The MONY Spot

The Mobile Office in New York (MONY) Spot is a column dedicated to informing users of the latest cutting edge solutions for the mobile office, and how they can enable you to be more productive. This column is a themed excerpt of the MONY blog (mobileofficing.com). For more information on any of the below items as well as images, links, and more, head over to the MONY blog.

One particularly annoying remnant of the old pre-digital days is that we just can’t seem to cut back on our need for paper. We still have to deal with reports, large briefs, and other lengthy documents and these don’t travel well. Today’s laptop cases and messenger bags have precious little space for them, and when we’re on the road, they become dog-eared and tattered way too quickly.

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to beat the paper monster. The three portable scanners discussed below let you scan large documents and carry them with you in electronic format. They range the gamut of features and size, while all are in a reasonable, sub-$300 price range. All of them have scan-to-PDF functionality, and two come with Business Card Recognition capability, which will send your business cards over to Outlook as a contact. These solutions function with PCs only, although scanned documents saved in PDF format can be copied to your Windows Mobile device and viewed with a PDF viewer.

Fujitsu ScanSnap S300

$295; buyfcpa.com

By far the most powerful of the three is the Fujitsu S300 Color Image Scanner. Although I’d dread having to carry this 3.1 pound scanner around with me, I’m in love with its feature set. Boasting a top speed of 8 pages per minute (PPM) and 16 images per minute (IPM), the S300 has a top loading auto document feeder (ADF), making it the only scanner that is conducive for batch scanning reviewed here. The unit measures 11.18 x 3.74 x 3.03 inches—about the size of a small loaf of bread, and only one button adorns its black/silver body, which we’ll talk more about in the software section. The S300 can be powered by the included AC power adapter or through a PC’s USB port via a USB-to-barrel pin jack cable. (Note that this cable is for power only. A second USB cable and port is needed for communication.) The S300 ships with both of these cables.

I’m happy with the mini-USB standardization, but a little annoyed at having to carry around two cables. Note, however, that the S300 features inline duplex scanning, which means that you can scan both sides of a document in one go. The dual scanning “eyes” required may require more power, hence the separate power and connectivity ports. The S300 does not ship with a carrying case, unlike the other two scanners below which both come with some form of protection. You can, however, go online (fujitsu.com/downloads/COMP/fcpa/scanners/s300-carrycase_rebate.pdf) and send in for a free case until March 30th.

The software