Quick Scan - Portable Rechargeable Handheld Scanner 

You really have a knack of making mundane items interesting.

Fun fact : some scanners and color photocopiers include a bit of software that is capable of detecting bank notes, which makes them throw an error. This one obviously doesn't have that protection built-in. But, in the words of the great Tom Scott : "If you are forging bank notes with a color photocopier, something has probably gone wrong with your life".

if you attached it to the back of your vacuum cleaner, you could scan your floor as you clean, to check the efficiency of the vacuum.

Wow! I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that tape box..between 1964 and 1969 I worked next door to CTS at Zenith Films!!!. I used to help out on film score music sessions in CTS...I ran the click track projector, while Sid Davies ran the main image...I was present for "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines", "Help", "What's New Pussycat", "The Loved One" among others,and many TV series. What memories this has stirred...oh, and J.J. Jingles would be Johnny Johnson, who used to own CTS. He was a fabulous, larger than life bloke, who drove an Alvis.

the line is a spec of dust on the glass. I own an imaging service bureau. . . common problem.

By the way, the line does not mean you got a dead pixel, it just means that, the scanning windows has dust on, aka you need to clean the scanning window. That's the reason why you get a cleaning cloth in the box. Usually after cleaning it should have no dark lines, unless you got a dead pixel of course.

I just wanted to let you know that you're really good at this. Some people can't talk about things without being boring, or making one want to leave the page quickly. Your easy going manner of speaking, clarify and good descriptions of products and vintage equipment makes me want to watch. Keep up the great work. :)

"Lets take this generic random item and do a video" - 10 minutes later I have watched it and as usual kept my attention and really enjoyed it. Something about your honest style, showing all the relevant details and not spending 10 hours doing unboxing or explaining how wonderful an item is. Please keep doing what you do about all weird and wonderful items, always enjoy your excellent content. It is always exciting to see a new Techmoan video!

Always wondered how these things adjust for variances in your movement speed as you're scanning. I've never actually used one myself, although I do have a few from the '90s lying around.

Always wondered how well these work.

Why is it only one of a million videos this simple understandable and interesting as this one on RU-vid

Wow! WOW! They brought back handheld scanners!? These were around in the mid-late 1980s, before flatbeds got cheap. Flatbed scanners could be from 200 - 500 quid, British pounds, back around the mid-late 1980s. 500 quid in 1988 is over 1,200 quid in today's money. So handheld ones were a cheaper option. Usually black and white. In fact flatbeds were usually black and white too, colour cost a good chunk extra. === WARNING, lots of irrelevant reminiscing about PCs of the olden days === The old handhelds were a bit smaller, only half as wide as an A4 page, so you'd need to scan in strips. Then paste them together in an art program, or special scanning program. At the time machines didn't have the processing power to align halves of scans automatically, so you'd do it by hand. Rotating the image would be pretty pointless, so get your alignment right! They had comparitively low res, too, compared to today. The scanning was by hand, you dragged the scanner down the page, at as constant a rate you could manage. No motors. They were cheaper than flatbeds, but still over 100 quid. Falling down to maybe 80 quid in the early 1990s. Still a fortune in now-money. After a few years, they disappeared as flatbeds entered their price range. No USB back then, so later ones interfaced via the printer port. PC parallel ports back then had 5 input pins, used to send warnings about printer status back to the PC. "Paper out", as well as general "error", "busy", and "acknowledge". And finally "select", nobody on the Internet seems to know what that was for. Then there were 8 output pins from the PC, for sending the print data over, and a couple of control output bits too. By using the 5 input pins for data, you could send 4 bits of data at a time, half a byte. The parallel port was designed to be read as fast as software could read it, so it was the fastest connector on the PC, assuming you didn't have SCSI. And a PC with SCSI could cost double that of one without, at least. Only people with Macs, and expensive design types, had SCSI. So, people connected scanners, as well as stuff like external tape drives, and even external disks and CD-ROM drives, through the parallel port. It wasn't fast enough. Meant scanning took a long time. So as a solution for that, Intel, Microsoft, et al, invented the Enhanced Parallel Port, EPP. And also ECP. They were meant to be more general-purpose ports for connecting hardware to, meant to be a versatile, general, high-speed connector for all sorts of peripherals. And that lasted a couple of years, before everyone realised it was a shambles, so somebody invented USB. And that was much better! Except, after a year or two they realised it was full of bugs and slow, so they invented USB 1.1. Which was still slow, so they invented USB 2. Then USB 3, and I'm pretty sure USB 5 is in the pipeline. And *THAT*, my friends, is the story of how annoying it used to be to use scanners! And the scanners all had their own software and drivers, and THAT was a huge pain in the arse to get working too. Under DOS or Windows 3.1. Which I don't remember as being too bad, but maybe we had lower expectations back then. So, scanners, used to be expensive and annoying. And now they've reinvented handheld scanners, I suppose for the one thing they're good for. Now that PCs all have suitable connectors, and drivers already included, or off the Internet. On and the parallel port scanners were the *easy* method. The ones before that, you had to connect a custom card onto your PC's motherboard, with a custom connector on it. PCs were more fun in the old days.

