Back at home, old letters, warranties, birthday cards, postcards and post-it notes with scribbled phone numbers also are fair game. But flatbed scanners can be bulky and take up lots of scarce desk space, due to their flat-and-wide footprint. I’ve found that using a portable scanner in my office saves space and works just as well for what I need it for, which is mostly text documents.

Best Portable Scanners By Price Range

-$1-5$ Price Range: You can get low priced apps for Android smartphones and iPhones or iPads that will do in a pinch. These basically use the phones’ built-in cameras to capture images and then convert them to various formats like PDF or JPG. I would recommend using these for convenience only, as they are not practical for more than 1 or 2 pages of a document or business card. They make good scanners for receipts, like a restaurant bill, that you need to save for expense account purposes.
(1) http://www.docscannerapp.com/
(2) ScanToPDF

- Under 100$ Price Range: Your best choice here is the VuPoint Magic Wand. A handheld portable scanner that actually has some pretty good features. Very compact and light but you need to be careful when scanning since your hand must be steady as it moves across the page, as is the case with all handheld page scanners. Read my review here>>

- Under 200$ Price Range: Here you can find a few Brother basic mobile scanners like the DSMobile Scanner DS-600, which is reasonably good for causal use and quick on the go work. Read my review here>>

- Over 200$: Now we are getting into the seriously usable scanners for road-warriors- designed to give top quality results with mobility and usability in mind. In this category, you get many of the features and capabilities of a deluxe office scanner, like document feeders, optical character recognition capability (OCR), push button scanning to file, email, Excel or Word and more. Of course, they are still lightweight and small enough to carry in a briefcase.

(1) Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300- Top rated portable. My review>>

(2) Canon imageFORMULA P-150 portable scanner

(3) Canon imageFORMULA P-215 Portable Document Scanner (shown at top of page)

In this category, it looks to me like Canon is starting to challenge Fujitsu as the king of portable scanners. Canon has designed these imageFormula scanners to be fast (15 pages per minute), convenient and small. The two imageFormula models here (also confusingly branded Scan-tini) are fairly similar, with the P-215 being a little more expensive. Is it worth it? I think so.

The P-215 scanner has USB 3.0 compatibility (vs. Usb 2 only for the P-150) It is .20″ wider and 2 oz. heavier. It ships with “Advanced Text Enhancement,” “Character Emphasis,” and various other user-adjustable color settings the P150 does not; it has a built-in “dedicated” card reader slot (which accepts thick, laminated cards as well as paper biz cards and takes the place of a Portable business card scanner); its high-speed interface includes USB 3.0 along with USB 2.0 (P-150 does not); finally, Mac users should know that it is sold as “Lion-ready.”

Here is what one owner had to say about the imageFormula P150:

“here is where the P150 shines and you will need sunglasses.

1. It does receipts seamlessly. The feeder narrows down for even the tiniest gas receipts.
2. It is quick. The paper just runs through without even the slightest of noises or whirring sounds.
3. It makes beautiful scans and very rarely requires adjustments to the settings.
4. OCR is performed automatically. (doesn’t get everything but you can run OCR again with other software such as Acrobat pro etc)
5. The scan software is simple, intuitive, fast and just plain excellent.
6. You don’t have to click on any software to scan. Just stick the paper in and hit the button and voila, it scans. Then just save and your ready for the next one.
7. I haven’t had a jam yet. Seriously. Make sure you install in the included page separator component as it appears some other negative reviewers failed to do so.
8. The thing is tiny, but solid and just very cool. Dust on black is no big deal as some reviewers complain. The thing closes up and is completely protected. The gloss black is fine and quite nice actually. Take care of it, and get a HEPA air filter or something. Give me a break.
9. It doesn’t need a power cable! Just plug into standard USB and you are in business. It apparently will go faster with the included 2nd USB power cable but it’s already WAY faster than my flatbed. I suppose if you were douing a huge stack of paper you would, but I don’t want it to go any faster with the creases and folds in my documents…I’d rather see it go at a nice medium pace.
10. Yes, I tried the NeatReceipts product and save your self. It is a total waste and a real piece of inferior equipment plus it is proprietary and the software is absolutely…”

…read the rest of the review here

Click here to check pricing on Amazon.com for the Canon P-150
Click here to check pricing on Amazon.com for the Canon P-215

A3 size scanners are one size larger than the standard A4 letter size scanners. In the A series paper sizes, a graphics standard defined by ISO 216, A3 measures 16.5 X 11.7 inches. This just so happens to be the perfect size for scanning comic books.

