The noise is a bit loud when in use. Roommate can hear it through the walls. Also, I feel like the button placement is a bit unintuitive. When you've got the machine set up, with your phone on the phone stand, and cards are in the stack ready to get fed into the tray... you have to reach behind the machine and push a tiny button with the very edge of your fingernail just to get it to start. It would be way nicer to have that button be not only larger, but positioned somewhere that makes sense. If I am using the machine, the phone stand is pointing to the left, the logo on the gearbox is facing me, and the button and power cable are connected on the right side. Why not make the button be facing me, near the logo, and allow me to press downward into the table to engage the button instead of pushing the machine away? I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, I had a harder time getting the ideal lighting conditions for Manabox to recognize almost every card. No fault to the machine or the app.
Thank you for your review! We agree and think you are spot on about the button placement. We are moving the button to exactly where you suggested in the upcoming variable speed version. As far as noise you might find the noise to be reduced if you place it on a playmat or other soft surface.
The TCG App does not work with this item. You are just better off buying a 15-dollar phone stand and putting a nice clean piece of white paper on the ground than an app scan showcase, extend art, foreign language cards, and even sagas/battles.
The TCG App is not currently a recommended app. But our user's have no issue scanning showcase, extended, foreign or sagas with Manabox or Delver Lens. Both these apps offer methods to export the data.
The product for sure works but needs two things; speed adjustment, and where the catch tray separates from the body there is a gap that most of the card capturing software thinks is the edge of the card and depending on the lighting makes card scanning difficult.
Love the machine! It's compact and works as advertised!
My current setup doesn't have the best lighting so my scan rates sometimes suffer.
Once you figure out the proper setup for your phone and lighting environment it's awesome. Really the only complications come from the apps. Manabox is my go to but unfortunately, it just refuses to work properly with it. Delver lense works significantly better. My only real issue is the stop/start button kinda has a mind of its own and I have to just unplug it and plug it back in if there's an issue in the middle of scanning.
Also some more adjustability on speed and such would be lovely, but I've heard that'll be coming in V2.