Also known as handheld scanners, portable scanners require less storage space and offer more ease of transportation than their flatbed counterparts. However, their small size doesn’t mean that they cannot perform the same tasks as flatbed scanners, instead, you can use them to scan, store, edit, transfer, and email files digitally.

Advantages

- Require less storage space and offer more easy of transportation than flatbed scanners

- Perform any/all of the same tasks as that of a flatbed scanner

- Can scan, store, edit, transfer, and email physical documents digitally

- Offers Wi-Fi and USB connectivity options

- Boast a large internal memory

Disadvantages

- Might not yield high-quality results

You should consider the following factors when choosing a portable scanner:

- Power Supply

Unlike normal scanners most of whom directly connect to a power socket to draw electricity, portable scanners rely on different options. Some of them have a USB cable which you have to connect your laptop/computer. These scanners won’t work unless you have connected them to a power source.

There is another type of portable scanners which have built-in, rechargeable batteries. If you decide to choose them, make sure they come with a battery charging indicator, so that you know when to charge the battery.

- DPI

Also known as Dots per Inch, DPI identifies the scanning accuracy of the device. Obviously, the greater the DPI, the more accurate the scanner will be, and the better quality scans it will produce.

The baseline for scanning accuracy is 300 DPI, which is enough if you only want to scan documents. Conversely, if you plan to scan images, consider a scanner with DPI 600 or higher. Some scanners, meanwhile, offer as much as 1,200 DPI.

- Connectivity Options

How would you give commands to the scanner depends on its connectivity options, of which two are preferred by the majority of users. They include, USB and Wi-Fi connectivity.

If you are going to use your scanner at home, go for a USB document scanner, as you can easily connect your laptop to the device. However, if you’re going to use the portable document scanner in office, go for a wireless portable scanner.

There’s other, relatively small range of portable scanners, which is compatible with cloud services like Google Drive and Dropbox. Then there are others which come with a compatible smartphone app, using which you can send commands to the scanner.

- Auto-feeding

Some scanners require you to manually feed every page before scanning your desired file. There are others, which, like printers, have an auto-feeding mechanism. To operate these scanners, you can stack them with a batch of pages and the scanner will automatically feed them into its hopper.

However, just because the scanner will auto-feed the pages doesn’t mean you can fill its hopper with a ream of blank pages at once. Instead, even with auto-feeding, there’s a limit to the number of pages you can add at one time.

- Tray Connectivity and Built-in memory

If you choose a scanner with auto-feeding feature, make sure to check its tray capacity. That is the number of pages you can add to the scanner’s hopper at once. A bigger tray capacity will obviously translate into less-frequent refillings.

Also, having a scanner with built-in memory lets you easily navigate through previously scanned pages. There are scanners out there – like the Doxie Q – which offer 8GB built-in memory.

- Scanning Speed

In contrast to the abovementioned factors, there are no one-size-fits-all criteria for the scanning speed. Instead, you’d have to decide for yourself what type of speed you want from your scanner.

For instance, while some scanners – such as the Flag Power scan 1 A4 page in 3 seconds – others like AOZBZ take 10seconds to scan a high-resolution image.

- Multiple Resolution Modes

If you are going to scan a mix of files – documents, images, stickers – make sure your scanner offers multiple resolution modes. So that, when you’re scanning documents, you can activate low resolution. Conversely, when you’re scanning images, you can activate the high-resolution mode.

The FLAGPOWER Solutions Portable Scanner is the best portable scanner for both documents and images. This scanner provides different scanning speeds at different resolutions. For instance, while it scans a full page in up to 10 seconds at 900 dpi, it does the same within 8 seconds at 600 dpi resolution. Also available is the standard resolution of 300 dpi at which it provides a scanning speed of up to 3 seconds.

Also, to conserve energy, this scanner shuts-off after 3 minutes of inactivity. It is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS, though you can’t use it on iOS devices. The unit comes with a 12-months warranty as well.

The Canon P-208II is the best portable scanner for images. That is, because, it has a plethora of image processing features including text enhancement, text orientation, and auto-color direction. Also on offer is an Auto Mode feature which automatically applies the best settings to your scanned documents.

Also, in addition to scanning A4 pages, the Canon P-208II can scan various sized documents including embossed cards. Its CaptureOnTouch mobile app allows you to scan your documents directly to your iOS and Android devices.

The AOZBZ is the best portable document scanner. Apart from offering three resolution modes – 300 dpi, 600 dpi, and 900 dpi, it lets you save the scanned document in both JPEG as well as PDF format. It is compatible with both Android and Mac OS devices and has a battery timing of up to 200 minutes.

The Doxie Go SE is the best Wireless portable scanner. an integrated Wi-Fi using which you can scan documents directly to your iPad, Mac, PC, and iPhone devices. It scans up to 400 pages per charge and has a scanning speed of 8 second at 600 dpi.

Furthermore, this scanner also lets you save scanned files to various cloud services including Dropbox, OneNote, iCloud Drive, and Evernote.

The Xerox Duplex Travel Scanner is the best USB document scanner. It requires no external power supply, creates multipage PDFs, and scans double-side pages in one pass. Also, this device has a daily duty cycle of 100 scans and includes software which let you convert scanned text to editable text.

What’s more, this device has Nuance Power PDF software which allows its user to create and edit PDF files

The Fujitsu PA03688 is the best compact scanner. It offers a dual-scan mode using which you can scan two small-sized documents simultaneously. Its built-in GI processor automatically enhances the image quality of scanned images. Then there is the ScanSnap Cloud feature which automatically routes the scanned document to your favored Cloud account.