VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner (PDS ST415 WM)

First, make sure you also get a case for it ( VuPoint PDSC-IW441-VP Solutions Carrying Case for Magic Wand Portable Scanner ); it only comes with a thin little cloth sleeve on its own and the quality of your scan hinges on how clean and safe you keep the glass lens on the bottom. The case linked above is really impressive for the cost. Next, it works just like the hand-held scanners I started with in the 286 era: scanning was more of an art than a science because how good a scan you get is 100% dependent on how steady your hand is. Until you get better, you'll often get all sorts of wavy distortion that even PS won't fix. It's best for small projects, like scanning a cartoon or a 3 x 5 photo. I got it specifically for scanning illustrations in books without having to wreck the book itself, and it's far better at that then the results I got with my flat-bed scanner or camera phone. It's also more convenient, since I don't have to be anywhere near a computer to use it; it's perfect for doing research runs to the library. When you get home, it hooks up to your PC like plugging in an external hard drive. Since cards go bad from time to time, you'll want to dump your scans often. It will scan to jpg (or PDF, but... why?) in either 300, 600, or 900 dpi and 8-bit color. Again, small projects work best. You can use up to a 32 MB microSDHC memory card, which will hold tons of scans even at the highest resolution (it has a counter on it, and I'm at 200+ now with the card around a quarter full). It works great right out of the box, and seems especially well built given the cost (much like the case). It's weird to be pleasantly surprised like this, but boy was I ever. It's one of those things you never know you need until you get it.

When I got my first VuPoint portable scanner wand as a gift, I wasn't sure what to do with it. It turned out to be excellent for saving documents at work, where I don't have access to a copier or scanner. It was also handy for scanning magazine or newspaper items, since you just roll it over them rather than feed the paper through it, When it wore out after several years of regular use, I had to replace it. The new VuPoint scanner I have works just as easily, running off two "AA" batteries. It connects via the included cable to a USB port. Scans are saved on a Micro SD card (not included) and I can open them into an image editing program to trim edges. (I use Paint.) I do wish it had the monochrome setting of my older model, which could create smaller files for e-mailing, but it gives excellent results on any reasonably smooth, flat surface. The scanner, along with its connector cable, fits in the included drawstring pouch, and I carry it in a pack with my laptop for work. .

I bought this for school, as I am terrible about losing important paperwork that I end up needing later. Being able to scan without being connected to a computer is extremely handy. Even on the lowest DPI scan, it produces sharp images of a black and white handouts, with each page taking about 2 seconds to slide across. At the highest setting, you do need to slow your roll some and take 5-7 seconds per scan, but I have found I only needed high settings for the smallest of text (and for color of course). It doesn't recognize the edges of the paper however, so you may end up with scans that need to be cropped in order to remove the edges that have a nice scan of the desk you were working on. Not important to me, but if you needed more professional scans for a presentation or something it may be something you need to think about. I would hate to scan 100 things and have to edit each one to remove it. The device itself is nicely portable, it actually has the same width as my MS Surface Pro, so it fits easily into the tablet bag I use for the Pro. The scanner came with a sleeve to protect it. My only complaint about the scanner is that you CAN'T hook it to a computer to instantly see your scan. You have to scan first, then connect it, and then it works like a removable drive with the files listed. It So if you are scanning a ton of pages, instead of being able to glance at each one on the PC as you go, you have to wait and do it all afterwards. The software that comes with it is helpful, but not perfect. It converts JPG scans into Word, Excel, PDF, and Emails, but it cannot do anything with a PDF scan. This may be a limitation imposed by Adobe, or a ploy for you to upgrade to their professional edition ($90 at the time of this post), I am not sure. I do see the professional version gives you the ability to convert PDF files.

I bought this scanner to use while working on my ancestry. I had it just over 1 month and took it out to scan some information and where the batteries go, it was extremely hot, and smelt of burning metal. Thus it did not work any more! I emailed the vendor and got a number for technical support, who told me that they only thing that I could do was to box it up and send it back to them at my expense and they would check it out for me, or I could reoder a new one. Well I did reorder a new one, but not from them. I went with another vendor! I will say that while it worked it was great! I just wished I would have gotten my money worth!

