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

The Brother ADS-1700W has to take the cake. It is in our view the best portable scanner ever made. Why is that? First of all, the speed: It has a scan speed of 25 sheets per minute in simplex mode and thus 50 images per minute in duplex scanning mode. That is the highest speed you can achieve with a portable scanner and it gets into desktop scanner territory.

Obviously you can’t feed each paper to match that speed, so it has an Automatic Document Feeder ADF tray in which you can put up to 20 sheets. Along with the feeder tray, the scanner also has a slot in which you can insert plastic cards and ID cards. It can also take in really thin paper which makes this one of the best portable receipt scanners. You can scan any document up to A4 or letter format and extra-long documents as long as the length of the papers doesn’t exceed 34 inches.

It has a Dual CIS Contact Image Sensor with which you can scan documents at up to 600 DPI optical resolution. This pixel density is not superior in any way to the other document scanners listed here. The scanner can output the files in JPEG, PDF, TIFF, PNG and BMP Bitmap.

This document scanner offers ICA, WIA, SANE and TWAIN drivers compatible with both operating systems: Windows and Mac. You can use the Brother Web Connect module to automatically upload digital images that you scan on the ADS-1700W to either Dropbox, Evernote or Google Drive.

As of writing this article, we consider the Brother ADS-1700W to be the best portable scanner ever made.

Doxie GO SE Wifi

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Doxie GO SE Wifi	7 IPM	600 dpi	Wi-Fi, USB	No	No	1.1 lb. (0.5 kg)	Click for more info

The Doxie GO SE Wifi is a different proposition for the title of best portable scanner. Doxie is a new company to the field and it brought the fight straight to the leading scanner manufacturers like Epson, Brother and Fujitsu.

Like the Brother ADS-1700W it can work completely independent. You can stick an SD Card into it and start scanning. But as far as independence goes, it gets even better because it also has a rechargeable battery, so you don’t need to power it. In our opinion, the battery is a no-brainer for a portable scanner since that’s the point of mobility, to be able to use it on-the-go.

Even though they both scan the same paper size up to A4 format, it is also a much more compact and lightweight document scanner than the Brother. This portable scanner weighs 1.1 lb compared to the 3.7 lb of the Brother.

The software detects the size and edges of your document and it does automatic cropping. It can also correct the layout orientation of your document, saving you time from editing in Photoshop. By all accounts, this is one of the best portable document scanners and especially one of the best portable wireless scanners you can buy today.

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 Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i is one of the best portable scanners that you can buy today, partly because of its great specs and features that it offers and partly because of how satisfied users are with it after a year of usage.

The scanner has a CIS sensor that offers an image resolution of 600 dots per inch. 600 dpi is enough to spot all the fine details on your computer monitor. While this is not the best portable picture scanner, for most photos it will work quite well.

One of the great features that I personally like is the fact that Fujitsu will bundle a license for ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap with it. This Optical Character Recognition software is the best option by far because it has great text recognition accuracy, it can convert the scanned images to multiple file formats like searchable PDF, Word document with editable text and Excel XLS files.

Most of the Digital ICE features are there in the ScanSnap software, it can rotate the document automatically, crop it, deskew the image and apply other color corrections. The ScanSnap platform is one of the best in the business. Its great automatic feeder makes it one of the best portable duplex scanners.

Epson ES-50

Product	Images / Minute	Resolution	Connectivity	Duplex Scanning	ADF Tray	Weight	Price
Epson ES-50	10 IPM	600 dpi	USB 2.0	No	No	0.59 lb. (0.26 kg)	Click for more info

The Epson ES-50 is one of the best portable scanners at a low price point. It costs almost 2.5 times less than a Brother ADS-1700W but offers the basic features that you will be using 90% of the time.

The scanning speed is not the greatest, it is up to 10 pages per minute in simplex mode and that is the only mode that it offers since it is not a duplex scanner. The pixel density is up to 600 dpi which means you get the same number of pixels as with the expensive scanners and good enough for high-quality images. The RGB color depth is 24-bit for color and 8-bit for grayscale.

The main advantage of this portable document scanner besides its price is the fact that it is the most compact and lightweight portable scanner in this line-up. It only weighs 0.59 lb. That is less than a powerbank and if you can carry a powerbank with you, this one should be a breeze. It is one of the lightest handheld mobile scanners you can buy. It’s great for scanning invoices or records on-the-go or even office documents and legal documents. Sure, it doesn’t have an ADF tray or duplex scanning, but it does its main job as in scanning things on-the-go, perfectly.

You can scan any written document and send the digital copy either to your PC and Mac but also to your Android or iOS smartphone. The ES-50 also has a rechargeable battery that should last for about 300 scans. It has an LCD screen that can show you battery percentage and connectivity status.

Which is the best portable scanner?

Feature-wise, we would choose the Brother ADS-1700W as the best portable handheld scanner as it covers all areas of features and specs perfectly and also has very good ratings from its users. The scanner has proven to be reliable and easy-to-use in time. If you don’t need the wireless connectivity, the S1300i is a great option as well.

If you need something cheaper, the Doxie is a great option for the best portable scanner for Mac and PC devices. If you want to go really low-cost, at the 100$ price point nothing beats the Epson ES-50.

If you are looking for the best best portable book scanner, have a look at the Iriscan Book 5.