Xerox Mobile Scanner review

Most scanners only work when connected to a computer via USB but a portable one can be useful for capturing document pages or photos on the move.

Some scanners have their own storage on an SD card, but the Xerox Mobile Scanner is the first we’ve seen with a Wifi connection that lets you store scans online then forward them from there to a PC, tablet or smartphone.

The Xerox Mobile Scanner is sheet-fed – single pages go into a slot at the front. And it has just two buttons, one for starting a scan and the other for selecting the scan type.

See more: Scanner reviews | scanning how to guides

Data transfer is all handled by an Eye-Fi SD card, which combines storage, in this case 4GB, with a Wifi connection. The Eye-Fi company maintains an internet server, so all your scans are transferred there whenever a wireless network available. Scans are automatically downloaded to your computer, phone or tablet with an app.

This is all convenient but it slows each transfer by around 40 seconds, compared with a direct connection. But if you prefer to do things more conventionally, you can connect via USB and use the bundled copies of Nuance Paperport 12, Omnipage 17 and Presto Bizcard to transfer and manipulate pages and photos.

The scanner has an optical resolution of 300 pixels per inch – enough for optical character recognition (OCR) and for reasonable quality scans of photos. It isn’t enough for cropping or enlarging sections of a photo, though.

It scans quickly: performing OCR on an A4 page in 11 seconds and scanning a 15x10cm photo in five. The product is reasonably accurate and better than some rival portable scanners at colour reproduction.

The device comes with a charger that works via USB and mains, and a battery that Xerox says lasts for 300 A4 scans. There is also a semi-rigid cloth carry case for the scanner and cables.

Overall, it is a good portable scanner but, if you don’t need a wireless connection, there are cheaper alternatives available with better software bundles.