Handy Portable Document and Photo Scanner

• Just glide the scanner over any document or photo to capture it in 600 x 600 dpi resolution. Scanning doesn't get any easier than this

Overview and Scan Quality:

This little scanner is lightweight, easily portable, doesn't take up much space, and is super easy to use. It takes a little getting used to to get scans straight (if you shift even slightly while scanning, table lines and rows of text will not be precisely straight). The scanned image is pretty clear and I have had no problems with bleeding, blurring, fuzzing, dulling, or anything of the like. It does sometimes pick up a bit of noise that adds a slight color in the background of monotone scans. This may confuse a printer to add that coloring should you need to print the scanned page. This scanner can scan color or monotone items and the resolution can be set to either 300dpi or 600dpi.

This is fine for quicky scans of receipts, reference material, and the like, but if you are scanning important records or anything that requires a high quality scan, you may want to practice with this thing until you get everything straight or just use a flatbed scanner for that sort of thing. You will want to scan on a white surface unless you don't mind bits of table or more significant noise showing up in your scan.

Included Software:

The software is not required in order to use the scanner and I don't like that it has no pdf option. The software takes whatever screenshot you select and will send the text to Word, a table to Excel, either to a file or the clipboard, or an image to a file, clipboard, or email. I did not bother with it since I use pdf files almost exclusively and I cannot tell you if any of the transfers are accurate. Whether you use the software or not, the scanner is recognized as a storage device and your scan opens as an image in Windows Image Viewer. If you have a pdf printer driver (such as CutePDF, which is a free download at the CutePDF website), you can simply select "print" in the image viewer and set it to full page to print the image to a pdf file. I have to admit that the scans look a lot better than I expected them to.

MicroSD Card:

The description on Amazon currently seems to indicate that the microSD card is optional. It is not, so make sure you have one when you get this scanner. It scans wirelessly and only gets plugged in via USB cable to transfer saved scans to your computer.

Batteries, Cables, Etc.:

I use mine for occasional quick scans I don't want to turn the flatbed on for, such as receipts and notes. I have not had a problem with batteries running out, but that may be an issue if you are using the scanner more heavily. I use eneloop rechargeable batteries in mine without problem. The cable is a standard USB, so if you lose it, you probably have a dozen or so lying around you can use and, if you don't, it is not expensive to replace. It also comes with a microfiber cloth for cleaning the scan window. Make sure not to use anything other than microfiber! If you lose it, the Walmart eye care center carries inexpensive microfiber cloths that will work just fine and other stores that sell glasses also carry them.

Scanning:

FYI, the image on Amazon shows the scanner going across a book page horizontally. If you will look closely, there are white lines at either end of the scanner and those indicate the scan area. For best results, start at the top of the page and move the scanner down toward you, making sure the image you want scanned stays in between those white lines. It is not picky and didn't have a problem with me being a little jerky. Any side-to-side movement will result in slightly jagged lines, but the direction it scans came out just fine even though I am not very good at keeping an even pace.

Conclusion:

This scanner is great for quick scans or on-the-go scanning. The results are crisp and clear with minimal effort and retrieving scans from it is very simple.

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I received this product in good order and in a timely fashion. It was pretty simple to operate, but it eats batteries. so make sure you have some extra ones on hand.

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After purchasing my own mini SD card and my own batteries, I was ready to do some scanning.

It is a good as it claims to be! For storing good printable scans of Black and White and colour documents, the 300 dpi is more than adequate. 600 dpi tends to produce bulky documents (more than 2 MB). Unless you have a picture with some fine details that need magnification later on, the 500 900 kb file size produced by 300 dpi is sufficient. The maximum time it will take to scan an 8.5 x 11 inch paper is 12 seconds (colour, 600 dpi) but since I use the 300 dpi all the time, the recommended time is less than 5 seconds. Very quick!

It takes a little practice getting to know which side to orient the scanner not to produce an upside down image or a laterally inverse one. Unless you have Parkinson's disease, most people's hands will be steady enough to scan wonderfully crisp images. The problem is that some documents/book pages have staples, dog ears and other impediments that make it difficult to roll over a flat surface evenly. As far as surfaces go; I recommend laying the document on top of a pane of glass, which allows for a frictionless gliding motion. I tried to press the document page flat onto the reverse side of the glass pane and scan from the other side of the glass but unfortunately, unlike flatbed scanners, this results in a blurred image. It seems the thickness (1/4 inch) of the glass was too much to get a good scan.

I really have fun with this scanner but of course wouldn't recommend using it to scan entire books. I only use it to grab magazine articles and to scan receipts and the like, but it would also be excellent for pictures.

A 1 GB SD card is more than sufficient memory. I have been scanning non stop for weeks now and must have hundreds of documents and still haven't used half of the memory. The autoshutoff after 2 minutes saves on battery life, which has only needed replacing once since the 4 weeks I've used it daily. A caveat since human hands are unsteady by nature, chances are that after doing many scans, some will end up with characters on the page which are stretched or compressed a bit (portions where your hand glided too quickly or got stuck on a dog ear). So don't buy this if you have to produce large numbers of flawlessly reproduced documents or else you'll be disappointed or find you have to strive too hard for perfection.

I definitely believe this is a good buy, though some may be put off by having to buy your own sd card and batteries (which is a significant cost). But most phones have micro sd cards now, so that could be substituted and there are always some old batteries lying round the house right? (in the remote control maybe?).

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The scanner works basically as advertised. We will keep it. It is not difficult to use. My only complaint is that I wanted it to convert text into Word. I just could not get the included software to give me anything but gibberish when converting from optical to a Word formagt.But the device is easy to use and does a fine job of scanning and downloading optical files so I can save scanned documents but I cannot edit them.

All I expect in a sub $100 scanner is here. Works reliably and clearly on flat documents. No required install of bloatware on a Macintosh. After you install batteries and a micro SD card (not supplied!) you format the card, set the time, calibrate with a piece of white paper and go. There are two options, low/high (300 or 600 DPI), and mono/color. These settings are not persistent between restarts. The device always scans full-width, about 8", and is quite tolerant of jerky scans. When you plug in to a computer using the included USB cable the scanner appears as a digital camera device and all of the jpeg's are in a single folder. There is no OCR software included for Macs so you have to use your own solution here.