CardScan Executive 800c
The CardScan Executive 800c is portable and fast, and it doubles as a powerful contact management system.

Price: $260
by John Brandon
Date Posted: 10/26/2006

Business cards are still a fact of life for most of us. We’d like to think that wireless technology, Microsoft Outlook, and the Internet are making much of the old-school paper pushing obsolete. Yet when we meet a new business acquaintance for lunch, the first thing we do is exchange business cards; we don’t beam our cards with our PDAs or smart phones.

CardScan Executive 800c is a digital tool for mobile users who understand this reality. With its three-second operation, a powerful OCR reader that correctly identifies contact data, and standalone contact management software that supports the most popular contact managers, including ACT! and Outlook 2003, CardScan deserves a place in your laptop bag.

Scan speed is the primary feature here. We scanned more than 20 cards, including a few from an accounting firm and some graphically rich cards from artists and photographers. CardScan had no problems replicating the colors and creating a contact record with the appropriate data in the correct fields for all of the cards in less than one minute—a time-saver for any business traveler.

The CardScan is certainly portable; it weighs only seven ounces and measures a mere 5.8 x 3.3 x 1.5 inches. Your laptop supplies the power through USB. The included software helps you find duplicate contacts, supports online backups, and syncs perfectly with contacts on a Palm or Windows Mobile device.

We have only one minor complaint: The blue arrow on the right side of the card reader doesn’t clearly indicate how to insert business cards. Place the card face-up so you can read it, but you might wonder at first.

At $260, the CardScan Executive 800c is far from cheap. However, if you’d rather not search your e-mail every time you want to look up a contact, this is the product to buy.