Brother DS600

Brother DS-600

The Brother DS-600 ($149.99 direct) isn't the smallest, lightest, fastest, or most capable portable document scanner, but it has one big argument in its favor: It is less expensive than the competition. That alone makes it worth considering if you're on a budget, despite some shortcomings for document management if you need to scan and recognize text with multipage documents. It's not hard to find other portable scanners in the DS-600's price range, including, for example, the Apparent Doxie ($129 direct, 3.5 stars), but they tend to focus on photos rather than documents. Most portable document scanners, like the Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula P-150 Scan-tini ($295 direct, 4 stars), are notably more expensive. The DS-600 comes in at a low price partly because it lacks some features, like an automatic document feeder and duplex (two-sided) scanning, that you'll find in the P-150. But it's also less expensive than other scanners that also lack those features, including the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 ($199 direct, 3.5 stars). It's the comparison to this second category of document scanners that makes the DS-600 a potential bargain. The DS-600 is larger than the S1100 in all three dimensions, but not by much.