Epson DS-30

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Epson DS-30	4 IPM	600 dpi	USB 2.0 Type Mini-B	No	No	0.7 lb. (0.31 kg)	Click for more info

The Epson Workforce DS-30 is a portable business scanner from Epson that was designed to be light, easy to carry around with more professional software.

The scan speed is slow, it can only do 4 pages per minute and this is one of the big minuses of this portable sheetfed document scanner. There is no duplex scanning mode and no ADF tray, which is expected as this price. But be aware of the fact that for the same cost, you can get a Brother DS-720D which scans documents with 2 sides in a single pass and probably has the worst OCR this planet has ever seen.

The automatic feed mode system will take anything you throw at it, business cards, id cards and receipts just to name a few.

This compact mobile document scanner has a USB connection and you can just power it via USB cable, no other power supply is needed, no batteries or external power. This applies to all the color document scanners listed here. The daily duty cycle is up to 3,000 sheets which is desktop scanner level. I don’t think you can even scan 3,000 pages in one day.

The great thing is that the software included consists of ABBYY FineReader Sprint 9.0 (Windows), Epson Document Capture Pro (Windows only), Presto! BizCard 5 SE. The software comes with WIA and TWAIN drivers compatible with windows and mac.

You use the ABBYY for Optical Character Recognition and in my opinion it is the best choice. The Nuance engine never works as well as this one. Plus, it being a standalone version you get extra file formats like Word Documents with editable text and searchable PDFs together with many OCR features that you don’t get when they just put the engine inside the scanning app.

The Document Capture Pro app has better post-processing plus some features you would get with a document management software.

Epson DS-40

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Epson DS-40	4 IPM	600 dpi	Wireless 802.11 b/g/n, USB 2.0 Type Mini-B	No	No	1.1 lb. (0.49 kg)	Click for more info

When you compare the Epson ES-50 vs DS-40, the price difference gets even bigger, because this scanner for documents has Wi-fi connectivity.

So you pay almost an extra 100$ for the following: better OCR and document management software, Wi-fi connectivity. But now the price is so big that we get into the market for other kinds of scanners that have more features like the Fujitsu Scansnap IX100, Iris Iriscan, Doxie Go Se, Brother ADS-1250W, etc.

But indeed, this wireless mobile scanner is a complete package and if you need the extra features, it is the best choice. What I don’t like is that Epson chose not to bundle in any receipt management software with these portable scanners and instead chose to create different models specially for that. Brother ships receipt software with its scanners for a lower price and doesn’t charge you for the premium.

The weirdest thing about this wireless portable document scanner is a piece of what we think is wrong information about its daily duty cycle. Every official document from Epson states that it has a daily duty cycle of 25 pages per day. Yes, you read that right, given that the Epson DS-30 can do 3,000 per day it is clear that somebody here is very wrong and I would not trust that information even though it has been taken and passed around also by third party websites and reviewers.

Epson ES-50

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Epson ES-50	5 IPM	600 dpi	USB 2.0	No	No	0.59 lb. (0.26 kg)	Click for more info

The Epson workforce ES-50 is the second best here in terms of value. You get all the basic features without the fancy software. For example, it uses the basic Epson scanning app.

If you look at the Epson DS-30 vs ES-50, there is a 40-60$ (depending on the prices on Amazon) price difference. And that difference is only in the software because it comes with Capture Pro and ABBYY bundle.

If you don’t use OCR very often, then it won’t be justified, because this one has OCR too, just not as good.

The daily duty cycle of the ES-50 portable scanner is much lower at 300 scans per day, not 3000.

Epson DS-70

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Epson DS-70	11 IPM	600 dpi	USB 2.0	No	No	0.59 lb. (0.26 kg)	Click for more info

The Epson DS-70 portable document scanner is the only model here that comes with a 3-year limited warranty from Epson America.

In the Epson ES-50 vs DS-70 comparison, the first thing we notice is that they have the same scanning. Both have an automatic document mode but they don’t have a full Automatic Document Feeder ADF Tray. Basically you get the extra 3-year warranty as opposed to just one, you get the more advanced Document Capture Pro software and in my opinion a much better design. Is it worth the extra 10-20$? Yes, absolutely if anything just for the warranty.

Epson DS-30 vs DS-40 vs ES-50 vs DS-70. Which of these to buy?

Let’s say you are a home user or light office user, the Epson DS-70 is a great choice because it provides the best value.

If you work in a business environment and you need to scan more and also be more productive with organizing your documents, it is the DS-30 if you need the extra OCR and Document Capture Pro app and DS-40 if you need wireless scanning.