A3 size is also used by many architects and mechanical drafters for printing out Autocad drawings. (note to engineering types: this scanner is said to be accurate to within .002%) Legal documents such as wills, deeds of property and various certificates also fit this size. Not to mention original art pieces, magazines, antique newspapers or rare books that you wouldn’t want to fold to fit into a regular size scanner.

Some of the A3 1200 Pro’s Features:

• Makes scans in full-color 9600 dpi
• USB 2 compatible
• Works with Mac or Windows
• Size: 15.1 x 3.5 x 21.9 inches
• Weight: 9.5 pounds
• Functions include scan, copy, email, fax and OCR
• Scanning resoloution 1200 x 1200 dpi
• Great Price

A Large Format Scanner for Mac

This scanner is Mac compatible. There are some complaints around the specialty forums and blogs about using it with OS 10.7 (Lion), though. Here is a review that tells you how to use the Mustek A3 1200 scanner with Mac OS 10.7 Lion.

Mustek also makes a newer model, the A3 2400, which scans at 2400 x 2400 dpi. It costs about 100$ more, but would be worth it if you need high quality scanning. Click here for more info on the A3 2400.

Here is one what owner has to say about the Mustek A3 1200:

This scanner does exactly the job for me and it does it nothing less than brilliantly. For this price, you can forget any other brand. Prices elsewhere start at 900 dollars or more. And what more do you need than good image processing, good colour bit quality and high resolution? Mustek has all this!

It has 48-bit possibility, and dpi to 1200. You need a very fast computer with a lot of memory to do that! I use 400dpi on 48-bit colour and the results are…

click here to read the full review

Software

I would highly recommend using Adobe Photoshop to capture images with this scanner, for image manipulation, color correction, editing and filing, as the software that is packaged with it is not up to the task in my opinion. Make sure you have a version of PS which is TWAIN compliant, or get a TWAIN plug-in. Use the import to Photoshop option and you will do fine. For scanning large format multi-page documents, I would recommend using Adobe Acrobat Professional; it works fine with this scanner.

Another thing about the machine that seems a little weird is there is no power indicator light to tell you whether it is on or off. You do not get options to e-mail, copy or fax scans, like on some other scanners, but most people buying this won’t care about that. You’ll need to be careful if you are transporting it to different locations on a regular basis, as the Mustek is not as robustly built as some of the higher priced brands. All of which helps keep the price low.

Check the latest price for the Mustek A3 1200 at Amazon

Most people will want to use the Pandigital Photolink for scanning and archiving old family snapshots and portraits. Why not just use a flatbed scanner? Well, that’s fine for two or three photos, but after you lift the lid a few times, place the picture, then crop it and size it in Photoshop, you’ll look the boxes of family photos in the closet and give up the whole idea.

With the Pandigital scanner, you just feed the pictures into the slot, wait 10 seconds or so, then feed in the next picture. Also, you don’t need it to be hooked up to a computer, the images are saved to an internal flash memory card, which means you can take the Pandigital over to your grandparents’ or aunts’ house and scan in all their photos, too.

The best price on the Pandigital Photolink One-Touch PANSCN06 right now is at Amazon, where it is up to 33% off list price, plus free shipping. That puts it at just under the 100$ mark. Click here to take advantage of this great deal.

A few of the Photolink’s features:

• Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Dimensions: 11.2 x 2.3 x 8.4 inches
• Memory Card formats: SD, XD, MS, MS Pro, and MMC memory cards
• File Format: JPG
• Connectivity: USB 2.0
• Resolution: 300 dpi (default) , 600 dpi
• Power Source: AC adapter
• Scanning Speed: approx 10 seconds for 4 X 6” photo at 300 dpi

The main complaint I have with this scanner is the lack of either battery or USB power. Considering the fact that it is meant to be portable, having to carry along an AC adapter brick and find an outlet to plug it into seems a bit of a letdown. If mobility is your prime concern, then go with the Vuepoint Magic Wand scanner, which runs on 2 AA batteries. (see our review here)

Resolution may also be an issue- if you need to captures to be top resolution, museum quality archival files, then you will need to sacrifice portability and go with a high quality flatbed scanner like the Epson Perfection V600. (our review here)

