Business card OCR scanning - Sony Ericsson P990? Or something else?

I've had half a mind for some time now over the Sony Ericsson P990 and
today the charger of my chunky old moby has just expired, giving me an
excuse to check pricing.

I'm a bit skint at the moment, but the P990 seems to be available at
decent prices (c £50) on the same sort of contract as my current one.

For me, the P990's killer feature - what got me excited about it in the
first place, nearly a year ago - is the way you can photograph a
business card with the built-in camera and it'll automagically whack all
the details in your address book.

I hear the Symbioan o/s is nice, IMAP mail works on these phones, and
gather that it'll ply nice with my Apple Mac for syncing contacts &
stuff.

But I'm not really sure the style of the P990 is for me - I fear I'll
break the flip-bit, and I just like the look of the
K750/K790/K800/K950/whatever better.
Do any of these also do the magic card-scanning trick, please?
I had understood this to be a feature supplied by the latest version of
the operating system, rather than an app added by Sony Ericsson, but if
I Google for "Sony Ericsson card scanner" only the P990 is mentioned in
the results.

Googling for "business card OCR mobile phone" returns a bunch of results
relating to Windows Mobile (tm) devices - I had an XDA IIi before, and
I'm not in a hurry to bother with anything similar again. For a start, I
found it far too large - I really want something that'll fit in a jeans'
pocket. My favorite mobile ever was a tiny little Motorola clamshell -
it was terrible for texting, but if I could find something that size
with the business card scanner it'd be perfect.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Stroller.

On 22 Mar, 01:13, Stroller <strol...@bigfoot.com> wrote:

<snip>
> But I'm not really sure the style of the P990 is for me - I fear I'll
> break the flip-bit,
<snip>
On other SE Smartphones (P800, P900, P910) it's possible to remove the
flip - there is a tool in the box to do so. This may be the case with
the P990.

I've not come across any other SE models with the Business Card
Scanner software.

Regards

Pete

Pete Fotheringham wrote:
> On 22 Mar, 01:13, Stroller <strol...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>> But I'm not really sure the style of the P990 is for me - I fear I'll
>> break the flip-bit,
> <snip>
> On other SE Smartphones (P800, P900, P910) it's possible to remove the
> flip - there is a tool in the box to do so. This may be the case with
> the P990.

I think there may be. Whenever I look at the 990 it just looks kinda
boring, tho',

> I've not come across any other SE models with the Business Card
> Scanner software.

Thanks. I think I'll suffer a boring-looking moby. I'm a little
surprised not to have gotten more responses, but anyway, the business
card OCR thing is super-cool. I'll give O2 a call later today.

I appreciate your help,

Stroller.

On 23 Mar, 14:35, "Pete Fotheringham" <pete.fothering...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 22 Mar, 01:13, Stroller <strol...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>> But I'm not really sure the style of the P990 is for me - I fear I'll
> > break the flip-bit,
>
> <snip>
> On other SE Smartphones (P800, P900, P910) it's possible to remove the
> flip - there is a tool in the box to do so. This may be the case with
> the P990.
>
> I've not come across any other SE models with the Business Card
> Scanner software.
>
> Regards
>
> Pete


What is the point of a scanner?

Just copy the number and name etc into the contact list

dg

On 24 Mar, 01:38, "dg" <drgree...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 23 Mar, 14:35, "Pete Fotheringham" <pete.fothering...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 22 Mar, 01:13, Stroller <strol...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>
> > <snip>> But I'm not really sure the style of the P990 is for me - I fear I'll
> > > break the flip-bit,
>
> > <snip>
> > On other SE Smartphones (P800, P900, P910) it's possible to remove the
> > flip - there is a tool in the box to do so. This may be the case with
> > the P990.
>
> > I've not come across any other SE models with the Business Card
> > Scanner software.
>
> > Regards
>
> > Pete
>
> What is the point of a scanner?
>
> Just copy the number and name etc into the contact list
>
> dg- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

That has to be the daftest question ever posed on a mobile phone ng,
the OP wants a cool toy and that's what drives the whole industry!

Most people upgrade their phones to get the latest toy or for fashion
reasons, not 'cos their old phone is knackered.

I agree with your point though, that feature wouldn't persuade me to
buy that phone over other features or the look and feel of another
model.

Mike

Mike wrote:
>>> ...
>> > I've not come across any other SE models with the Business Card
>> > Scanner software.
>>...
>>
>> What is the point of a scanner?
>>
>> Just copy the number and name etc into the contact list
>>...
>
> That has to be the daftest question ever posed on a mobile phone ng,
> the OP wants a cool toy and that's what drives the whole industry!
>
> Most people upgrade their phones to get the latest toy or for fashion
> reasons, not 'cos their old phone is knackered.
>
> I agree with your point though, that feature wouldn't persuade me to
> buy that phone over other features or the look and feel of another
> model.

Whilst I admire your cynisism, for me this is potentially quite a useful
feature.

Yes, I do find the business card scanning "cool", unique and clever but
since my mobile phone use is not demanding and the most important thing
to me about a mobile is that I can dial a number with it, I can afford
to indulge that whim occasionally. If the "cool" features turn out to be
of no benefit, therefore, I don't suffer from having discarded some
other feature - I can still make calls with the phone, which is the
important thing.

After about 5 years of using the cheapest no-frills phones I could find,
hand-me-downs from mates for free or a tenner when I lost or broke the
previous one, I heard acquaintances boasting of being given "free" and
very snazzy phones to stay with their carriers and figured I might as
well jump on the bandwagon. A couple of my recent mobiles have therefore
been subsidised by my contract, each a few months after the last one
ended, and I haven't paid more to stay with the provider I've been with
for years than I would have by getting the phone with a contract from
another provider. In other words, I haven't been inconvenienced by this
indulgence, and I don't find £40 for a phone to be an extravagence (the
£150 or so I paid for my XDA IIi was, perhaps - what a useless piece of
crap! But that's another matter.)

Defensive, aren't I?
Methinks I protest too much!

Anyway, I've yet to find a phone with an addressbook that is easier to
use than scribbling the name & number on a piece of paper (which I will
lose c 50% of the time), so any improvement has to be worth a shot.
Entering a phone number in the addressbook is about 10 keypresses, but
using the typical numeric keypad in which the 1 button maps to ABC,
entering the name is quite a few more; because I already have a "Dave"
in my addressbook I must always add a surname, profession ("Dave
Plumber"), or whatever. Because I'm self-employed and the nature of my
business, most of the people I want to add to my addressbook do have
business cards - adding name, mobile & landline numbers with mere
"capture" and "process" button-presses could save me quite a bit of key
entry (especially on those occasions when I find myself recieving a
number of cards that I'd like to have in my addressbook). I find
searching an addressbook for Dave's landline number and adding his
mobile number to that addressbook entry to be slightly clumsy but this
is better than having two separate entries for him; so having the OCR
feature capture the whole lot at once and adding in company name & email
address is quite appealing.

The P990 arrived on Tuesday, I think, and it's early days yet to say
whether this feature will live up to its promise (or "hype" if you
prefer). Scanning a couple of cards here it has resolved the numbers
perfectly but is a bit more hit & miss on name, company name, address &
email. So I have mixed feelings right now & will have to see whether
these inaccuracies are due to the font & its size used on these
particular cards.

Stroller.