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We put 13 top scanners from Fujitsu, Canon, Brother, Epson, and more through rigourous testing.
We test every aspect of the scanners in our reviews to bring you the best, most unbiased, data driven information and recommendations available anywhere on the internet.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
By Sentry Kelly ⋅ Senior Review Analyst ⋅ Updated June 3, 2025
A quality scanner makes digitizing documents, photos, and artwork effortless. The top models are perfect for work, archiving, or creativity, offering you the ability to digitize and organize at the push of a button.
To find the best options, our team of expert testers bought 13 top scanners and spent weeks scanning thousands of pages. We carefully evaluated each model's scan quality, speed, and ease of managing the resulting digital files. Whether you're just looking to digitize a few receipts here and there, have a stack of old photos you want to preserve digitally, or have mountains of documents to save for posterity, our testing results will help you choose the best model for you.
The best overall scanner from our tests is the Canon ImageFORMULA R40. This scanner excelled at scanning photos and text and was easy to use with great software. Looking for something a little more affordable? The Brother DS-640 is a portable scanner that only costs around $100 and still scores quite well across our tests, though it's a bit slower than many models.
I found the Canon ImageFORMULA R40 to be the best scanner for the vast majority of users due to its superb, quick scanning abilities and user-friendly design that is just shy of the Epson FastFoto FF-680W in most aspects, but for hundreds of dollars less. What I love most about the Canon R40 is its ability to produce scans that are so crisp and clean that I can zoom in without seeing hardly any distortion. While Canon calls this an entry-level device, it has continually upgraded the R40, making it one of our favorite document scanners (although it's not too shabby with photos either). After firmware updates and hardware upgrades, our lead tester noted, “The latest iteration has faster scanning speeds, better text recognition software, and improved image quality than what I experienced in the past.”
What I don't like is that it doesn't support wireless scanning. It's also still a fairly expensive scanner. However, this scanner is great for all uses, whether you're scanning photos from a wedding or hundreds of business documents. You can have great scan quality, better optical character recognition (OCR), and a more user-friendly experience at a lower price with the Canon ImageFORMULA R40. At 15 pages per minute, it is likely fast enough for most professional needs, making it a perfect choice for almost anyone.
For most users, the ideal scanner can quickly and conveniently digitize a short document or receipt whenever needed and can be easily stored. That's why it's hard to beat the Brother DS-640. “In my testing, this model consistently produced high-quality PDFs that looked nearly identical to the originals. I was able to search the text on scanned documents thanks to near-perfect optical character recognition,” said our lead tester. I love the simple and easy-to-use document management. Impressively, the Brother DS-640 is approximately the size of a standard power strip, weighing just over one pound, and powers via USB. All this means you can quickly plug it into your laptop when needed and then easily hide it away when not in use. Although it hasn't changed much since 2019, it has had several driver and software updates and now supports Linux. All told, it's an ultra-compact and robust scanner at a relatively low price.
The only real downside to this model is its speed. Because you must manually feed each page, digitizing page after page of a document can be a slow and cumbersome process. It's even more time-consuming due to the lack of a duplex scanning feature, meaning you must feed every double-sided page twice. It took us over seven minutes to digitize a double-sided 10-page document with the Brother DS-640. “That's a task I can complete in about 30 seconds with automatic document feeders. If you consistently scan documents over ten pages, this won't be the model for you,” tester Max Mutter said. Still, for many, the Brother DS-640 offers the convenience of size and simplicity at a price that won't gouge your wallet. If you want a bit more speed and scanning performance, check out the Epson Perfection V39 II. It scored a few points higher in both areas. For a truly low price, check out the Scanner Pro App — it's free.
The Epson FastFoto FF-680W is the best scanner available on the market. If you are a detail-oriented professional or an enthusiastic photographer, you'll love the accuracy and clarity of FastFoto's scans. Our lead tester particularly praised the photo scan quality, saying, “It completely nails the colors in the sky” and “The image brightness is almost spot on.” It's fast, too — we scanned a double-sided 10-page black and white document at a high resolution of 600 DPI in just 58 seconds. This makes it just as fast as the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600* a scanner known for its incredible speed.
However, the Epson FastFoto FF-680W comes at a premium cost that can make it impractical if you aren't planning to use it for a business or passion-driven hobby. It's a feature-rich piece of hardware, which sounds like a benefit, but learning what every button and setting does can require picking up the manual more than a few times. The effort and price are not likely to be worth it if you just need a scanner to preserve a modest collection of family photos — for that, I recommend the Canon ImageFORMULA R40, which produces clear, accurate scans at almost half the price. If top-tier quality is a priority for you, though, this scanner can certainly pay for itself in the long run.
