Brother ADS-1700W

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Brother ADS-1700W	50 IPM	600 dpi	Wireless 802.11 b/g/n, Micro USB 3.0	Yes	Yes	3.7 lb. (1.67 kg)	Click for more info

By far, our favorite and what we consider the best high speed scanner is the ADS-1700W.

First of all, the scanning speed is 25 pages per minute and if you do that in duplex mode, it will output 50 images in a minute. This is faster than anything on the market right now and it makes it almost as fast as a Fujitsu IX1500. It scans duplex documents in a single pass and the scanning speed is great even in color mode. Note: When you increase the optical resolution, the speed of scanner will decrease.

It has a generous automatic document feeder ADF tray that can hold 20 pages. The feeder seems to work smoothly without any jams. Paper jams on bad document feeders can really hurt your scanning productivity. Now it is worth noting that it might get slower when you transfer the data to your PC depending on the resolution and the way you connect it.

It is worth pointing out that it doesn’t have a rechargeable battery. You have to power it via an AC adapter and it is understandable given the power needed to scan at that speed.

This device also has a 2.8″ touchscreen for operating all the scanning functions like destinations and settings. It is the biggest LCD screen on a portable scanner ever made. It can also scan a variety of media types from thin receipts to invoices to plastic cards and ID cards using the dedicated card slot on the back.

It can scan directly to the Cloud but for some reason it doesn’t do that when it is in wireless mode, so you have to do it via USB cable through the PC software. You get WIA, SANE, ICA and TWAIN drivers. The scanning software has automatic color detection, layout orientation, background removal and color enhancement saving you time from Photoshop or other editing software.

You can also plug in a flash drive memory stick into its port and save your digital files there. You can also send your scans to your mobile device, be it Android or iOS.

The device is not exactly compact and lightweight, it weighs 3.7 lbs, but that is still good for when you are on-the-go, but there are handheld portable scanners that are much lighter. Still, you have to take into account the amount of features bundled in, including the ADF tray.

Epson ES-300W

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Epson ES-300W	50 IPM	600 dpi	SuperSpeed USB 3.01, IEEE 802.11 b/g/n (2.4 GHz)	Yes	Yes	2.9 lb. (1.31 kg)	Click for more info

The Epson ES-300W is a high speed portable scanner that has the same 600 dots per inch pixel density from its Contact Image Sensor that you get on the ADS-1700W. The scan speed is the same with 50 IPM in duplex mode and 25 PPM in simplex mode and the port speed is the same, with a 3.0 version that has the 5Gbps data transfer rate. So the scanning time for an A4 document is about 2-3 seconds. The auto document feeder capacity is a bit smaller at 20 pages but that is still very large for a mobile document scanner.

Connectivity options are the same as this is a wireless portable scanner with 2.4Ghz wi-fi embedded. It has a TWAIN driver that is compatible with both types of desktop computers: Windows PCs and Macs.

It can scan directly to the cloud to either Google Drive, SharePoint, Evernote or Dropbox along with the option to scan directly to your smartphone. It can be USB powered and it transfers the digital images to the personal computer at really fast speeds.

We also like the ABBYY FineReader Sprint software that is bundled. Using Optical Character Recognition, it can convert high-quality scanned images in JPEG, BMP, TIFF or PNG format into either searchable PDF files or Microsoft Word documents with editable text. What is interesting is that the Nuance OCR engine is also integrated and it is one of the few devices to bundle both engines.

When you scan vivid color photos, it has a 24-bit RGB color depth and when you are scanning documents or black & white photos in grayscale mode it uses the classic 8-bits of color.

Brother ADS-1250W

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Brother ADS-1250W	50 IPM	600 dpi	Wireless 802.11 b/g/n, Micro USB 3.0	Yes	Yes	3.7 lb. (1.67 kg)	Click for more info

The ADS-1250W is a toned down version of the 1700W. While it is a high speed scanner and the scanning time is virtually the same, it just lacks a few features.

The biggest difference is the absence of that beautiful touchscreen which for us is a deal-breaker. You get a few buttons to operate it and a switch to toggle between plastic card scanning or paper scanning. It also cannot scan to a network folder.

In this case we feel that the 40 USD price difference is worth paying to get the ADS-1700W, but if that model is not available then this can be a worthy fast portable scanner to buy.

Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Fujitsu Scansnap S1300i	24 IPM	600 dpi	USB 2.0, USB 1.1	Yes	Yes	3.08 lb. (1.4 kg)	Click for more info

The S1300i is one of our favorite devices in the category but certainly not the fastest mobile scanner ever made. It can scan 12 pages every minute. Still, it has proven to be one of the most reliable scanners ever made and the user ratings have been off the charts with this device.

Although it is not as fast as the first 3 high-speed scanners, the software is great, it has the entire ScanSnap bundle plus the ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap with great text recognition accuracy.

This color portable scanner has a smaller ADF tray that can only hold 10 pages with a paper size of up to A4 format and the biggest drawback is that it only has USB connectivity. The scan quality is great though, it handles photo scanning perfectly and you can really use it as a day-to-day photo scanner. You get features like automatic deskew and layout orientation, intelligent cropping and automatic color mode detection. You can choose to scan to PDF, JPEG, Word Doc and Excel.

Canon imageFORMULA P-215II

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Canon imageFORMULA P-215II	30 IPM	600 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0, USB 3.0	Yes	Yes	2.2 lb. (0.99 kg)	Click for more info

The Canon P-215 II can also be considered a fast portable scanner with a speed of 15 PPM that translates into 30 IPM when you scan with its single-pass duplex mode and its data port is fast enough to keep the data transfer rate on par with the fast scanning speed. It also lacks in connectivity just like the Fujitsu, there is no Wi-fi. But you can buy an optional Wi-fi unit.

It can scan ID cards and is also able to capture embossed cards. Out of all the scanners here that have a document feeder, this is the most compact and lightweight and provides the most mobility. It is much easier to carry having a weight of just 2.2 lbs.

It has a dedicated card slot for ID card scanning and for embossed cards, which makes it usable in different commercial scenarios. It also has a full auto mode that decides what scanning settings to apply for each scan job.

Vupoint ST 470

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Vupoint ST 470	6 IPM	1200 DPI	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	No	No	2.8 lb. (1.27 kg)	Click for more info

So far we have looked at 5 fast scanners which are productive and pack plenty of features. So why is this Vupoint Solutions Magic Wand portable scanner here? After all, its docking station can only provide about 6 images per minute which is incredibly slow and there is no single-pass duplex mode or a feeder tray.

That’s because this handheld scanner (and it trully is a handheld scanner weighing just about 0.4 lbs with the AA batteries inside) is as fast as you can make it. Let me explain: When you use it in wand mode, you can scan as quickly as your hand can move. In black & white mode, if you move your hand fast enough and keep it steady, while changing documents quickly enough you can get up to 30 images per minute. But the trick is you have to keep your hand busy and moving to achieve these scanning speeds, because that docking station will take forever to scan.

It is the cheapest high speed portable document scanner you can buy today. Interestingly it also has a 1200 dpi image resolution but the sensor isn’t nearly as good as on portable scanners like the ADS-1700W. Still, it does handle documents and photos decently and it also has a micro SD memory card slot.

Which high speed portable scanner to buy?

The Brother ADS-1700W is our choice for a fast portable document scanner but it is the most expensive.

At a lower price point it would be the ADS-1250W against the S1300i because of the wireless connectivity.

The best value in terms of speed per dollar paid that you can get is with the Canon P-215 II.

If the budget is really tight, go for the VuPoint Magic Wand as it will offer all the basic scanning options and a bit more.