Brother DS-600 DSMobile Scanner - Retail Packaging

• Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
• Small, compact design: Measuring 1.5" in height, 2.0" in depth, 11" in length weighing only 12.2oz.
• The DSmobile 600 provides the versatility to scan media from business card size to 8.5 x 14" paper size.
• The unique USB power/data interface draws power directly from the PC and comes with a detachable USB cable.
• The DSmobile 600 connects to a high-speed USB 2.0 interface yet only consumes only 0.2W of power when in standby mode

The DS-600 scanner is a super light-weight scanner that barely takes up any room on your desk. I admit that when I opened up the box and saw this scanner, I didn't expect it to work all that well it seemed too small and too light to do a good job. However I was pleasantly surprised.

Although it's tempting to connect everything at once, there is a warning that you must install the driver and scanner software before connecting everything. The CD-ROM offers the install in several languages and it is very easy (and quick) to install everything needed.

I scanned several documents of various sizes a one page black and white document in a very small font, a take-out menu, a business card, some pages in bright colors with lots of contrast, and several photos. All documents scanned perfectly the small fonts of one document were clear and scanned to match exactly the existing document. For the color documents the one document with bright colors and high contrast and the photo (with faded colors) were identical to the original documents. Note that you can't modify the documents (for example, some scanners provide options to tweak photos that's not available here.)

You can save documents in PDF, JPG and TIFF format. File names and locations are easy to change. You can save documents in these sizes: letter, legal, A4, B5, A5, A6 and Business Card. There are options and settings that you can customize, but you don't need to it works perfectly straight out of the box.

Documentation (besides the piece of paper that warns you to install the product before plugging in the scanner) consists of a ~50 page User Guide in PDF format that's on the CD-ROM. I'd say "User Guide" is a misnomer as while it does a good job describing how to install (for Windows and Mac systems) the scanner driver, Dsmobile scanner, and PageManager, it barely describes how to "use" the scanner (besides connecting it, calibrating, and clicking the desktop icon). The DSmobile scanner comes with two 4x6 sleeves which besides telling that you should clean them, are never described (I'm assuming you should use them to scan photos as that's how I used them). The scanner's options and ability to customize also aren't documented. Luckily the product is easy to use.

The CD-ROM also lets you install PageManager vsn 7.x which you can use to view, organize, edit, and send your digital files. I didn't play too much with PageManager, but it appears easy to use.

With a carrying case included, this is one scanner that you can easily take with you. If you want a scanner that doesn't take up a lot of room and does exactly what it should, check out the DS-600.

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I have bought three of these for my business, to scan documents from the road and send them in to clients. I only use black and white at 300dpi, which creates a very small file but a very clear image for documents. This scanner does the job well, and none of my three scanners has broken down yet, after 6 months of light use. There are several drawbacks:

1) Almost every page gets scanned in a little crooked. I'm thinking that there is a knack to getting it to go through perfectly straight but I haven't figured it out yet, one of my employees does pretty well though. Anyway, it is good enough, but still annoying

2) The whole process is tedious with multiple pages, hand-feeding one at a time, going through the program to tell it to scan each page. I shouldn't complain because this is a portable scanner, but one day maybe someone can make a portable scanner that can handle multiple pages by itself.

3) Occasionally it has trouble identifying that a piece of paper has been put into the scanner. The easiest solution for me has been to unplug the USB connection, plug it in again and try again.

4) You can only scan individual sheets, you can't scan out of books, newspapers, etc., like the HP Capshare 920. (The Capshare is unique in that it was made in the 1990's and is still better than anything on the market today. Unfortunately they stopped making it, you have to find it on Ebay.)

Everything else is great, it gets its power from the USB connection and does its job.

Update 2/24/2011: It has now been a year, and all three scanners are still running strong, no problems. Problem #3 that I mentioned above has ceased to be a problem, I think I was somehow putting the paper in wrong. You have to slide the paper in far enough to trip a tiny switch, and then allow the scanner to automatically pull the paper in about an inch before you start the scan.

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I've used this scanner to scan documents for work, as well as pictures and drawings. I thought it worked fine for scanning documents into Adobe Pro. I didn't have any problems running OCR after scanning my paperwork. For images and drawings, I am unimpressed.

Even at 600 dpi the scans were unclear, with lost information. One drawing I scanned just looked like chicken scratch because the scanner couldn't read the finer lines. It also doesn't have anything to guide your document through the scanner. I would have been easy to include a small guide bar that swings out from the document feeder area. Without the guide it is difficult to feed documents through straight.

Another issue I had with it is that it doesn't know when it is not scanning something. For instance, if a document isn't far enough in to be caught by the feeder, the scanner will still scan even though there is nothing feeding through. If you are in a hurry, this is a huge waste of time.

Overall, I think this is an average mobile scanner. It is fine for documents, if you have nothing else available, but I wouldn't want to use it on a regular basis.

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Brother's DSMobile Scanner produces great results as a scanner, to take on the go with your laptop. It doesnt plug in, but draws power from the laptop, like when you load up your MP3 player. It's small, about ten inches long, and 2-3inches wide, and comes with a leatherette drawstring carrying case, that also holds the USB/ scanner cord. Along with the scanner, cord and pouch, comes all the software you need, plus a bunch of more common software, which you MIGHT need, and not have. (for example, you can download a trial version of MICROSOFT WORD, and also a free copy of PFD document expansion software.) The whole Scanner kit can have you up and running, within minutes of pulling it out of the box for the first time. You just have to download the scanner software, before you scan your first document. The scans look beautiful. The only problem I had was the first scan i made of some medical document, because I fed the paper into the scanner a bit off sides, so the image came out slightly lopsided. Scans after that, which included color artwork, black and white drawings, and greyscale drawings, all came thru without a hitch.

There is a small downside, with this scanner, and no doubt it's obvious. With the large desktop scanners, if you want to scan something out of a book, a magazine, or artwork from a sketchbook, etc, you can lay it flat on your scanner, and it can scan the art or book pages without problem. The DSMobile Scanner however, can only scan SINGLE PIECES of paper. For most of the use a portable scanner like this might encounter, that wont be a problem. These portable scanners were made for scanning almost anything.....exam papers, medical or legal documents that may not leave an office, photos at a friends house who doesnt have digital technology, and pages at a reference library. For the same reason a laptop works well as the portable version of a desktop computer, this scanning stick works as a portible version of the large, heavy desktop printer scanners. The software for scanning was designed for ease of use, by anyone at all conversant with computers. Before you scan, the software asks you the size of the paper, if you want to scan in color, B&W, or greytones, and that's everything. The other software allows you to keep your documents organized, for example, medical documents in one folder, artwork in another folder, or your credit card bills in another folder. Overall, I find that it scans a little faster than my desktop printer/scanner. Almost anyone with a laptop, will get a lot of use out of this device.

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The Brother Dsmobile 600 is an excellent, high quality product that has no negatives associated with it since I've been using it. Its benefits are numerous: very fast and easy to install, so light and compact that it fits conveniently in virtually any carrying case, is powered by a USB connection, easily creates PDF & JPEG files, provides an auto-start option as you feed multiple pages, comes with its own carrying case and a 6-ft cable, and, most importantly, provides very high quality color scanning of a variety of types of documents and photos up to 8 1/2" X 14". Very highly recommended.