Here is what one owner had to say about the Pandigital Photolink:

A very nice compact scanner. Exactly what I was looking for to scan pre-digital camera pictures onto my computer. It does a very nice job on my 40 to 60 year old 2″ by 3″ pictures. It is a pleasure to view them full screen on the computer. They are much clearer and larger than the original photos, not to mention the ease of accessing photos on a computer vs. muddling through numerous photo albums.The scanner is easy to use and 100 times faster than the my computer printer/scanner. –JP.   Abridged for space. click here to read full review

For someone who just needs to scan a form or receipt once in a while for tax purposes, you are better off just getting a good flatbed scanner, for half the price, and lift the darn lid, it doesn’t take much effort. The other option I’d suggest is a mobile scanner like the Magic Wand (see my review), which has the added benefit of being small enough not to take up lots of space on your desktop. If you really need a document scanner, take a look at the real thing, like the Scansnap s1500.

Pros and Cons

The strong suit of the Neatdesk scanner is the filing and organizing system it comes with. That would be the NeatWorks 4.0 software, an applications suite. For example, it will create digital images of receipts and records of vendors, dates and totals, create expense reports and manage business and personal expenses, recognizing dates, subtotals, sales tax, and credit cards used. It also lets you keep track of expenses for tax time, and exports data to Excel, Quicken, QuickBooks, or TurboTax. Another nice thing about the software is that you don’t have to immediately organize and file the scans, after making them. That means that you can be scanning other documents while you work on sorting and organizing the ones just scanned.

The downsides to the software include the fact that it only supports the NeatDesk scanner, so once you have a big database full of documents nicely scanned, organized and filed away, you are locked into using Neat scanners. This alone makes me a little hesitant to recommend this product. Especially for a company that offers no telephone technical support. That’s right, support is by web & email only. Also, the software sore files in database with SQL Server Express, and database backups can be long and tedious.

Some of the Neatdesk scanner’s features-

• Scanner Type: Sheetfed
• Maximum Document Size: 8.5 x 11
• Scanner Element: Contact Image Sensor
• Optical Resolution: 600 dpi
• Power Source: AC Adapter
• Energy Star Compliant
• Shipping Weight: 9 pounds

The scanner is compatible with Windows 7, XP and Vista, plus there is also a dedicated Mac version, the NeatDesk 698 desktop scanner for Mac, for OS X, which allows you to scan up to 10 receipts, 10 business cards and 10 documents at once or a single, 50 page document.

This could have been a great breakthrough product, and still may be sometime in the future, with a few changes to the software, the scanner itself and 1-800 telephone support. For now, I don’t recommend it. If you still would like more information about the Neatdesk Scanner, get further details, see customer comments and latest special price on this page at Amazon.”

The other difference from the V500 is that the Digital ICE correction software works on slides and film, i.e. transparency media, as well as on reflective media (papers, books, etc.). Epson is second to none in driver support for their line of scanners, also, so whether you use the latest Mac OS or Windows 7, they have you covered.

With optical resolution of 6400 X 9600dpi, Dmax 3.4, and 48-bit color, it does a superb job of delivering crisp clean scans of slides and black and white negatives. This compares to the Canoscan 9000F’s resolution of 9600 X 9600dpi. What do these figures mean?

Resolution and Sharpness

Resolution measures the amount of information captured, and relates to the ability of an image to be enlarged. When you see a scanner advertised as having resolution of 1200 X 1200, for example, the first number represents the horizontal pixels captured by the scanners CCD sensors as they move across the image. The second number is the vertical scanning rate, as determined by the speed the stepper motor moves the sensors vertically, and does not really relate to the image quality.

To make matters more complicated, the actual sharpness of the image quality captured depends primarily on the quality of the optics the scanner’s lens is constructed of, as well as the intensity of the light source. The resolution affects more the ability to enlarge images, and the higher the resolution, the larger the image can be enlarged without sacrificing fine detail. A 3,200 dpi scan from a 35mm color negative, with Digital Ice could be printed at 11” X 13” and look at least as good as the same size print produced by a photo lab.

