These are the 5 best USB document scanners of 2020

We selected the 5 best Document Scanners with a USB Port and not just any USB, but a super-fast port. We looked at over 200 models made by Fujitsu, Epson, Canon and Panasonic and classified them based on their performance, specs, user experience and customer satisfaction. We also give you our own #1 choice

All of these have Automatic Feeders, are capable of 600dpi, will scan both sides of a sheet and are in general really reliable scanners. We also looked at how happy customers are with them after buying them.
These are the 5 best USB document scanners of 2020
ProductFormatScanning areaConnectivitySheets per minuteImages per minuteADF SizeDaily Duty CyclePrice
Our choice

Fujitsu fi-7160

Fujitsu fi-7160
A48.27 in x 11.69 inUSB 3.06012080 sheets4,000 sheetsClick for more info

Kodak Alaris S2040

Kodak Alaris S2040
A48.27 in x 11.69 inUSB 3.1408080 sheets5,000 sheetsClick for more info

Epson DS-530

Epson DS-530
A48.27 in x 11.69 inSuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Ethernet (optional)357050 sheets4,000 sheetsClick for more info

Epson ES-500W

Epson ES-500W
A48.27 in x 11.69 inSuperSpeed USB 3.0 and WiFi357050 sheets4,000 sheetsClick for more info


Let’s have a look at each product in particular.

Fujitsu fi-7160

ProductFormatScanning areaConnectivitySheets per minuteImages per minuteADF SizeDaily Duty CyclePrice

Fujitsu fi-7160

Fujitsu fi-7160
A48.27 in x 11.69 inUSB 3.06012080 sheets4,000 sheetsClick for more info
The Fujitsu fi-7160 is a work-group professional duplex scanner. It supports USB 3.0 connectivity with backward compatibility (USB 1.1, USB 2.0) and a USB Cable and and a separate AC Adapter are included in the box because it is not USB powered like other USB computer peripheral devices. This means that it can scan directly to a computer via a USB connection. It is very fast with an automatic scanning speed of up to 60 pages per minute. It comes with a very high resolution of up to 1200dpi, so you will be able to view any small detail in your Bitmaps and JPEG digital files on computer monitors. This aspect makes it great as a photo scanner, especially since it has a CCD sensor which in tests showed to be better for photo scanning than its CIS counterpart. It also comes with TWAIN and ISIS drivers that make it compatible with virtually any software.

We consider the Fujitsu Fi-7160 to be one of the perfect office document scanners. This duplex color document scanner can scan any documents up to A4 size. It can scan documents that are as thin as receipts as well as thick documents such as business and ID cards. It can scan even sticky notes as well as hard and embossed credit cards up to 1.4mm thick. It has a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in and can scan documents that are as long as 220 inches. Its daily duty cycle is 4,000 sheets which makes it suitable for heavy-duty scanning.

The Fujitsu fi-7160 offers duplex scanning which boosts its efficiency when scanning double-sided documents. It also comes with an Auto Document Feeder (ADF) tray that has a capacity of 80 sheets. Duplex scanning and the ADF tray make the scanner very efficient for heavy-duty scanning. In terms of size, this scanner measures 17.7in. x 9.5in. x 11.2in. and weighs 9.2lb.

This color duplex scanner is a great scanner and it produces high-quality images. This made possible by the scanner’s image-enhancing features such as background cleaning and streaks correction. This scanner also offers document separation, manual feed mode, and barcode recognition so that you will spend less time editing in Photoshop. It is compatible with both major operating systems, Windows and OS X.

If you need a flatbed unit as well, there are two options: Either you buy this and a separate cheap flatbed scanner like the Epson Perfection V39 or you buy the Fujitsu Fi-7260 which is exactly like this one but with a flatbed attachement to it.



Pros: It offers fast scanning, it offers duplex scanning, it comes with an ADF tray

Cons:Users say the scanner’s software is not very user friendly.

