WARNING: Contains rude works tweeted in anger; adult concepts and immature computer hardware. Sharing a few hours of my life that I’ll never get back in the hope that I’ll save someone else from enduring the same saga.
It was shortly after 6pm on Thursday night and I was about to leave the office. I checked my mobile and was excited to find a new gadget, that I hadn’t heard of before, was available at Officeworks, here in Australia. Wh0o0o0o!
I immediately went googling and quicky found a video of the LG LSM-100 in action. Naturally, I tweeted my excitement at what I’d found:
15 minutes later, Officeworks did a top job of maintaining the emotional momentum:
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@ozdj @cbibb3 @VeryZoe Perhaps not fair 4 us 2 say, but we reckon the scanmouse is amazing- everyone @ OW wants one! It even recognises text |
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@Officeworks As an early-adoption sucker for just about anything, I’ll see if I can grab one tonight on way home. cc @cbibb3 @VeryZoe |
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As anyone who knows me will tell you, when my impulse-buy mode kicks in I can be pretty had to stop. So, not surprisingly, I had an LSM-100 in my hands shortly after – and then, of course, Officeworks had my hard-earned:
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The LSM-100 can allegedly scan up to A3 size! Interesting. cc @limburger2001 @cpkharris @ozmlbplayers @lisrussell @me_in_sydney |
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Unfortunately, all of the excitement (including that which I was responsible for generating) was for naught. I got home, settled in and got kicked in the guts over, and over, and over again. Let me talk you through the first 45 minutes or so.
1. Open box. Cut through a label instructing you to read the instructions about HOW TO UNBOX the item. WHAAA?
2. Yes, you need instructions to unbox the mouse without damaging it. A matrix of layered cardboard templates surround the device and must be removed in a specific order.
3. Discover an *80 page* Quick Reference Guide and 14 page User Manual. Oh dear. I should have stopped there.
4. In the box is a CDROM for the drivers. Not uncommon, but to then fail to put the software package on your website FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE PCs WITHOUT AN OPTICAL DRIVE is downright stupid. Also, so many products have updated apps/drivers since the product went into manufacture and shipped to retailers. Anyway, I headed upstairs and grabbed an external USB optical drive.
5. Run installer application from CD. Presented with three options: “Install”; “Manual Link”; “Movie Clip”. Figured “Manual Link” must be for a custom install, so I clicked it. Crash. Restart installer application – lesson learned – click on “Install” instead.
6. Installer confirms my CPU, RAM, VRAM, USB, OpenGL and GPU are OK for the product to perform. Good-o! Product appears and a picture of a mouse appears on the screen.
7. Out of nowhere, the application tells me “A new version of LG Smart Scan is available!” Wow! Thanks LG – so fscking helpful now. Seems like an important update too, “Improved: Memory usage optimization in editmode [sic]“
8. Of course, I click on the install now option. Windows downloads the update from mystery undisclosed location on the interweb. Close the main app and run the updater. BZZT! “ExiMsiLauncher Error: Failed to run program patch.exe2” [OK]
9. Blamed myself. Rebooted PC. Re-run updater again. FAILED AGAIN.
10. Decide to give it a run with the out-of-box software. While the mouse was being tracked, and the cursor moved about the screen, there was nothing happening when I pushed the SCAN button on the gargantuan mouse.
I tweeted thusly:
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Attempting to install the LG LSM-100 “Mouse Scanner”. Possibly THE WORST out-of-box experience *ever* for a basic gadget. cc @Officeworks |
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FFffffffuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Serious, LG, did you even ponder testing this software before you shipped it?! |
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Well, a number of people who I chat with were still awake and these poor souls asked a few questions – got a few answers – and, well, endured my babbling tirade of frustration. I’ll let the tweets tell the story:
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@the_lunatix If it was that easy, seriously, I could almost live with it. 96mins *AND COUNTING* to install a fsking mouse! |
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@CPKHarris LMAO! At least Samsung let you DL drivers from their website. LG don’t offer it for this device. So, when you start it, it… |
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To ANYONE that’s prepared to listen to an early-adopter, give that LG LSM-100 mouse scanner a VERY wide berth. #PieceOfCrap cc @Officeworks |
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@the_lunatix Honestly, I am a VERY patient person. But this has been a horror. Absolutely amazed. |
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@Me_in_Sydney I simply cannot recommend this product. It is NOT ready for mainstream, I’m disappointed to say  cc @Officeworks |
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@the_lunatix About to throw it into WinXP compatibility mode to see if I can make it work. |
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The LSM-100 software, now running in XP Compatibility mode under Win7, is consuming almost 350MB of RAM – haven’t attempted a scan yet! |
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I’m lost for words. Managed to get the LG LSM-100 into scan mode. Lights! Scanner! Action!…. CRASH! This is almost comical, I tell you. |
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Micro-review of the LG-LSM100 Mouse Scanner. Highlights: Included mouse pad & cleaning cloth. Lowlights: Everything else. cc @Officeworks |
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@The_Bigfella This piece of shit is so bad, I could put the transcribing job up for tender, go through quotes etc FASTER than a single scan. |
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I want to stap this LG LSM-100 Mouse Scanner with the kitchen knife I used to open the fsking box. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrdszfkjdshkhdskf |
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No, LG, really. This is just BRILLIANT! A mouse that is so fricking WIDE that you need Hulk hands to grip it? What gimp designed that? |
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But at least I’ve managed to acquire SOMETHING of an image now. Sure it looks like papier-mâché done by a drunk seagull but it did acquire. |
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Oh, yeah, yeah… that’s tops. In attempting to scan the front (A5-sized) page of the LSM-100 user guide, the app gobbles 1.2GB of RAM(!) |
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The LG-SM100 is labelled “SMART SCAN”, which is an anagram of “RUSHED TO MARKET JUNK” (well maybe not, but it should be). |
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Update: Repacking LG LSM-100 Mouse Scanner back into its the box for a refund. Hey @Officeworks, you have my permission to slap the LG rep. |
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….and so, I went to bed:
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Going to bed. Stabby as hell. Good night. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz [plink] |
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Friday! Yay! What better way to kick off the end of your week than with a walk, in the rain, back to Officeworks with a crap product for return? Again, I’ll let my tweetstream tell the story:
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For anyone who “missed” my thoughts on the LG LSM-100 Mouse Scanner last night, an executive summary: Horrible. Ghastly. Rage-inducing meh. |
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And, well, that’s pretty much where the story ends. The $129.00 as refunded and I trundled back off into the rain.
