a webcam. You will want to use their software with the device. The camera does not appear as a scanner in Windows (even after installing their software) so you can't use normal scanning tools. It does appear as a camera, but with the light turned on everything is overexposed. Their software is decent. In a bit of a blast from the past, they include a copy on CD, but I found it easier to just download it. In another somewhat dated feeling maneuver it requires you to enter the long serial number from the base of the unit to license the software. Once that is done things are pretty good. Going into scan mode allows you to quickly and easily scan documents and for single pages the autocrop seems to work well (though it fails to detect orientation from the text, which I thought it was supposed to be able to do). It doesn't like scanning from books with facing pages, being unable to identify a single page, and with no facing pages option even if a book is small enough to fit in the scan area (see photo). There is an autoscan option that can be useful for flipping though single page content but it won't give you a chance to scan facing pages or backsides of pages so things can quickly get out of order or lost. Still could be useful for getting trough a bunch of single sided pages quickly. Scan quality looks decent, though is only available in jpg which isn't great from an archival standpoint.

I really wanted to try one of these scanners for a while. There are in fact, a number of models with different size and resolution limits I believe. The scanning resolution depends on the page size or object that I scan. It states an A4 is 340 DPI and A3 (just shy of 11 x 17) is 245 dpi. The former is not terrible but if you want to enlarge something, it's not really enough. I always use my flatbed scanner at 600 dpi for artwork and text etc. An overhead scanner like this one can also do 3d items. But the closer they come to the light source, the more chance there is of shadows and (depending on the surface, glare) caused by the built-in lights. The magic and price point is focused on the unique curve-flattening technology in the software. Again, I've heard that the upper-end version has better functioning software. You can then theoretically use OCR software to convert the image into editable text. I didn't try that out. To its credit, there was some flattening of the page. So if I were needing to scan text documents in a public library, from magazines or books, this would be a huge asset. It's light and portable and can be connected to a laptop. But if I wanted the images from a book to use and maybe enlarge, this scanner isn't going to be your BFF. Overall, I wish it came with double the resolution. I'd still like to try the upper-end machines and see whether they do a better job.

Nice scanner. We needed it because we are getting bigger print jobs and our printer is always busy. So I set up a little station with this attached to an older laptop. It was easy to setup, you just have to download the software and you are up and running. We love that its so compact! Ordinarily we would have had to buy another all in one machine to provide scanning services. But this takes up almost no room.! I like that its so simple to use, we didn't need to hold a training class. Also I like that its mobile. I do loan signings too. For smaller loan packages this works great, but because you can only scan things 1 page at a time. Its not good for loan signs.

My dad has an older, bigger CZUR scanner so I was familiar with their products and capability. I got my hands on this Shine Ultra portable version and it is every bit as useful for basic work. This is a purpose built device - a book scanner and document camera. If you want to scan flat papers, you can do them with this but there are much more convenient (and portable) options for sheetfed scanners. If you want to scan books or anything with dimension to it, the CZUR approach is going to be much friendlier. This particular scanner is very nicely built. Metal and plastic where appropriate, and folds down reasonably compactly for transport. The box it comes in is nicely padded with durable foam and so it makes a decent carrying and storage case, and folds down to about 6"x8"x16". That's larger than my full size Scansnap scanner, so portable is relative. But as book scanners go, this seems to be pretty compact. Setup is easy - flip out the arm (it stops precisely at 90 degrees to keep the camera level), set the camera height as necessary, put out the black document pad and plug in the foot pedal and the PC. Using the foot pedal to trigger you can build a nice pace and scan a whole large book in not much time. CZUR's software does a good job straightening out the curves of book pages and performing OCR on the text, so it's easy to get searchable PDFs or even Word docs by scanning. If you have a need to scan books and can be OK with keeping it under A3 (approx. 11x17" size), then this is a good scanner to check out.

I actually work at an archive that uses one of the big fancy scanners from this brand, so I was absolutely thrilled to find one to have for myself. The setup is simple and software is easy to use once you go through it a time or two. The scans are excellent quality and being able to export in searchable PDF format is so helpful for written documents. Overall the OCR is very accurate, but if you have some older pieces that are faded, or some handwritten pieces, it doesn't get it all perfect (but I feel like that's reasonable?). This is a very convenient size to have at home - it folds up nicely to store in my desk drawer. Overall so happy with this brand's products. Excellent value for the capabilities it provides.