Kodak Alaris S2040

ProductFormatScanning areaConnectivitySheets per minuteImages per minuteADF SizeDaily Duty CyclePrice

Kodak Alaris S2040

Kodak Alaris S2040
A48.27 in x 11.69 inUSB 3.1408080 sheets5,000 sheetsClick for more info
The Kodak Alaris S2040 is a very efficient duplex scanner. It supports USB 3.1 connectivity (No USB type-c), but it doesn’t save the documents to USB Flash drives or other USB devices for storage. It is very fast and can scan up to 80 images per minute. It comes with a very high
optical resolution with a pixel density of 1200dpi thanks to its integrated CIS (Contact Image Sensor). This is the kind of quality that you only get from CIS and CCD sensors, document cameras never get to this level. 1200dpi is great for scanning photos too. It also comes with TWAIN, ISIS and WIA drivers that make it compatible with virtually any software. Additionally, it comes with powerful OCR software. It can also extract data from the digital image scans and send it to applications such as Quickbooks.

This desktop document scanner has the ability to scan a variety of documents up to A4 document size. It can scan very thin documents such as receipts as well as thick documents such as business and ID cards. It has a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in and can scan documents that are as long as 1600 inches. It has a daily duty cycle of 5,000 sheets which is higher than the other scanners in this list. This makes it very suitable for heavy-duty scanning.

This document scanner for PC and Mac is a duplex scanner and this boosts its efficiency when scanning double-sided documents. It has an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) with a sheet feeder capacity of 80 sheets. Duplex scanning and the ADF tray make the scanner very efficient for heavy-duty scanning. Its dimensions are
: 9.5in. x 14.5in. x 11in. and it weighs 7.2lb. This makes the scanners smaller and lighter compared to the other scanners in this list. It has an LCD display but it is not a touch screen.

The Kodak Alaris S2040 comes with a lot of image-enhancing features such as background cleaning, automatic color detection, automatic image rotation, automatic image cropping, blank page detection, multistream, edge correction, punch hole removal and automatic deskew. The scanner also comes with features that boost its efficiency. The features include document separation, manual feed mode, barcode recognition, OCR and zonal OCR.

The duplex document scanner can connect and automatically upload the scanned documents to Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox or Sharepoint. Because this is a USB scanner, the problem is you can’t share it. There are some workarounds with special USB hubs that can allow you to, though. What they do is they work like a USB switch and when you want to switch to the other computer you press a button on it. But when we move the scanner around, we use USB on-the-go, the setup time is none, you don’t have to put in any wifi passwords.



Pros: It is very fast, it is duplex and it comes with an ADF tray.

Cons: It does not offer streaks correction.

Epson DS-530

ProductFormatScanning areaConnectivitySheets per minuteImages per minuteADF SizeDaily Duty CyclePrice

Epson DS-530

Epson DS-530
A48.27 in x 11.69 inSuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Ethernet (optional)357050 sheets4,000 sheetsClick for more info
The Epson DS-530 is also a fast and efficient document scanner. It is a great choice for business document management. It supports SuperSpeed USB 3.0 which has the same data transfer rate as USB-C and Ethernet connectivity and it comes with powerful optical character recognition (OCR) software. This USB port cannot save the digital files to USB drives or any kind of USB secure storage. The scanner also comes with TWAIN and ISIS drivers that make it easy to integrate with custom applications.

The Epson DS-530 comes with a high scan speed of 70 images per minute. It has a scanning resolution of 600dpi thanks to the built-in CCD (Charge-Coupled device) sensor. It can scan photos and documents up to A4 size. It can easily scan documents with varying thicknesses, so it will handle invoice and receipt scanning. It has a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in and can scan documents that are 240 inches long. It has a daily duty cycle of 4,000 sheets hence making it suitable for heavy-duty scanning. This is a scanner for mac and PC and Epson provides TWAIN, WIA and ISIS drivers on their website.

Duplex scanning is another feature that makes the Epson DS-530 very efficient for heavy-duty scanning. This is a document scanner with ADF, which means it has an Automatic Document Feeder tray to scan multiple pages automatically that has a capacity of 50 sheets. In terms of size, this scanner measures 6.6in. x 11.6in. x 6.9in. and weighs 8.1lb.

The software package includes several scanning apps: Epson Document Capture, Epson Document Capture Pro (Both the scanning apps can scan images directly to any cloud storage), Epson Document Capture Pro Server, Epson Scan 2, Newsoft Presto BizCard 5.6. This sheetfed document scanner offers several image-enhancing features such as automatic image rotation, automatic image cropping, and edge correction. It also offers barcode recognition. An AC Adapter is included in the package to power the device. This is a perfect scanner for your home or for your office. But it is in the same price range as the Raven Original and even though the Raven is a bit more expensive, it would be our choice anytime.



Pros: It is fast, it supports duplex scanning, it has an ADF tray

Cons: It does not offer streaks correction.

