Scanners come in a few different formats from flatbed to portable to sheetfed. For people who will be primarily scanning paper documents in bulk, buying a document scanner is a wise choice.
Document scanners are designed for high speed scanning. They are sometimes referred to as sheetfed scanners or ADF (automatic document feeder) scanners because they will pull one document at a time from the feeder. This allows the user to place multiple documents into the feeder and walk away while the scanner does its work, just like a copier.
Features To Consider. If you’re serious about preserving your photos, look for a flatbed scanner.The alternative would be a sheet-fed scanner, but these run you the risk of causing damage to your photos as you insert them into the device.If your hope is to remove damages that have already occurred, consider a model with dust and scratch removing capabilities — these can be effective in.
The Best Document Scanners for 2019:
1. Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500
The ScanSnap iX500 from Fujitsu was designed with one goal in mind – to serve as a powerful workhorse for your entire office. It fulfills all your digitization needs, quickly and accurately and has been a top seller for years.
Anything you feed it will be expeditiously processed and ready to be copied and edited, with just one click of a button. It takes in all kinds of documents, notes, receipts, business cards, images, hi-res photos, drawings…you name it, you get it in a perfect digital mirror copy.
This is made possible by several key features:
- Everything is scanned on both sides thanks to its advanced paper feeding system, which can hold up to 50 sheets of paper.
- Scanning speed. Depending on the setting, you can achieve an amazing scanning rate of 25 double-sided pages per minute, at 600 dpi x 600 dpi, which is sufficient for even high quality photographs.
- A suite of automatic corrections: color detection, auto rotation of documents so no matter how you feed it, or if you feed it a couple of upside down pages, all will come out correctly so you don’t have to waste time on editing. It even skips blank pages.
- Direct upload to cloud service, either for backup or for sharing. All the major ones are supported: Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Evernote, etc.
Both Windows and Mac platforms are supported, along with WiFi connectivity to laptops, tablets, or smartphones.Unfortunately, this all comes at a premium price tag. However, if you want a robust, fast, flexible, and accurate office scanner you will have difficulty in finding a better one.
2. Brother DS-620 Mobile
Cheap and ultra-compact, the DS-620 is not your ordinary flatbed scanner, but a lightweight ‘brick’ type scanner measuring just under 12” in length and weighing less than 1lb.
It is not the fastest around, but at 8ppm, be it color or black & white scanning, it does the job well. If you have occasional need for scanning, such throughput will not be a great hindrance, especially not when you consider the under $100 price tag.
Besides being lightweight and compact, to the point where you don’t even have to plug it into electric outlet as it takes care of that via USB cable, Brother DS-620 has one additional nifty feature – compatibility with BR-Receipts; the software’s receipt management features allow for quick organization of receipts and exporting all the receipt data into Quicken® and QuickBooks®.
Of course, in addition to receipts you can feed it all kinds of paper documents, photos, recipes, business cards, laminated ID cards, invoices, etc…as long as they don’t exceed 8.5″ x 32″ size.
The maximum optical resolution is 600dpi x 600dpi, or double that interpolated.You would be surprised to know that besides Windows and Mac, it fully supports Linux as well, which is almost never the case.Perhaps not suited for frequent office use, Brother DS-620 Mobile is nonetheless ideal for mobile use with laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
3. Fujitsu ScanSnapS1300i
At about half the price of the outstanding ScanSnap ix500, the S1300i is nonetheless of the same series, so you can expect similar office digitization efficiency and quality.
It too offers double-sided scanning, which alleviates a lot of worries when you need to digitize batches of documents, not to mention saving time.
For half the price, you would expect half the efficiency and you would be right:
It can only hold up to 10 pages in the automatic document feeder (ADF), and the scanning speed is less stellar as well at ‘only’ 12 double-sided pages per minute (the ix500 has 25ppm).
Fortunately, some features remain intact as it uses the same intelligent software that auto-corrects for upside down documents, color detection, and blank pages. It is fully integrated with online cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and others, making backups and sharing a breeze.
