Perfect portable scanner, July 1, 2010

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Book and Dog Lover (Massachusetts) – See all my reviews

  

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 4×6 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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Works very well, not perfect, September 13, 2010

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J. Toms (Connecticut USA) – See all my reviews

  

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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Decent scanner, room for improvement, July 15, 2010

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ThatPoshGirl “ThatPoshGirl.com” (Reno, NV) – See all my reviews

  

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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A great little scanner, October 3, 2010

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Stoney (Miami, FL) – See all my reviews

  

SUMMARY

With a few caveats, this is a great little scanner. The best part is that it actually fits in my Targus computer case WITH my laptop. It weighs only 2-3 pds, and runs off USB power—no converter brick to haul around. Scans are sharp and fast. The automatic settings work very well for nearly all typical originals (old photos, business letters, receipts, etc.). Despite some shortcomings, the price and exceptional portability may make this series of scanners the choice for scanning books—because books which need to be scanned are often non-circulating items in libraries or archives.

SHORTCOMINGS

Unfortunately, the particular design of this scanner (and all other LED-based scanners) is that (unlike most fat desktop scanners) it cannot scan 3D objects. Any portion of your document or image which is not in absolute contact with the glass patten will be very blurry. The raised frame raises the edges of any original which does not fit on the glass patten, causing the edges of scans to be blurry. This is particularly a problem when scanning books. Nor can you just press down harder—that warps the glass causing blurriness elsewhere on the page, and may even jam the scanning mechanism. However, these problems may be overcome using the strategies discussed below.

The lid is non-removable, which means that you may be out-of-luck if you need to scan part of a large object. The software is multi-layered, confusing, and difficult to configure to your best use. Caveat, I’ve used at least three brands of scanner software, none of which were well designed. From the oddly named “MP Navigator” I suggest checking the box, “use the scanner driver” for access to the “Advanced Settings”–or better yet, scan from your graphics (photo editing) program.

NEVERTHELESS

Even though the frame is a problem, it is lower (1/16″) and narrower (3/8″) than most other scanners, and so, scanning books etc. is LESS of a problem than with most other scanners.

CHOOSING AMONG THE MODELS

The hardware and “Advanced Settings” portion of the scanning program of all LiDE models (at least models 90 to 210) appears to be identical. The major differences between the models is 1) improvements in the automatic scanning functions, and 2) the rated scanning speed (which is apparently software controlled). Despite the statistics quoted, there is little practical difference between the models in scanning speed. The “slower” models are quieter, and I suspect are more reliable. Since I use only the “Advanced Settings” (never the automatic settings), the 110 is my preference, regardless of price. Canon CanoScan LiDE110 Color Image Scanner (4507B002)

The 210 may be best for children and other users who will never learn how to use the “Advanced Settings”, since it claims to have superior automated scanning. The 210 may be slightly faster when scanning small originals and/or at low resolution. Canon CanoScan LiDE210 Color Image Scanner (4508B002)

If you plan to scan books and if you do not plan to carry the scanner around much, you might consider a Canon LiDE 700. It has 2 major advantages. The right edge is actually flush with the glass surface (hurrah!!)—albeit there is still an excessively wide margin. The lid opens 180 degrees, so you can scan portions of a large object–albeit there is still an “edge problem” for the other three edges. Canon CanoScan LiDE 700F Color Image Scanner (3297B002)

SCANNING BOOKS

It is easy to scan books which have at least

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