I wholeheartedly recommend the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 if you have any job or small business that demands high-quality, fast, and easy scanning. Thanks to its large automatic document feeder and fast pace, this model turns a 50-page document into a digital PDF at a rate of over 10 pages per minute. The resulting PDF looks great because this machine can accurately and crisply render everything from tiny text to detailed graphics. The user experience is also simple, with our tester reporting, “The iX1600 offers a large LCD touchscreen with an intuitive interface that I found made both setup and daily use a breeze.” Fujitsu has dominated the high-speed scanning game for years and kept updating the iX1600. While the scanning speeds have not dramatically changed (we don't know that anyone needs it to scan faster), the software and driver updates have allowed higher scanning resolutions and improved text recognition.
This model suffered from some errors in optical character recognition, but this is a common problem for many scanners. With that in mind, the only serious downside is the premium price. Some users may not scan enough to justify the hefty price tag. However, if scanning is a major part of your workflow, the investment is well worth the time and effort you'll save and the superior-quality scans you'll receive. For a high-speed, easy-to-use, high-quality machine, look no further than the iX1600. If you scan less frequently and just want an affordable option that you can tuck away in a drawer when not in use, look to the Brother DS-640.
Among the scanners our team has tested, the Fujitsu Fi-8170 stands out as one of the top performers. “The high-capacity design can handle 100-page documents and scan them quickly; it's the scanner I'd choose if I needed to scan a lot of pages regularly,” our lead tester concluded after testing. This scanner can help you overcome an avalanche of paperwork by processing as many as 18 double-sided pages per minute at 600 DPI resolution. Its overall scanning quality and user-friendly interface make it a great choice if you need to dial in the scanner settings to accommodate your day-to-day workflow.
Unfortunately, the Fujitsu Fi-8170 isn't perfect. It is best suited for business tasks, like text documents and receipts, and its photo scanning performance could have yielded better results. It's also many times more expensive than others in the field. Nonetheless, the Fi-8170 is a great scanner for those who require the ability to scan large documents quickly and easily. If you want a better balance of great performance and price, our top recommendation is the Canon ImageFORMULA R40, which has a 60-page document feeder and scores high across all our test metrics.
Epson hit it out of the park with the Epson WorkForce ES-60W. It is light, fast, compact, incredibly mobile, and easy to use. Not only is it amazing if you need scanning on the go, wireless scanning, or scanning to the cloud, but its performance also rivals some of the best desktop and flatbed-style scanners on the market today. I was very impressed with the accuracy of the handwriting on the PDF documents this model was able to produce.
Unfortunately, the Workforce ES-60W is slower to operate, especially with its lack of a feed or output tray. As one tester noted, “I found larger stacks of documents ended up being a lengthy and even tedious chore, requiring manually feeding each sheet into the device.” If you don't typically need to digitize multi-page documents and want great performance and robust features on the go, there is no better choice than the ES-60W. If you scan infrequently, the Brother DS-640 is an even more affordable portable scanner with above-average scan quality.
The Epson Perfection V600 lives up to its name when it comes to preserving photo quality. “I think this scanner is far and away the best for scan quality,” said lead tester, Sentry Kelly. This is the scanner for you if you want to digitize precious memories or upload your photography and artwork at an incredibly high resolution. The V600 is capable of scanning at up to 6400x9600 DPI resolution, which makes it excellent for producing lossless enlargements and capturing the details in film negatives.
The biggest downside to the Epson Perfection V600 is its speed. They say you can't rush perfection, and this scanner took that to heart. When scanning a single double-sided colored sheet at 600 DPI, the process took 38 seconds. That's almost three times longer than the Epson FastFoto FF-680W. The sluggish software can hinder the process, too. Our tester commented that it “feels very dated and clunky, but it is much better on PC.” If you're willing to be patient and can find a suitable space in your office for such a large scanner, then you won't be disappointed in how the V600 handles your photo digitization tasks.
For zero dollars (or a few bucks for in-app purchases), the Scanner Pro App can help with all your scanning needs. This app uses powerful software to turn your smartphone's camera into a high-quality scanner. If you have a flat, relatively monochrome surface where you can snap an image, the scans are automatically cropped and appear surprisingly crisp. “Since the resulting files end up on my phone, I found it extremely easy to attach them to emails and texts or upload them to the cloud storage service of your choice,” our tester Max reported. It even offers optical character recognition, rivaling the accuracy of software found in dedicated scanning devices.