Getting back to the Epson Perfection V600, here are some of it’s great Features-

• 6400 x 9600 dpi resolution enables creation of enlargements from film — enlarges up to 17″ x 22″
• built-in Transparency Unit for scanning slides, negatives and medium–format film
• Includes Digital ICE® for Film and Prints to remove tears, fold lines, dirt, dust and scratches
• Includes ABBYY® FineReader® Sprint Plus OCR for converting scanned documents into editable text
• four customizable buttons for Quick completion of common tasks — scan, copy, scan-to-email and create PDFs instantly
• Energy Star compliant
• ReadyScan LED light source eliminates warmup times for faster scans and lower power consumption
• Includes Adobe Photoshop Elements, for editing and enhancing digital images
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 connectivity
• TWAIN compliant
• Weight: 9.0 lb, Dimensions: 11″ x 19″ x 4.6″

The included Epson Scan software has 4 levels of user involvedness. From Full Auto Mode for the ‘Point and Shoot’ type user, to Professional Mode for a more advanced user. If you will be using this scanner to scan color negatives, you may want to download and use Hamrick Software’s VueScan, rather than the included Epson software. VueScan has a wider range of film emulsion profile settings that can give more accurate color balance to your scans, as well as many other helpful functions such as calibration of targets.

What comes included/in the box?

• V600 scanner
• Transparency unit (built into lid)
• Film holders for: 35mm film and mounted slides & 6 x 22 cm medium-format film
• Scanner software CD-Rom
• Adobe Photoshop Elements DVD
• Start guide poster
• Hi-Speed USB 2.0 cable
• AC adapter and power cable

Here is one owner’s comments on the Epson Perfection V600:

I am very happy with the 35mm slide scans I am getting with the Full Auto Mode and 300 dpi setting. It is more than adequate for my needs to digitize my slide collection. It is very easy to load and scan slides. You lay a template on the bed which has guides to get it in the right place and drop up to 4 slides in the open squares in the guide. It takes about 2.6 minutes to scan 4 slides with the settings above. Yes it will take time to scan a lot of slides, but I am willing to take the time because of the results.  -S. Hamilton Excepted for size- Click Here to read original review

Buy the Epson V600 at Amazon

As soon as the little rollers on the bottom of the scanner start to roll across the page, the scanner light comes on and starts to capture. It will capture a crisp 300DPI (600dpi ay high resolution setting) jpeg format image straight into it’s internal memory. The device is designed to roll from the center of the book’s binding to the outer edge of the page, but you can place it sideways as well, if your book is a non-standard shape.

Note: If you do use yours in a library, be sure that you ask the librarian for permission to use a scanner. The magic wand scanner does use a high intensity light that can contribute to decay of older archival printed materials.

But the Vupoint Magic Wand is a handheld document scanner that can work well in other uses too. If you have a cramped home office with no room for a desktop flatbed scanner, it’s perfect. It is easy to grab for a quick swipe across a magazine page to save a new recipe, or for keeping receipts and business cards where you won’t lose them, on your hard drive. It even has external storage using the optional microSD card, of up to 1280 black and white images. Oh, did I mention it works great with MACs, too? It is one of the few portable scanners that is MAC compatible.

Another cool use for this scanner, if you are into home improvement, is take it along to the big box hardware store when you are shopping for tiles or wallpaper or veneer patterns. Swipe it along a sample tile, for instance, then take it home and print it out to compare how it will match the rest of your decor. Works great for fabrics, too.

VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner (PDS-ST410-VP) Specs and Features:

• Scans color & monochromatic images
• File Format: JPEG (one of few negative points. Would have been good to save in the much smaller PDF format)
• Size: 10 x 1.1 x 1.2 inches
• Weight: 7.5 ounces (less than ½ pound!)
• Scanning Speed: A4 Size: high resolution with color ≤ 28Sec; High resolution with mono ≤ 14Sec; Standard resolution with color ≤ 8Sec; Standard resolution with mono ≤ 4Sec.
• Power Source: 2xAA Batteries (battery life is around 200 min)
• External Memory Support for Micro SD cards up to 16GB

Software

The Magic Wand scanner is bundled with the optical character recognition software package ABBYY Screenshot Reader. Optical character recognition (OCR) software extracts text from images. ABBYY’s program is a screenshot reader type, one which lets you select an area of your computer screen, then extract text from the area and paste it in your clipboard. What this means is that when you scan an image of a book’s page using the Magic Wand, you are able connect the scanner to your computer with a USB cable, (it will appear on your desktop as a USB memory drive) then open the image in a picture viewer and use Screenshot Reader to capture all the text.

