I've been using this scanner for six months and have come past my initial enthusiasm to a more settled satisfaction. The scanner is fast and gives results as good as any scanner I've owned--and I've owned a number over the years. Moreover, it's a classy little instrument--well-built, folds up into a perfect little glossy black box. I leave it on a window ledge in my living room and except for the cords, it doesn't look out of place.
I've found that convenience is the most important factor in my life with scanners. It can be fast, but if it's bulky or ugly and I have to put it away when I'm done with it, then it's inconvenient to use and I get tired of it. My multi-function printer/scanner is fast, but woefully inconvenient. Either it won't work on the network, its driver won't work with my computer, or it's physically distant because I don't want it near the living area of my house. I never use the thing to scan.
I also have a little NeatWorks scanner. It's small and convenient, but slow as molasses in January. I hate waiting on it. And I have a Canon plate-type scanner. It does beautiful scans, but it's slow and though slim, still too large to leave out in the living room.
This scanner's chief charms are its looks, compactness and speed. It's physically fast. It's also fast on the software side. I plug in the scanner, hit the big scan button and the scanner fires up its software utility on the computer, scans the document and asks me where I want it saved. That simple. One button and you're done: from plugging in the scanner to scan on your desktop it's a matter of seconds.
One positive about the scanner I didn't fully appreciate when I ordered it is its ability to do double-sided scans without a second pass through the machine. It incorporates two scan surfaces into its feed allowing a double-sided scan with just one pass through the machine.
The negatives which have become more apparent to me over time are few but significant. Most significant in my mind is the machine's inability to sheet-feed certain types of paper consistently. I use legal pads for handwriting and then scan my notes. The scanner is unable to grab one sheet at a time with this paper. It does better with thinner, flimsier, cheaper paper. Good quality paper causes it to grab three and even four sheets at a time. This is a real frustration.
Less frustrating is the automatic duplexing capability. Sometimes I want only one side of a sheet, but if there's anything at all on the back it gets scanned as well, leaving you with an extra page you must remove from the scan. Since I own the full version of Acrobat I can do this easily, but I'm not sure this would be so easily accomplished for someone possessing just Acrobat Reader.
Finally, when folding the machine up into its little box it's important to close the paper guides first. If you forget, they'll get force-closed by contact with the inside of the box, but I suspect over time such contact could break the guides. Canon imageFORMULA P-150 Portable Document Scanner (Scan-tini)
The Scantini replaces my Canon multifunction photo printer/scanner/fax machine, the MP830, after its scanner head broke recently. For document scanning, this device is superb. It offers high scan quality, duplex scanning (both sides at once), TWAIN driver support (so you can use it with Photoshop, Acrobat, etc.) and is very small. The Canon driver for Mac OS X also offers good options and tweaks. I researched several other document-focused scanners and found this to be the best on paper. I haven't been disappointed.
My scanning setup (for documents) is to scan at 600dpi into Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro for the Mac, which gives you great print scanning with its ClearText feature enabled. I scan all of my financial docs, interesting magazine articles, etc., so it is a mix of glossy magazine pages and matte laser printouts. After scanning, I use Acrobat's "Reduce File Size" option to make the PDFs a manageable size. The Scantini image quality is great, at least the equal of the MP830, and it works very fast.
Part of the speed ability for the Scantini is its duplex support. Some scanners, like the MP830, offer duplex by means of running the document through twice. This takes twice as long as the Scantini, which scans both sides of the page at once, and increases the likelihood of a paper jam.
The Scantini stands apart from some of its smallish, document scanning competitors like the Fujitsu Scansnap by offering TWAIN support with its drivers. This allows you to use the Scantini with programs that support the TWAIN imaging interface, such as Photoshop and Acrobat. Without TWAIN support, you cannot scan directly into Acrobat. I believe you have to use the bundled scanner software to produce the PDF, then import that PDF into Acrobat for any further work. Beyond creating an extra step, this may result in reduced scan quality, since Acrobat is not working directly on the raw scanned image.
A final plus is the small size. The Scantini takes up little space on your desktop and folds up neatly when not in use. It can run off USB power from your laptop and could be taken on a trip, although I wouldn't do so (a bit too big for that and I'd be worried about damaging the scanning head if it was jostled in my bag).
Note that I've found the Scantini works great with anything short of a rigid photo or other document. The scanned item needs to be slightly flexible and not too thick to go through the scanner. A photo could go through fine, although the scan quality would be reduced compared to a flatbed scanner that offers greater dots per inch than the 600dpi of the Scantini. I tried scanning a glossy, rigid football game ticket and got poor results, as the thickness of the ticket caused it to skew as it went through the scanner.
Also, I give it 4 stars for value for the money because it is expensive (my Canon MP830 multifunction device was $300, I believe, and did more tasks than scanning documents), but it is price-competitive with other inferior (as best as I can tell) document scanners and offers better performance at document scanning than a multifunction device would. - Scanner - Canon - Portable Scanner - Canon Scanner'
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