It’s all about the scale. Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i offers the same flexibility, scan quality, and ease of use, but just not as fast. If that factor is not relevant to you, then for this price range it’s a hard offer to pass up.
4. Canon LiDE220
Traditional flatbed scanner with no double-sided scanning, but cheaper than the ultra-mobile Brother DS-620.What first stands out with LiDE220 is its sleek, black, elegant design, definitely something that would be easy on the eye as a part of your desk setup.
As you would expect for such low price range, its scanning capability is for low throughput use only at 10 seconds for a letter-sized document. However, what it lacks in speed (compared to other office scanners) more than compensates when it comes to scanning quality – superb 4800 x 4800 dpi maximum optical resolution (600 x 600 is enough for most documents), coupled with 48-bit vivid color depth.
Furthermore, the ease of use is heavily augmented with its Auto Scan features, auto-detecting what kind of document is being scanned and tuning up proper scanning settings accordingly.In addition to premium level of scanning quality, the front area of the scanner has all the shortcut buttons you would need: PDF, copy, auto-scan, and send (to cloud services like DropBox or Google Drive).
If you need to scan a thick book, the LiDE220 offers enough flexibility to make that possible with its Z-LidTM Expansion Top, giving you one-inch extra space to work with. It takes power from only the USB cable, and supports both Windows and Mac, but not Linux.
Canon LiDE220 offers quite a bargain; it is surprisingly cheap, offers premium-grade scans, and you could say that the speed is respectable. However, as it doesn’t offer duplex scanning and higher speed for frequent office use, it is best suited for personal needs or for someone who may need to scan photos and graphics.
5. Epson WorkForce ES-400
When they named this scanner lineup WorkForce, they were not exaggerating. At 35 pages per minute for single-side scanning and 25ppm for two-sided scanning, it is capable of digitizing your office in record time. Plus, the ADF (Auto Document Feeder) is capable of holding up to 50 pages.
Everything about Epson Workforce ES-400 can be described in 3 words – robust office use.The maximum optical resolution is standard for office scanners – 600dpi x 600dpi, with 30-bit color depth for input and 24-bit for output. Overkill for what you would use it for: documents, invoices, business and ID cards, receipts, extra-long pages, etc.
Although it is quite hefty at 8.1lbs, it is more compact than many other scanners in the same category, measuring 6.6 x 11.6 x 6.3 inches.With a push of a button you can convert any text into searchable/editable PDF, Word, or Excel files, with the help of the included OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software.
It is now standard for modern devices to have included support for online cloud services, and Workforce ES-400 is no exception; you can directly save the scans to Dropbox, SharePoint, Google Drive, Evernote, OneDrive, and others. It networks via traditional RJ-45 input, not WiFi.Windows and Mac compatibility is solid, but no Linux support.
Why a Document Scanner?
There are actually a few different type of scanners that can be purchased, each with it’s own perks. What you need will depend on what you primarily need to scan.
For example, I actually own a multipurpose scanner which can scan, copy, print and fax. I also own a photo scanner although I have had to move it to the closet to make room for the multi-functional printer (scanner). Because of limited desk space I needed to find a unit that could do all the things I needed to do.
A document scanner would be a good fit for someone who does large volume scanning of documents. In those cases you need a scanner equipped with a feeder tray that can scan many pages per minute. People who run a small business or process a lot of paper electronically would find this type of scanner to be best.
Fujitsu Scanners
Fujitsu has really captured the market share in home document scanners, both standard size and portable. Their scanners are very well rated and seem to have a dedicated following so you probably can’t go wrong with a Fujitsu.
Of course, top quality usually comes at a price and some people will have to opt for a lower-priced option. In that case you may have to consider Epson over Fujitsu. That said, Epson is no slouch when it comes to scanners and has some of its own advantages which are highlighted later on.
Feature Comparisons
When shopping for a document scanner there are a few key features to compare across models.