Holy crap! I was JUST looking at buying this exact product in amazon literally 10 mins ago. Great upload timing!

Concise, accurate and enjoyable video! Portability a key point and if it's lost, stolen, damaged or not returned, no big deal.

I have to say, I like your videos, they're pretty informative, fun, love the muppet sketches you do at the end, those are always endlessly amusing and cheeky. Keep making videos mate! Cheers!

Neat little gadget - thanks for reviewing it. Really like the music you use, btw.

Really loving the intro change :D.

Mate, as always, love your videos. I saw this years ago, all good stuff. I actually own one of these, works great. About 3 years ago though, I found an "app" named "Tiny Scanner Pro" and love it!! Downloaded to my phone and does bang on great job.! Try that. Cheers! And keep'em coming!

Good review - and the unit looks OK for what it is. I imagine the key utility of devices like this is either to be stuffed in a laptop bag and used to scan documents away from the desk, but also maybe to scan stuff that's too awkward to fit on the flatbed - for example, carton labels.

looks like a awesome portable scanner to get documents into a portable computer on the go! thanks for an informative video

Darn! Your guessed FAQs took all my questions. 💯

Whoa a modern scanner that lets you scan bank notes. On almost all flatbed scanners nowadays, if you try to scan a bank note, the scanner will purposely crash and not let you scan it. Theres little yellow circles on many countries notes that trigger the scanner to crash.

Had this for a year+. Bought it cause it seemed to make sense for office manual copies. Couldn't figure it out. Watched your video and BOOM. Thank you.

Great review, thank you! And I really like the new intro!

My first scanner way back in the late 80s was a handheld. There was a sense of wonder in pulling images from the paper by hand and making them into data on the screen, even in the low res of the time.

I bought one of these a few years ago, and they work well enough for an on-the-go scanner, even better if you spring for the auto-sheet feeder add-on. Throw on a cheap battery bank and you can scan pretty much anything anywhere. I did seem to notice the same kind of line issues on mine that you did, but I've also been using mine solely for scanning documents, so it hasn't been as critical

Wow it's actually better than I expected. I remember seeing those in my city back in the day and always thinking "wow, must be terrible trying to scan something with those". Now I want one

Always love your reviews!

I have been on the fence about buying one of these for a while, so this review was very helpful. If you have or get any other types of scanners, like a document scanner, I'd love to see that. Great video.

Thank you very much sir! Your video presentation is always excellent and very informative. This little portable scanner is excellent device for scanning documents or books. One of my hobbies is scanning old photo prints and photo film for archival preservation. With proper photo stand (like those made by Kaiser) and with proper repro/duplication macro lenses and proper light,you can get sharpness and details that no scanner can match.

Yooooohoooooo updated intro ;-) i'm happy that the famous intro music is the same. :-) Love it! Unique.. Techmoan style..

handy to scan text from thick books or things that dont fit in a flatbed

I have a similar item, made by Vu-Point. It's a bit simpler; you don't get as many choices, BUT it does come with a document feeder to make the scanning even easier. I bought mine several years ago and scanned in better than 10,000 pictures for friends and family before it finally died on me. I have no issue at all with any of the pictures I scanned. I have also done documents, which it does well, too...I can't even estimate how many documents I scanned, in addition to all the photos. I have a flat bed scanner as well and, frankly, don't see an awful lot of difference in the final product created by the two. The hand (or wand) scanner is much quicker, though. I ordered a new wand scanner the day after my first one died. That, alone, is a testament to what I think of it.

the reason you have a line down the X-Wing picture scan is likely because theres a speck of dirt on the scanner, seems like a pretty cool device in all!