I would also recommend buying a microSD flash memory card when you order this scanner; you can buy a 4GB one for around 10 dollars, and it will hold hundreds of page images. Default resolution scans in color average around 500k each; higher resolution 600 dpi scans will be double, around 1MB each, so even a 1GB MicroSD card will hold plenty.

Another accessory to consider is the VuPoint Portable Magic Wand Travel Case. It is stronger than the cover that comes in the box, and has enough space to carry a usb cord, Micro SD card adapter, or even extra batteries.

Where can you buy the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner?

Strangely enough, Bed Bath and Beyond stocks this scanner, as do numerous office supply and electronics stores. If you don’t want to run around looking for the best price, you can’t go wrong with Amazon.com, prices there are always competitive and shipping is almost always free. Click here to check the scanner’s pricing at Amazon

This is compounded by the fact that what might be the best dedicated slide scanner for me may not necessarily be the best slide scanner for you. You might need to scan in an entire archive of slides and negatives that need to be crystal clear, while I just want a scanner that will allow me to put in a few of my my old vacation pictures.

What would be right for me wouldn’t even come close to being enough for you, and what would be perfect for you would be way too much machine and money for what I need. This makes sorting through reviews of slide scanners tricky, because reviews are going to vary depending on what the reviewer needed.

Having said all that, we decided to try and find out who makes the best slide scanner on the market, so we reviewed ten of the most popular models on the market. We chose from a variety of prices, from inexpensive to high end, so that no matter what you’re going to use your scanner for, you should be covered.

VuPoint Solutions Digital Film and Slide Converter

This was the least expensive of the scanners that we reviewed, so we weren’t expecting a lot from it; if it scanned the pictures in reasonably well, we’d be happy. Fortunately, it turned out to be a handy little machine.

Since it is such an inexpensive piece of machinery, (Click here for latest price) it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. You need to set the resolution and picture type with each batch, and you can only scan three pictures at a time. Within those limitations, though, the thing works more or less automatically, which makes it great for people who don’t like to monkey with technology.

One thing that we did like is that this scanner doesn’t require you to be hooked up to a computer. You can slide in a memory card and move it where you want, which is really handy when you need to scan a lot of slides. If this isn’t the best slide scanner for the money, it’s very, very close.

Pacific Image Memor-ease PLUS 35mm Film & Slide Converter

The Memor-ease is a little more expensive than the VuPoint, and as such it has a few more options that make it a little easier to use. One of the biggest differences is that it has dust and scratch removal technology built in, which is good for the casual user or for people who have older slides and negatives that have taken a beating.

This little device is also a very fast scanner, which we liked. The downside is that in terms of picture quality, this definitely isn’t the best slide scanner. For many people, it’ll be perfectly fine, but anybody who is into photography is going to find it wanting.

Plustek Opticfilm 7500 or 7600

This scanner is getting into the mid range of prices, so it’s probably better suited for people with an interest in photography or small business owners who need to extra quality for their photos. Not surprisingly, the big attraction with this is the fairly ridiculous resolution it gives you; up to 7200 dpi.

With that kind of resolution, the picture quality and color replication are about as excellent as you’d expect, and the images are reproduced with startling fidelity. The Plustek is also pretty close to being an automatic system, and it gives you a wide array of choices when it comes to colors, file formats and everything else you’d need for scanning in your slides.

The two models are similar, with the difference between the 7500 and the 7600 is that the Plustek 7600 uses instant-on LED light while the 7500 uses cold cathode lamps that have to warm up when first powered on. All in all, we’d say this was the best slide scanner in its price range.

Nikon LS 2000 Slide Scanner

Nikon is a big player in the camera world, so it’s no surprise at all that they also make slide scanners. The Nikon LS 2000 is their higher end scanner model and the best slide scanner they make for the price.

One of the big draws with the Nikon 2000 is that it uses the Digital ICE technology to remove scratches and smudges. If you’re scanning in old slides or negatives, you’re going to find that a big plus.
Picture wise, the scanner reproduces images and colors pretty much flawlessly, and the pictures look great. It gives you a full range of options in terms file formats, color options, and even allows you to do some editing.

This is a high end machine that’s primarily designed for people that are serious about their photography. If you’re just a casual user, there’s probably more machine here than you need, but it does everything you could ever want it to do.  If you would like more information about the Nikon LS 2000 scanner, get further details, customer comments and latest special price on this page at Amazon

Braun Multimag Slide Scanner 4000

If you’ve got a bunch of slides that you need scanned in a high quality format, this is the best slide scanner we’ve found. It’s expensive, but the magazine will hold up to a hundred slides and scan them without much input from you.