When shopping for a document scanner there are a few key features to compare across models.
1. ADF Size – this tells you how many pages of paper can be placed into the automatic feeder. If you need to scan large stacks at a time, this value will be important.
2. PPM Speed – tells you how many pages per minute (ppm) can be scanned. If you plan to just load the feeder and walk away you may not worry about the speed as much. A small business would probably prefer speed, though.
3. Duplex or Single Side – a duplex scanner can scan both sides of a two-sided document automatically. A single side scanner would require you to do this manually.
4. Software Compatibility – PC, Mac, or Dual compatibility. Some households have more that one operating system. Make sure everyone in your home and office is compatible with whatever scanner you choose.
5. Optical Resolution – given in dpi (dots per inch), tells you the quality of the image scan. This value is usually more important when you are scanning photos than documents. Most doc scanners will have more than enough resolution.
6. Footprint – check the dimensions, especially of you are limited on space. These scanners can be larger than you might expect so make sure you take some measurements prior to purchase.
In general the most important feature to evaluate is usually speed. Sheetfed scanners are the best for the bulk scanning of documents – you load up the feed tray with a bunch of papers and walk away. When comparing these types of scanners you will be looking for the PPM measure which is “pages per minute” that can be scanned. You also will want a scanner that can perform duplex scanning which is simply scanning double-sided documents (which all the scanners above can do).
Other features to compare in this category would be the capacity of the automatic document feeding (ADF) tray as well as the size of the tray. The capacity of the ADF tray tells you the maximum amount of pages you can load into the tray for a single scan run. The size of the tray will tell you the maximum document size that can be scanned. These parameters may be more or less important depending on the volume of scanning you plan to do.
Fujitsu ScanSnap vs Epson Workforce
You can get everything you need if you are willing to pay for it, but what if there is a window opened due to competition, one that offers more features than you would usually be able to get?That seems to have happened when you compare the Fujitsu ScanSnap lineup with the Epson WorkForce lineup of scanners.
For example, Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500, although outstanding, is almost twice the price as the WorkForce ES-400, but both offer a key feature for office scanning use: 25ppm duplex scanning, with 50 pages ADF capacity.The closest to ES-400 in terms of price is the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i, but its scanning speed is mere 12ppm and the paper ADF load is only 10 pages.
Both Fujitsu and Epson are highly reputable companies with long histories of innovation and excellence; however, in this case it’s clear who is the winner here when it comes to performance to price ration – the Epson WorkForce ES-400. With that being said, if the price is not really that important factor in your consideration, you still might want to choose Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 due to its numerous time-saving auto-correct options. And the fact that the Fujitsu iX500 has been the bestselling document scanner on Amazon for years with very high customer ratings.
Document Scanner vs All-in-One
There are also all-in-one printers that have ADF trays for bulk scanning of documents. You will gain the extra functionality of printing and copying but you will also gain a larger footprint. All-in-ones are also not likely to have the same speed or duplexing capabilities of a dedicated scanner and generally have smaller sized ADF trays. You can learn more about the pros and cons of a multifunctional printer for scanning by reading my Scanner vs Printer article if this is an option you are considering.
If you need assistance with some of the scanner terminology used here or on the product pages linked to above, be sure to check out our buying guides listed in the sidebar.
Introduction To The Best Top 5 Selling OBD II Scanner Tools
In this modern age of automobiles most everything is controlled by a central computer aka ECM, PCM, etc and they dictate how parts are to work with each other. Just as important as telling parts of the car to do something, the computer also knows when a part is malfunctioning or when a sensor isn’t working within it’s normal perimeters.
It’s even safe to say that the vehicles of today have sensors to make sure the sensors are working right. All these electrical components work together to make sure the vehicle functionality is correct, but when things aren’t correct this could potentially cause fatal problems to the vehicle.