I am really pleased with this scanner. The more I use it, the more I love it! I was not sure what to expect, as I am not much of tech person, and didn't know how difficult this would be to use. My one hitch, I bought a 64g SD card, and it did not work, it kept saying the card was full. I emailed the company on Friday night around 7pm and asked why, and had a response by Monday morning at 9am, which I was impressed with. I was informed that the max the scanner can take is a 32g card. I don't think that was noted in the instruction (maybe it was and I missed it). But after installing the 32g card, it worked beautifully. I am working on scanning pictures from an old photo album, so the surface is bumpy and uneven. For the most part, no problem with this scanner. I run the scanner quickly down the page and it's good to go. I've been uploading the pics to my computer and doing very simple cropping, and I can't get over how good the images look. I have a large printer/scanner that I'll probably get rid of now, as I never print, only scan and I don't need that big thing now that I have this. For $45 plus the cost of the SD card, I am VERY pleased with this purchase!

The good: - It's small and portable. Battery life on two cheap alkaline AAs from IKEA seems to be decent. - It is fully standards-compliant and requires no driver installation whatsoever, it simply writes files to a microSD card and then acts as a standard card reader when plugged into a computer. The bad: - It deals very poorly with even slight wrinkles or creases in what you're scanning. Even if it's an otherwise perfectly crisp piece of paper that's been unfolded from a standard business envelope, the resulting image will have some kind of a glitch in it. I tried to remedy this by buying a small rectangle of clear acrylic to provide a flat surface over which to scan, but this resulted in a blurry image instead of a glitchy one. A standard copier transparency helps a little if you're trying to scan a smaller item such as a receipt. - There's a large dead zone on the scanner's margins, this makes it useless for scanning pages from a book of any size. - Holding both the scanner and thing you're scanning as you try to swipe the scanner along its length at an even rate of speed can be awkward. Using a surface with some grip to it can help with this. In summation, the concept is kind of neat, certainly not the worst piece of technology I've ever used, but for practical purposes, at this point I think I'll just invest in a standard flatbed or automatic-feed scanner.

Work not bad with the quality , but hard to keep the same speed when you swipe the document. Sometimes need to try it multiple time for a good scanning.

Works great and is small enough to have in back pack with computer. As an adjuster it work very good to copy receipts.

This scanner is very handy. You need a little time to get used to it but very quickly you will be able to make very good scans. Even if your hand fails a little the result will be readable. However, there are some certain inescapable difficulties because of its design. Specifically, when a book is not able to fold wide open in a flat manner and the printed text is very close to the middle of the open pages then, sometimes, the scanner is not able to scan the edge of the text. However, overall, I am very happy with it. You can easily carry it around with you and use it instantly. Perhaps it would be better with a replaceable lithium battery than the casual ones that it normally uses. There is a limit of about 180 pages per new batteries before you have to replace them, but, most of the time, it is enough.

I love this Magic Wand Portable Scanner as I am a Quilter I can scanner the blocks on the quilt and then go and put a design on it with the computer to see what looks good

I bought this to scan my university notes and save them in PDF format on my laptop. The size and weight is really suitable. Its easy to use. It scans a page within 4-5 seconds when set to medium quality The only problem is that the result (i.e. jpg or pdf) requires a lot of post-processing. The user can not set the contrast, BW/grey corrections. Consequently the scanned result is very bright, or some colors/fine lines are not visible due to this contrast/brightness problem. 4 stars for being helpful in saving my time (I can do scanning while traveling in bus/train).

Great scanner. Bought it a few weeks ago but didn't have a chance to use it for real until recently. It works superbly. Didn't even need to practice, got the speed right first time and resolution was spot on.

Very impressed with this scanner. Cover all my needs Would recommend this product to others.