Brother DS-620 Document Scanner, Portable

I was fully prepared to be shipping this unit back if it did not live up to expectations but it is staying with me. I’ve had a number of portable document scanners over the years with a varying degree of success with each. I did a great deal of research into this type of scanner prior to ordering which included the ScanSnap, Doxie, canon and Fujitsu equivalent models.I am a prolific archivist and detest paper so any paperwork given to me gets scanned in and stored electronically. With the MFD shortage brought on by covid I struggled to get a worthy replacement MFD for home with an ADF when the ADF on my Canon just wore out.Over the recent year my job has changed to that of a more flexible worker either from the Office, home or client sites so a portable unit that can be added to my office in a rucksack was the best fit.Anyway enough about my situation.This unit can scan to a machine over USB, Wi-Fi and via a memory card you insert into the back of the device. Whilst the memory card does not petrude it would be nice if there was a clip or cover over it to stop it from being accidentally ejected. This may after all contain sensitive information or the remains of sensitive information after deletion.Scanning to the memory card is OK and just OK. Each page is saved as a separate document, even when selected PDF and 2 Sided each side will be safed as a separate document and not combined. You just put another piece of paper in the feeder and it scans and saves. There I no method, that I have found documented to continue a scan to the memory card into one file. The scans require assembly into a single file after the fact in the included software. I use this feature only for documents of one page. Only when there is no other practicable choice do I use this for multipage scans as it is a bit of a ball ache. Quite why they didn’t make use of the “WStart/Stop” button is anyone’s guess.The Wi-Fi functionality is OK, it is a bit slow in my experience. There is also no “known” Wi-Fi settings listed on the device’s settings so it just remembers the previous network it is connected to. It would be useful it it retained the settings for a number of networks to allow it to move between home, work and Mi-Fi adapter without having to repair the thing by the WPS button each time.As you can tell I mostly use my device over USB, its plug and play and fast. The built-in blank page detection is brilliant and the Brother iPrint & Scan software really is very good. This has a continuation feature so you can just keep stuffing pages into the feeder and they become one document. Automatic page rotation is also a good feature that works well as does deskew.The ability to insert a few pages at once would be nice but it isn’t worth sacrificing the extra size needed to support this. As a portable unit it would have been nice if it included even a cloth carrying case to stop it from being marked in my bag but this is an extra purchase.On th front of the feeder there is a peper guide for the feeder of the slidy piece of plastic type but there is no resistance to moving it so it is pointless. I may well gluee mine in position at somepoint.Despite these shortcomings it works well, the scans are good and it chewed through a massive backlog of scanning in a short period of time and will be taking up its place in my Office in a rucksack.

I love this portable scanner - it's so easy to put in the enclosed carry bag and pop it in the laptop bag. It uses a micro USB that draws the power from your computer so no messing about with SD cards and Wifi networks. Easy install of driver software which allows you to choose file type (including multi page PDF), paper size and resolution. I've been using it for digitising old photos and office paperwork for decluttering. It's fast and is whizzing through piles of paper. Highly recommended compared to more expensive products.

As small, USB powered and portable scanners go, they'e all much of a muchness.I chose this one because I have used Brother kit for a few years now and always found it to be reliable (they're not the quickest at releasing driver updates for new OS's though), and affordable kit.The supplied CD didn't include the Windows 10 drivers, though having bought it a few months ago this may have changed with more recent batches, and they instead had to be downloaded from the Brother website.The software is rather basic, but more than adequate for scanning documents - if you're wanting to digitize your photo collection this isn't the scanner for you.It's fairly quiet, and although it feels a little slow at scanning, it is worth remembering that it is only USB powered and a very small device.All in all, for document scanning, occasional use, or adding to portable kit for working on the road, and considering the price, I don't think you'll go far wrong with this scanner.

I hate paperwork and hate huge scanners that take up valuable desk space, so I got this. I was purchasing a small property for my son and was bombarded with forms to fill in by the solicitor. So I got this. It took about 10 minutes to install on my Windows 10 laptop. I plugged in the scanner, it was detected by the Brother software. I put the paper face up on the desk and clicked scan. It quickly scanned the sheet, then I clicked add page. After 5 pages I clicked save to location, and breathed a sigh of relief. A few more documents and the whole job was done in about 15 minutes, and the scanner is stored away ready for the next set of documents to scan. For around £80 it was fab. Job done. Highly recommended.