Loved your video and found it very helpful. My wife is a serious stampie...( stamp collector ) and I will give her one of these for Christmas as often she has to scan her stamp book pages and finds it very tedious to have to remove all the stamps to get a flat image. Would have liked it if you had tested different speeds of scanning but I guess we'll do that. Thanks again and cheers from Canada North

My computer graphics professor had a similar portable scanner in 1991-92. It had a small florescent tube light to illuminate the document or photo. It had a serial port cable to connect to the computer and download the scanned image. I don't remember what brand it was but the box of the scanner had a cheetah or a lynx on it.

I still have one of these! The best use for them is for genealogists. A lot of genealogy libraries don't allow checking out of certain older books and since I have to gather as much info as I can quickly (and not play around with their half-assed photocopiers) I have one of these instead. It works GREAT for that purpose, kind of a MUST HAVE for a serious genealogist.

What a difference a year makes. In 2017 I started using TurboScan that uses the iphone camera to do pretty good scans for up to legal sized documents. In 2019 I bought an Epson 50 scanner, not much bigger than the one in the video, only it has its own feeder for the tons of documents I need to maintain records of. Certainly improved my work process, even on the run.

Seems OK as a basic document (rather than image) scanner. The ability to be completely cordless would be a big plus for me, and their website indicates pretty OK battery life and obviously significant ease of recharging (any USB charger). Might buy one.

Love this channel

Some dust, lint or dirt on the sensor, will produce a bad line in your scan.

I've used the "TurboScan" app on my phone for several years and it works a treat! I use it between 10 and 30 times a day at my job. Inexpensive, and always in my pocket/on my desk. It frames the item you're scanning, and turns it into a PDF or JPEG. It also allows you to save it to the cloud as well as message or email it.

That scanner reminds me of an object called a transposer. I remember my high school computer science teacher had one. We ended up scanning our favorite Far Side cartoons and then projected them onto a screen. I was amazed by the technology back then and had no idea of what was to come.

Looking at the large diagonal lines one between the clock and Churchill's portrait during the comparison you can see where the inconsistencies of the speed you move it at come into play. I was considering one of these for scanning things out of larger books that won't fit properly on a flatbed scanner, but the image quality isn't quite there for photographs as you evidenced. Top work again, great review.

Love the new colour intro, will you do a video on how you made it sometime ? Would also be nice to see a video of how you make videos in 4k (equipment and workflow) for us to geek out on ;)

Informative as always. No pun intended!

This was popular for business's travelers needing copies of the receipts. I think there is a version that allows you to scan large items with a paint brush motion and it auto paste the final product.

I have a Doxie portable scanner, its fantastic for documents! Made my quest to go paperless with all my paperwork so much easier! Super easy to create searchable pdfs, so much better than having a filling cabinet full of crap

Three cheers to shoddy workmanship!

ive had one of these for a few years now still in the box never used and a better brand. i guess ive always found my phone to be so quick and easy to use that i never bothered with this scanner.

I remember the old handheld scanners from the early 90's. They were bigger and could only scan half of a page at at time. If you spent extra money you could even buy one that could color.

Wanted one of these for a while.

Have the older version of this scanner. I really like it! The older version didn't come with a card, and is powered by 4 AAs.

I had a hand scanner when Windows 3.11 was the latest Windows version. Using this thing was complicated, I never quite could get it. It's nice to see technology progressed so nicely you only have to push the button.

GREAT BIT OF KIT, totally will never need one but want one,

Is this a new intro or just a special into for certain things? I'm certainly not complaining, it looks good, though of course I have a bit of nostalgia for the original now. Always love your movies!

Interesting device. Reminds me of those old hand scanners.

good looking new intro text!

That scanner is certainly much better than the photocopiers that businesses lived with for many years. Sometimes you just need a quick scan of something that is clearly legible and image fidelity does not matter that much. Only gripe about it is that the preview is a bit useless - would benefit from a wireless link to pc/mac/tablet for preview

Loving that intro

Neat, might bag myself one.

Great device and video!

this looks a great device for scanning winebottles & cans & other cilinder-formed things

Dankie/ Merci. I have always thought that some day some one in West will make it handheld scanner. Great! Most likely it will cost an arm and leg in Africa.