Several years ago OBD2 scanners were expensive tools costing thousands of dollars that usually only mechanic shops had. If you were a DIY’er working on a 1996 or newer car you might of had a friend that could loan you a scanner from their shop, but most likely you had to pay a shop to diagnose the trouble codes or just play a guessing game at what was wrong with the vehicle. Now OBD 2 scanners are inexpensive and available for anyone willing to spend a couple twenties or a couple hundreds depending on the functions you’re looking for.
Any DIY’er or hobbyist can now have a OBD 2 scanner and it not only helps diagnose a vehicles problem but it also helps save hundreds of dollars in parts swapping along with the time to do such a thing. Many of the newer OBD 2 scanner models have Bluetooth adapters and capabilities.
With our information and top five chart below we’ll help you figure out which ODB2 Scanner mechanics tool is best for you. Each of the top five will be summarized below with links to complete reviews and amazon prices. Reference the Table of Contents below to see if anything interests you.
Contents
Top Five Mechanic ODB2 Scanner Tools List
Image | Product | Price | Rating |
Innova 3100j Diagnostic Code Reader / Scan Tool with ABS and SRS | $$$ | (4.4 / 5) | |
Veepeak OBD2 Scanner Automotive Diagnostic Scan Tool Code Reader | $ | (4.4 / 5) | |
Autel AL519 AutoLink Enhanced OBD ll Scan Tool with Mode 6 | $$ | (4.5 / 5) | |
Actron CP9125 PocketScan Code Reader | $$ | (4.6 / 5) | |
Ancel AD310 Classic Enhanced Universal OBD II Scanner Car Engine Fault Code Reader | $ | (4.7 / 5) |
Important Notice
On Board Diagnostics 2 (OBD 2) took effect in 1996 and any vehicles built before this time will not be compatible with any OBD 2 scanners. Also some of the more basic scanners will not work with some of the more sophisticated automobiles, so be sure to check for compatibility before making a purchase.
Things to Consider for our Top Rated ODB2 Scanners List
Cost
Sure there are ODB2 scanning tools that costs thousands, but those are for the big professional mechanic shops. For the DIY’er most of the functions those come you’ll never need to use. So with our Top 5 List we’ve picked out the best rated scanners that don’t costs thousands or even hundreds.
These scanners all work great for the general purpose of simply checking trouble codes, along with some deeper scanning capabilities that one might need like checking engine rpms, spark and electrical voltages.
Features
![Scanners Scanners](/uploads/1/2/6/2/126299680/260921845.jpg)
Even some of the cheapest ODB2 scanning tools have extra features. You’ve covered all of the features of the top five scanners on our list. If you want to dig deeper into the computer than just trouble codes you have no worries, because some of these scanners can do just that.
While reviewing our top 5 list, you’ll see some scanners with bare-bone functionality and some scanners that are feature packed and can tell you MUCH more than you’d typically need to know.
Innova 3100j Diagnostic Code Reader / Scan Tool with ABS and SRS
(4.4 / 5)
If you’ve been using INNOVA products, you know they are known for being reliable and possessing a high degree of quality. Here is another product from them that you can put your trust on.
Pros and Cons
Advantages would be:
- Ease of use – The screen menu is readable and easy to understand. The codes are also easy to understand. If something gets to the point where it is confusing, you can access the company’s support service for assistance.
- A lot of information to give – It gives more information about the vehicles than other brands can give.
- Cuts down cost – It can cut down maintenance cost and prevents you from having costly repairs in the future.
- It is very light.
Some minor issues would be:
- This scanner must be removed from the OBD2 link after use.
- You will have extra expense for printing scanning results.
- The front part of the device is a little complicated for the eyes to look at. You probably need time to get good familiarity with the buttons.
Veepeak OBD2 Scanner
(4.4 / 5)
Thanks to code scanners, it is now easy to identify troubles without going to the mechanic. Check out this unit from Veepeak. Customers say it is easy to use, is compact and clear codes up in no time.
Pros and Cons
Advantages and disadvantages for this product are:
- Using it is easy. The LCD display is easily readable and the codes are not difficult to understand.
