After years of fighting software conflicts between my computer and various flatbed scanners in every price range, it was refreshing to work with this low priced, handheld scanner. I had become accustomed to having to trick my flatbeds into producing even a single page of material without at least a system reboot every time I wanted a copy of something. The Wolverine skips the computer altogether until I'm ready to work with the scanned jpg images. Then I just plug in with the supplied USB cable and find the Wolverine immediately recognized, just as a flashdrive or external hard drive would be. The choice of 300/600 DPI in either color or black and white is all I need for my purposes. I've scanned book pages, magazine pages, actual photos, receipts.... even pictures from the newspaper, something that never scanned well with my flatbeds. So far I haven't had a single error code with the Wolverine for moving too fast or too erratically; I find it quite forgiving in that regard. And finally, in the area of portability, the Wolverine can't be beat. No more trying to squash full size open books flat for successful scanning on my flatbed. Instead of bringing the book to the scanner I now take the scanner to the book, and scan page after page, both text and pictures, effortlessly.Suggestion: for ease of scanning something small or clumsy, like a newspaper clipping that wants to curl up, I've found that putting a piece of clear plastic (like those used as desktop calendar protectors) over the target item works great, just run the scanner right over the plastic; no distortion or reflection.
Pro's:
* This model has rollers on both the leading and trailing edges, an improvement over the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner (PDS ST415 WM), although apparently manufactured by the same company.
Cons:
* More bulky than the VuPoint, and only available in green.
* There is about 1" of dead space on each side of the scanner that is not scanned, which may be an issue when scanning a page from a book, i.e. if the left margin is less than an inch.
* Disposable Alkaline batteries are supposedly required; I used NiMH rechargeables and they worked OK but were drained after about 100 scans.
* The unit randomly locks up when batteries are weak.
* There is no crop feature (even if the background is entirely white or black), so the resulting scanned image is always 8.5" wide, requiring use of computer software to crop them down to the desired size (say 4x6").
* Scanned images were always a tad crooked (compared to a flat-bed scanner), also requiring computer software to rotate them into position if desired. Manually rotating and cropping each photo wastes a lot of time.
* Scanned images were also intermittently distorted depending on how quickly the scanner was moved across the photo, for example after scanning a photo of a person, sometimes their head might appear "squished" if the scanner was moved faster over their head in the photo (possibly the scanner "lost" some scan lines without illuminating the "error" light, or possibly the distortion occurred when the edge of the photo hit the second roller). In any case I was a bit upset that some of the photos were distorted as in a Fun-House Mirror.
* The JPG files that were output had about 2KB of extra padding at the end of each file, confusing and locking up some photo viewer programs. For example, gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) said that all JPG files were corrupt due to this extra padding, and linux's default "Image Viewer" program locked up.
* Max resolution of 600dpi is not as high as the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner model PDS-ST415-VPS (which does 900dpi)
* The resolution is not remembered across power-cycles, so must be reconfigured each time the unit is powered on (unless you always want to scan at the lowest resolution).
* This model also does not support PDF file output, whereas the VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Portable Scanner model PDS-ST415-VPS model does. (Note that the VuPoint PDS-ST415-VP model doesn't support PDF output and is also 600dpi like this Wolverine model; watch for that last letter in the model number!)
Buy Wolverine PASS200 Handheld Portable Documents, Books and Photo Scanner Now
I've been using the Wolverine PASS -100 Portable Battery Powered Hand Held Document Scanner for a while and really like it. When I heard about this new model I contacted the manufacturer directly to get one as soon as I could. Frankly, as much as I liked the old one, this one is even better.
The two scanners are about the same size, with the PASS-200 being slightly larger. The big difference is the roller mechanism. The old version had one set of rollers and you had to apply a slight downward pressure to keep it rolling steadily. The new scanner has two sets and you have to work hard to make it NOT scan well. It's like it wants to stick to the surface being scanned and move in a straight line!
Another nice touch it the manufacturer is providing OCR software for download from their site.
The attached video shows the two units side-by-side for a comparison and gives a closeup look at this handy, easy to use scanner.
Read Best Reviews of Wolverine PASS200 Handheld Portable Documents, Books and Photo Scanner Here
I am a paper hoarder. I have stacks of recipes, craft projects, articles, cards I want to save, etc. They take up every spare shelf, drawer, cupboard. I can't seem to throw them out. I never know when I might want to comb through a gazillion recipes, so how could I just throw them out? I bought this scanner. It's wonderful! The scans are very nice, even on low resolution. It warms up within seconds of turning it on. There is no wait time between scans. Even my clumsy use of it doesn't spoil the scans. I can quickly and easily scan in a recipe or craft project and I have made myself folders on my computer to sort them into. Now I can go right to my deserts folder and chocolate sub-folder and peruse the recipes there. That means I can actually USE them because I can find what I want! I am giddy. If I do 200 scans per day for 10 years, I can throw out ALL my scraps of paper! Genius!Want Wolverine PASS200 Handheld Portable Documents, Books and Photo Scanner Discount?
Wolverine PASS200 Handheld Portable Documents, Books and Photo Scanner I must admit that I'm a bit peeved since I discovered this very same item in a Costco e-mail flyer for $69.00 ( 30 bucks less). But that's not the purpose of this post. I currently have a portable sheetfed scanner which works really well with the exception that it doesn't work for images in a book or magazine without tearing out the page which might not be appreciated at the library. While on the subject, if you do a lot of copying at the library, this is the device for you. Excellent quality of scan plus no repeated trips to the expensive and often occupied copy machine which by the time your turn comes up it's out of paper. One feature that I liked about my portable sheetfed was I could scan any length document as long as I didn't run out of sidewalk ( could always cross the street I suppose). Anyway this unit should work as well for that up to the limit listed in the instructions. On balance it gets 5 stars from me.Save 29% Off
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