If you want to use your camera and get a clearer picture, set your camera to manual, use a small aperture (Highest F-stop), and longer shutter time. If you use manual focus, set your focus to about 1/3rd of the depth. I'd also recommend using a remote button or shutter delay to remove any tripod shimmy blur.

At 7:08 even Winston Churchill is shaking his head yelling "Noooooo, don't scan me!!!" lol

I wish these were around when I was in college!

scans like a boss

like the new opening

The first scanner I had was a hand-held one. I couldn't afford anything else at the time. It was a _Logitech 'Scanman'_ . It wasn't very wide. If you wanted to do anything wider than a photo you had to do it in strips which it stitched together at the end.

I remember, when my family got our first computer (a Packard Bell running Windows 3 point something), we had a scanner that you'd have to move across the paper by hand. It had a cord that plugged into the computer, so it wasn't cordless, like this is. Anyway… This seems like a pretty darn good scanner, given the nature of its hand-operation. But imagine building a track for it to run on, and a stepper motor to move it along at a reliable pace that could be set as a setting, and reproduced later, using the same settings.

Techmoan I trust your vids.

You had to compare it with the flatbed scanner image too!!

a rather good bit of kit, I'd say.

I just got one of those at a yard sell yesterday. It was new in the box un-opened for only $7. So I checked on line about what I had just got and now today this shows on on my recommended list. Now try to tell me we are not being spied on.

I have a similar one, same firmware I suppose. To side scroll in preview mode you should press the "cog" button. Also, I had very similar white lines on the image and thought it were dead pixels, turns out it was just some gunk on the sensor. Cleaned it up and it's been perfect ever since.

You new Intro is Cool ;D

Love your videos! FYI: A scanned four color process printed image is going to result in an image with Moire patterns no matter which scanner you use. This is due to the image being made up of tiny dots. You will never get a nice clean, crisp scanned image. I have to say this scanner did very well. And I agree, it looks like you have a dead pixel.

I once installed a scanner that was used for scanning very old fragile documents in very high resolution, it was basically a camera facing downwards with a space for a book, when you flipped a page it would automatically take a picture with no key-stoning, artifacts or lighting issues. I'd love to see a video talking about of these to figure out how it's able to take a picture of a page from a book and not have any key-stoning.

Just wanted to thank you.

As a teacher, this would be a really efficient way to scan in worksheets and print them as needed.

So what you've taught me is, when I want to make my own money, to use a camera. Right-o. ♥

I got this model for scanning photos when visiting family. Very handy but I need 3 scans to be sure I have a good one. Also the max dpi has some weird lines, like the full resolution is only in one direction. But at 600 dpi it creates quite nice images for the size.

That fine white line is a crease in the paper. It's very noticeable on black posters when they are folded.

in the 60's/70's this would have been the ultimate spy tool, Sneak in scan the documents and go. The closest they got was the really cool tiny Minox 9.2mm film camera.

Hi I'm a student and I have got a scanner like that. In fact it is very effective if you want to scan a document in an inappropriate place. A page from a book in the library while I'm reading for example.

You should be on the BBC. You'd wreck Antique's Roadshow.

Reminds me of the horrible Logitech handheld scanners we had at home in the late 90s that were really frustrating to work with. This one here looks like it works pretty good though.

Was watching "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" yesterday, and in the credits, the soundtrack was recorded at CTS too :)

It is a LOT better than the Hand Scanner I used on my Amiga (105 mm @ 400 dpi) back in the 90s.

It's a bit too bulky for international espionage.....

Another great video Techmoan, although I hVe no need for a scanner if you were in the market for one, this would be a little Jem

I have super power, I have never seen this item before but I strongly believed that it could exist. Even my imaginary picture of this device is similar to your scanner shown in video.

I must say that this will probably be a wonderful device for scanning in my inkings. I hated the colours in the pictures, but I do love how well defined the clocktower lines are in the scan. I ink with black ink so that should work out very well.

I was hoping you would move the scanner over a picture faster and see what the picture looked like. Now I have to try and buy one to test that out. :(

I have an older version of this thing. I swear i cannot find out how to set the date and time. BUT, the good thing is the piece of software for OCR which comes along, it goes through ideograms like a champ.

Nice Video, Really Cool.

Great value!

And I thought hand scanners were a thing of the past. Old skool!

Love the (guessed) FAQ :)