Whether you’re scanning specialized items, keeping your luggage light, or yearning to be free of cables and cords, you’ll find the perfect portable scanner in this guide. (We’ve tested all the major models.)
With the pandemic starting to recede in the review mirror, businesspeople are traveling again. Meanwhile, the category of portable scanners has been growing by leaps and bounds—not only to support taking all kinds of work on the road, but also in hybrid home offices. (And they make great gifts for the students, home-office workers, or road warriors in your life.)
Whether you need to convert paper documents to editable text, create and maintain contact databases, or assemble an expense report with digitized receipts, our list of the top portable scanners we’ve tested surely contains a match. You’ll find mobile scanners in several different flavors, with widely varying features and capabilities. (Some are more portable than others.)
We’ve pulled together our favorite tested picks for a broad range of applications. They include a few specialty scanners for tasks like collecting business cards at trade shows, or digitizing book pages in libraries. We’ve broken them out below in detail. Following that, look for our buying guide with general advice on picking a portable scanner, and a spec breakout of our top models.
Read the entire review at PCMag.