- It’s small and light.
- For multiple car owners, it is something they can use with all their vehicles.
- Some protocols may be difficult for you to understand. In that case, you may need to get in touch with their customer service representative and ask them on how to get started.
- The little booklet does not contain all codes. If a code is not written, you will have to perform a search engine check. Hopefully it doesn’t give you codes that are not written there many times.
Autel AL519 AutoLink OBD II Scan Tool with Mode 6
(4.5 / 5)
The AutoLink AL519 OBDII/EOBD Scanner supports all 10 modes of OBDII test for a complete diagnosis. Featuring the unique patented One-Click I/M Readiness Key, TFT color display and built-in speaker, the AutoLink AL519 is truly the ultimate in power and affordability, allowing users to do their jobs faster. In addition, thousands of troubleshooter code tips help technicians to save diagnosis and repair time.
Pros & Cons
Advantages you’ll get:
- It will save you huge amounts of time money usually spent on visiting the repair shop. If the issue’s nothing serious at all, the device can read the code and possibly fix it for you. You’ll cut down on car expense and spend the money on other important needs.
- There will be no interference happening on other systems of your car when it starts reading error codes and even when it is already correcting your issues.
- It is guaranteed to work on all models made from the year 1996 and up. If you are a multiple-car owner, this tool is a good one to consider.
Some minor issues:
- The update requirement before first use might give you trouble. If you don’t have extra time for that, you need to talk to someone else, probably your assistant, to do it for you.
- This device isn’t a highly-advanced tool giving everything that you need to know about your car. Don’t get frustrated if it can’t give you the rpm of your vehicle or other gauges.
Actron CP9125 PocketScan Code Reader
(4.6 / 5)
![Top obd2 scanners in 2018 Top obd2 scanners in 2018](http://legitreviewers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Best-scanner.jpg)
The CP9125 is an easy-to-use tool for novice and moderately experienced do-it-yourself mechanics. Even better, it comes with a 1-year warranty. The highly compact CP9125 fits in the palm of your hand and quickly and easily links to your vehicle. Plus, the tool is updateable, offering compatibility with future vehicles.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- It’s easy to use, so it’s perfect for all novice and moderately-experienced DIY mechanics. The codes are easy to read because of the wide screen and the large characters on the codes.
- Remember that it is up gradable. It means you can use it for car models which will be released in the future.
- Take note of the limited warranty. Other units don’t have this advantage.
Cons:
- Even with the additional codes it can read that are not written on the guide book, the scanner is lacking in reading codes. Check out its ability on the power train codes, if you need a better reading ability.
- The cord it comes with and links with the OBD2 system might be too short for you.
Ancel AD310 Classic Enhanced Universal OBD II Scanner
(4.7 / 5)
The ANCEL AD310 Scanner works on all OBDII Compliant vehicles. It’s affordable, easy to operate and scans faster than Bluetooth OBD2 scanners.
Pros & Cons
- One of the pros of this product is its readability. There is no doubt that the display was designed to make instructions easily decipherable. The use of plain language is also very helpful.
- Other scanners require using a mobile phone for operations. This scanner does not. For some, that’s an advantage because they don’t have to have extra expense for a phone to use for this purpose and that they don’t have to look for the phone every time the check engine light shows up.
- One con would be the small printed letters in the manual. One customer said that the kind of printing renders the manual useless altogether.
- Another feature that this scanner lacks is the ability to diagnose a car’s ABS system. If you have that kind of need, you have to look at units that accommodate your need.
- You also have to check first if it is compatible with your car. It is not compatible with some models from Nissan and other car brands.
Conclusion
One of the most common issues that can occur with any automotive engine is lowered performance and decreased gas mileage. Usually these things happen when injectors are dirty, air filters are clogged, sensors go bad or spark plugs are wore out just to name a few. Having the right trouble code scanner can help you fix those problems faster and cheaper. Please comment below if you have any questions.