It also comes equipped with the Digital ICE (Digital Image Correction and Enhancement) package to get rid of scratches and smudges, as well as automatic color restoration. ICE’s technology works from within the scanner, so unlike the software-only solutions it does not alter any underlying details of the image.

This machine is really, really useful for restoring large batches of old slides, and it’s surprisingly user friendly.

Conclusion

The best slide scanner, in terms of balancing price with function, is the Plustek Opticfilm. For 99.99% of people that need a scanner, it will do everything they want and more, and the price is within reach for almost everyone that might need a slide scanner. It is available on Amazon with savings up to 48% off list retail price. Click here for more details

The overall best slide scanner has to be the Braun Multimag Slide Scanner 4000, which is professional quality, high end machine, and it shows. If you need something that powerful, this is the slide scanner that will do pretty much anything you want. The Nikon Super Coolscan 5000, a slide and negative scanner, should also be considered. (See our review here) Though it has been discontinued, it is still available in some locations in limited quantities.

slide image coutesy of Okko Pyykkö, Creative Commons

If you’re in business, be it big or small, you’re living in a hybrid world of digital document imaging, somewhere between the world of paper and the allegedly paperless future. You do virtually all of your communication by way of phones or email, but that hasn’t eliminated as much honest to god on paper paperwork as you might have liked.

Document scanning is a good way to deal with this, assuming that you’re trying to avoid being buried under an avalanche of TPS forms and their cover sheets. This is where document scanners like the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 come in handy, allowing you to store the documents digitally and shred the rest.

This isn’t to say that document scanning doesn’t come with it’s own problems including but not limited to:

• paper jams
• software issues
• storage space issues
• file corruption
• unforeseen mechanical problems

Document Scanners

If you need to keep your office organized and clutter free with a minimum of hassle, you need to buy a good document scanner, which brings us to the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2.

Hardware wise, the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 is a compact, slick looking device. The actual machine itself is the same as the original model, as the only changes were to the software system that runs it. It’s designed to accommodate paper up to legal size (8.5 X 14 inches) , so if you have larger documents, you’re going to need to look elsewhere.

Aside from the compact size, the other big thing that the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 has going for it is the sheer speed. The company specs say that the scanner will scan a document every four seconds, or fifteen a minute. The actual machine seems to work a little faster than that, which can actually add to a meaningful amount of time if you use the thing a lot.

Business Cards

While the ScanSnap is primarily intended for use as a document scanner, it also does double duty as a business card scanner, which is a feature that a lot of small businesses ignore when they really shouldn’t be. You probably get a ton of business cards and unless you have some kind of system in place, you probably spend a lot more time than you should keeping track of them.

The Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 allows you to scan those cards, transfer them to your computer and throw the originals away. This is another area where the desk friendly size comes in, because if you keep it on your desk you can do this in a flash. Instead of looking for business cards, you’ll have them right at your fingertips.

Duplexing

The other real time saver on the ScanSnap is the duplexing feature. Basically, it will scan both sides of a sheet of paper without you having to do anything, so you can actually scan thirty pages a minute by scanning both sides of a two sided sheet of paper. More, if your particular scanner outperforms company specs, which they often do.

The Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 also does a bunch of stuff automatically, which also serves to save you time. When you use the duplexing feature, it automatically orders the pages in the correct order, assuming that you had them in the right order in the stack. With other scanners, you run a real risk of having to go back in and arrange the files manually, which can eat up a great deal of time.

The ScanSnap also looks at the documents that you’re putting in and automatically switches between black and white and color, so you don’t have to fiddle with the settings if there’s something in color stuffed in the stack of paper you put in the machine. It will also automatically ignore blank pages if you want it to, which is another simple time saver.

Image Quality

With a resolution of 600 dpi, the documents themselves look great when scanned by the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2, and the controls for adjusting the image quality are simple enough for just about everybody. The normal setting, which gives you the fastest scanning time, is probably going to fine for most documents, but you might want to bump it up if the documents have fine print on them.

You should keep in mind that the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 is a document scanner, which has its own inherent limitations. While most graphics will come through fine, it is not and was never intended to be a photo scanner.