Epson ES-500W

ProductFormatScanning areaConnectivitySheets per minuteImages per minuteADF SizeDaily Duty CyclePrice

Epson ES-500W

Epson ES-500W
A48.27 in x 11.69 inSuperSpeed USB 3.0 and WiFi357050 sheets4,000 sheetsClick for more info
The ES-500W is a very efficient wireless scanner. It supports SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Wireless high-speed connection. Since the scanner is wireless, it can be used to scan directly to computers and smartphones via a wireless connection. It comes with a built-in Nuance OCR that enables it to create editable Word and Excel files as well as fully-searchable PDFs with the interpreted text inside the page.

The ES-500W scanner is quite fast with a speed of 70 images per minute in single pass duplex mode. It comes with a high image resolution of 600dpi without any interpolation and a 24-bit color depth. It can scan documents and color photos of different paper sizes up to A4 size. It can scan very thin documents such as receipts and plain paper as well as thick documents such as business, plastic cards and plastic ID cards. It has a scanning area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in and can scan documents that are as long as 240 inches. This scanner has a daily duty cycle of 4,000 sheets. It is compatible with Windows and PC and you can get TWAIN drivers for both operating systems on Epson’s website.

The ES-500W is a duplex scanner. It also comes with an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) tray that has a capacity of 50 sheets. Duplex scanning and the ADF tray make the scanner suitable for heavy-duty scanning. In terms of size, it measures 6.6in. x 11.6in. x 6.9in. and weighs 8.1lb.

This sheetfed scanner comes with a lot of document scanning features for reducing photo editing time and improving scan quality such as blank page detection, multistream and automatic deskew. The scanner also comes with efficiency-boosting features such as automatic scanning mode, document separation and manual feed mode. The Epson software bundle that comes in the package with the scanner is: Epson Scan 2, Epson ScanSmart Software, Nuance OmniPage Optical Character Recognition (OCR), NewSoft Presto! BizCard if you want to use it as a business card scanner. This software lets you save the scanned documents as an image document or as a PDF. OCR accuracy is usually above 99% with the Nuance OCR engine if you scan documents printed by laser printers.

You can’t power this wireless document scanner through USB as it has a separate AC Adapter.

If you need an Epson scanner which specializes in photo scanning and is sheet fed, then you should look at the epson fastfoto ff-680w. It is a very complete device, the only little downside that we found is that it doesn’t support an internal memory card in the form of an SD card to save the photos so it only transfers the photos to your computer via USB or via network connection. This is a great scanner for home offices and corporate offices with decent scanning performance.

Other options include the epson workforce es-400, one of the best document scanners for home use, the Epson workforce es-50 portable sheet-fed document scanner which is in the same category as two Brother wireless mobile scanners, the Brother DS-620 mobile and Brother DS-640 along with the Doxie Go SE Wifi compact mobile document scanner.



Pros: It is wireless, it is fast, it supports duplex scanning, it comes with an ADF tray.

Cons:It does not offer streaks correction.




Which is the Best USB Document Scanner to buy?

In conclusion, all the scanners in this list support USB connections. They have great reviews from their users and they are very efficient. Our number #1 pick is the Kodak Alaris S2040. It is lightweight, very fast and efficient. It has a very high daily duty cycle and comes with very powerful OCR software. Even though the Fujitsu fi-7160 is also very efficient, fast and powerful, its software is less user-friendly. Nevertheless, all the scanners in this list are feature-packed, efficient and offer great value for money. Amazon offers the most convenient buying options and the largest selection of scanners at this moment. There are other notable color portable document scanners and compact desktop scanners with USB ports that we did not include here and are worth mentioning: Brother ADS-1250W, Brother ADS-1700W portable scanner, the Brother Imagecenter ads-2800w wireless document scanner, the Canon Imageformula p-215 ii, the Epson workforce ES-200 and ES-300w, the Fujitsu ScanSnap IX100 portable color scanner, canon imageformula r40 office document scanner, Fujitsu ScanSnap IX1500 color duplex document scanner,the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i mobile document scanner, the HP ScanJet Pro line, the Visioneer Patriot H60 or the Xerox Documate 6440. You can find all of these types of scanners on Amazon, Best Buy and Office Depot. If you want to read reviews for flatbed scanners like the Canon CanoScan Lide and epson perfection v600, check out our website.
Our Score

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.