Which makes me wonder…. have you (or anyone you know you) bought one of these devices and really loved it? Colour me curious. Please leave a comment.
That’s really too bad as this kind of a gadget would help TREMENDOUSLY at my studies. :/ Maybe you had a ‘bad apple’?
Well I can’t believe it took you that long to set it up… I was up and running in 15 minutes! I downloaded and installed the update in no time with no hassle.
I’ve had no issues at all and it is functioning exactly as it should be. The character recognition is perfect and the images come out exactly as I see them on paper. Good work LG, a really good and innovative product here!
What on earth are you using? A netbook? I hope this doesn’t happen with all your peripherals…
Yep, always possible that – in terms of performance – that I got the “lemon” in the batch. However, based on the install experience and ergonomics of this device, I wasn’t prepared to waste any more time/effort to find out.
For the record, it was being installed on a Lenovo X201T (i7/8GB RAM/SSD etc) – see http://clubduh.com/blog/2010/11/01/taking-my-tablets-again/
OMG I have purchased 5 units for my business and have had not one problem
THE LSM-100 PRODUCT IS FANTASTIC
Thanks LG and officeworks for bringing new technology to Australia
Has anyone been able to install this mouse/scanner on Windows 7 32 bit!
Installs fine on Windows XP but not on W7.
Error reads: The installer msi\setup.msi could not be started.
Going direct to the exe file and the msi file on the CD does not help as the scanner fails to install correctly.
I would like to keep this but its very frustrating trying to install on Windows 7.
Any suggestions please?
Have tried filling in a support email form to LG but the form list of products doesn’t even include the Scanner and also, there are no drivers to download on the LG web site. Poor show indeed!
I saw a demo of this and thought it would be great for scanning in my 3 artwork as I only have an A4 flatbed in a hard to reach place and have no room for an A3 and thought this would be quicker. Also for some old photos and in work mode scanned printed docs to analysis in Excel. It installed in under 3 minutes (Windows 7), scanned the images well (though A3 so far is proving interesting) and does the drag and drop well. HOWEVER I have a stupid issue – I cannot close an image down after saving it, I have to close the whole program and reload to do another item. How do you do this – any help from people who are using it? Seems to be a button missing…. Any help out there. Thanks in advance.
Its Funny i am up to my 10 th mouse scanner for my business and staff keep asking for them.
We don’t work in I.T but all my staff have installed them with no trouble
I LOVE THIS PRODUCT
That’s all fantastic to hear, Chris. I’m quite sure that LG did manage to get the device working against some system configurations, as you have pointed out (albeit without specifying the OS/CPU/chipset configs used).
My only question is why did you bother visiting this page to carry-on like a manufacturer/distributor cheerleader?
That was a rhetorical question, of course.
Bought a very similar Mouse Scanner device at Brookstone (US) last week. Excited about it’s potential and ergonimics, I have been trying to install it on my quire powerful Desktop as well as on a Dell Inspiron D-420.
NADA !!!
Installation completes, the Software opens on the desktop, but the only icon which is active (on any of these computers) is the Meitanance one…
I am using Windows 7 (32 bit on my desktop and 64 bit on my Dell Laptop).
The mouse doesn’t show up on my screens, not responding to anything…!
Seems that somone in the development group of this SWISS Software company which sold the License to LG and to Brookstone, was Yodelling…. before approving it for marketing.
Considering returning it to Brookstone soon.
Paid $79.00 (US) as it was “ON SALE” with a $20.00 off….
A real bad and very dissapointing experience so far.
A CRAP !!!!!!!