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Everyone should have a scanner on them these days, whether to safely scan travel documents, save receipts for tax season, or send physical photos to your computer or device. But the days of big, bulky scanners are over.
Those heavy units that once shared space with your printer or fax machine (remember those?) have now been replaced by portable scanners that are small enough to fit inside a shoebox.
The best portable scanners let you scan paper and photos easily, by feeding them through a small opening in the device. Tiny light sensors trace or “scan” your images and text, turning them into digital files.
Also referred to as a “handheld scanner” or “mobile scanner,” the best portable scanners these days can also scan laminated cards (like an ID card or library card), and they’re great for scanning business cards as well (to eliminate having to carry around actual physical cards). The latest portable scanners scan both black and white, and color images, with ease. Love the group pic you got at the amusement park but don’t want to buy multiple copies? Scan the photo with your mobile scanner and get a digital file to share with your friends and family.
The best part: most of these new portable scanners run on battery power, eliminating the need for wires. At a coffee shop and need to quickly scan a file? Just pull out your mobile scanner and get a digitized version of your document in seconds; the best portable scanners can scan a full-color page in as little as five seconds.
There are a couple of differences between a portable scanner and a regular scanner. For starters, a traditional flatbed scanner uses a motorized belt to move the sheet of paper through the machine, while a handheld scanner relies on the user to gently feed the paper through. A portable scanner also won’t deliver the same quality as a traditional flatbed scanner, though most new scanners do a pretty decent job at capturing text and images clearly and accurately with no bleeding, blurry or drop-offs.
The best portable scanners have space (or memory) to store up to a few thousand files internally. Once you get home, you can then transfer the content to a computer via a USB connection or WiFi. What you’ll like: all of these handheld scanners tuck easily into any backpack or bag for quick scanning on the go.
Free up your desk from clutter and pick up one of these popular scanners, to scan, store and share everything easily — no matter where you are.