It’s not that it won’t scan them, but the resolution isn’t high enough for them to be especially useful. It also doesn’t scan greyscale, which isn’t ordinarily a problem, but I’m mentioning it here because it might matter to you.

Software wise, the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 comes with three different packages already loaded; Adobe Acrobat Basic, ScanSnap Organizer and CardMinder. As you might imagine, the latter two are there to help you manage the stuff you’re scanning in with the scanner.

You are probably already familiar with Acrobat, but the version here actually allows you to work with the documents, which is a change from the free version you usually get on the web. The Adobe program is actually pretty expensive on its own, so the inclusion here actually goes a long way to justifying the price of the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2.

Probably the worse thing that can be said about the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 is that compared to similar devices, it’s a little more expensive. You do get a lot for the money, for example the included Adobe program, and it’s a lot easier to use than many other document scanners, so we’re okay with the price. For the cost, the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2 is probably the second best document scanner, after the Scansnap S1500.

Where can I buy the Fujitsu ScanSnap fi-5110EOX2?

This scanner is available at Amazon, among other online retailers, for a great price. Click here to get more details.

(clutter image thanks to Cogdogblog & Creative Commons)

There’s a lot of information contained in pictures of any kind. Now, if you’ve just got a few photos, this isn’t going to be an issue. If, on the other hand, you’ve got an archive of, say, three thousand slides that you’re in the process of digitizing, then how much space those photo files are going to take up is something that you’re going to need to consider.

Image, Information and Space

There’s a relationship between how much information is in the photo and the amount of space that it’s going to take up as a file. Basically, the better you want the digital image to be, the more file space it’s going to take up. So, in addition to considering how many photos that you’re going to be storing, you need to consider how you’re going to use them before you decide what scanner file format is smallest.

If you’ve got a series of wildlife or landscape photos that you think you might want to blow up to poster size, then you’re going to need to store those photos at the highest resolution you reasonably can. On the other hand, if you’re digitizing old family photos that you’ll never want to view at a huge size, you can use a lot less resolution.

Formats

So, what scanner file format is smallest? Well, let’s take a look at the usual suspects:

TIF – This is lossless format, which means that all the information in the picture is transferred. If you’re a professional or want the absolute highest possible quality, this is the format that you should be saving in. The downside is that this format also takes up the most space, since the nature of the file means that nothing is compressed. If you’re scanning a lot of files in this format, you’re going to need a lot of memory.

PNG – Not a lot of difference between this and the TIF file format, except that PNG files compress the image somewhat, although this is a lossless format. If you’re storing large amounts of photos, this slight difference can make enough of a difference to be worthwhile.

JPG – If you asked most people what scanner file format is smallest, this is probably going to be their answer, and they’re not quite wrong. JPG is the most commonly used format, and it does compress the file size considerably. The downside is that it’s lossy, which means that it compresses by way of removing any redundant information. This is good for compression but can result in artifacts and bad pictures.

GIF – Now, if you ask somebody savvy what scanner file format is smallest, this is what they’ll answer, and they’d be right, but it’s more or less useless for saving pictures. If you’re interested in having halfway decent pictures, pick one of the other formats.

image by anyjazz65, Creative Commons license

Following a thorough assessment of models from every major office machine vendor, Better Buys For Business researchers and editors confirmed the KV-S1045C the 2010 standard bearer based upon criterion including quality, performance, value and positive user feedback in the areas of real-world functionality, ease of use and brand satisfaction.

“Winning a Better Buys For Business Editor’s Choice Award is one of the most coveted honors in our industry and is a validation of Panasonic’s engineering, production and marketing vision for its scanners,” commented Bill Taylor, President of Panasonic System Networks Company of America. “Unlike other publications, Better Buys For Business tests office machines head-to-head and consults the most important ‘evaluators’ of all, customers who are using them to improve their office efficiency and workflow on a daily basis.”

The 26 page-per-minute KV-S1045C features Panasonic’s “Double-Exposure” expertise for automatically scanning and combining the content of both sides of a document or ID card into a single electronic image, as well as mixed-batch scanning of paper documents and hard-plastic ID cards.

It is lightweight at 9.9 pounds, quiet, and has a low-profile/small-footprint design which makes it appropriate for service in crowded front offices and reception areas in healthcare, transportation, law, insurance, financial services and other industries where data from a wide variety of documents must be captured at its point of entry.

It is currently available at Amazon for 30% off list price.