Relying on your phone's camera to scan documents has some inherent drawbacks. The process is relatively slow due to the need to frame each shot. “It's not a big deal when working with one or two pages, but it took a relatively long time when I was scanning multiple-page documents,” Max said. You must also be careful not to cast shadows on the materials you're scanning, or the result may look smudged. Still, the Scanner Pro App is an incredibly inexpensive way to scan receipts and short documents on the go and can likely replace a dedicated model for many people.
It takes about 20 seconds to scan and save a document using the Scanner Pro App.
Credit: Chris McNamara
Compare Products
We tested the speed of each scanner side-by-side.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
How We Tested
To produce unbiased and objective data about the scanners in this review, my team and I purchased and perform hands-on tests on each scanner in a wide range of fundamental tests. Our review process comprises over 150 hours of setup, software installation, file management, spot-checking optical character recognition, and scanning paper documents, IDs, and passports.
We put each model through more than 20 different tests and used each one in just about every way possible. The most important metric here is Scan Quality, which accounts for 35% of the overall score. To gauge performance in different areas, we've divided our performance metric into two main focuses: black-and-white scanning (text-focused) and color photo scanning. Whether you're seeking a powerhouse to turn giant stacks of paper into text-searchable PDFs in seconds, need an efficient way to electronically store your receipts, or want to digitize important family photos, our testing will help you choose the perfect device.
We use four rating metrics in our hands-on tests:
Scanning Performance (35% of overall score weighting)
Speed (30% weighting)
Ease of Use (20% weighting)
Software (15% weighting)
We thoroughly tested every aspect of the top scanners available today to determine which ones might be right for you.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Why Trust GearLab
Sentry Kelly, Ben Hickok, and Jonathan Sayers have spent many hours of hands-on testing with each scanner in this review, and transformed that testing into our easy-to-read article designed to help you choose the best scanner for your unique needs. Over the years, they've used and analyzed hundreds of scanners, printers, and other home and office supplies. That experience has given them a unique understanding of evaluating the quality of printed and digital text and images, and the common pitfalls of software controls for common desktop devices. Their knowledge enables them to accurately assess whether a scanning device can perform all its necessary functions without creating excessive complications or annoyances for users.
We've tested dozens of scanners over the years of all shapes and sizes to help you find the best fit for your needs.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Analysis and Test Results
Despite existing in an increasingly digitized world, many people and institutions still prefer paper documents to communicate important information. That's where a scanner comes in, allowing you to digitize vital information into an easily organized, searchable, and more secure format. Scanning may be essential, but it is hardly anyone's favorite task, so I focused most of our scoring on how well and quickly each model can digitize documents, leaving you free to do more important (or more fun) activities. I weighed scan quality even more heavily, keeping in mind the importance of professionalism in a business setting and picture-perfect clarity for artists and photographers. If you're not sure where to start when narrowing down the options, I outline the most important features to look for in a document scanner and how to ensure a scanner aligns with your daily usage expectations. Below, I go into our testing metrics and the performance of different models.
Worse Value
Better Value
What's the Best Value?
When it comes to digitizing documents, you're mostly paying for two things: scan quality and speed. High-priced models like the Fujitsu iX1600 ScanSnap or Epson FastFoto FF-680W get crystal clear text and can tear through pages in a flash. A more inexpensive model like the Canon ImageFormula R40 or the Epson WorkForce ES-60W can still provide impressive scan quality at slower speeds. The Epson Perfection V600 offers a reasonable value for scanning photos, but you again sacrifice the ability to scan long documents efficiently.
For a significant investment, you can get commercial-grade scanning speeds — but this will not be the best value for most people.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Of course, if you just need a scanner for a one-and-done task, the best value will come from a free or inexpensive mobile app. Scanner Pro, Apple, Google, Adobe, and Microsoft all provide solutions that enable you to snap a photo of any document and convert it to a PDF or image file that you can easily edit or send using your smartphone. While this can never live up to the pixel-perfect clarity that a dedicated scanner provides, it is more than enough for submitting a bit of personal paperwork here and there.
The Apple Scanning App turns the phone in your pocket into a capable scanner that gets the job done in seconds.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
Scan Quality
A scan is useless and unprofessional if it isn't legible, which is why I ranked scanning performance as the most important metric in our tests, contributing 35% to the overall scores. Our first step in finding the best scanner is to assess the quality of each model's document scans.
Epson Perfection V600Brother DS-640
Select 'Compare Other Products' to see how other scanners look in our document scanning tests.
Our testing focuses on printed type, handwritten notes, and receipts. In this round of tests, we found that every model in our lineup could generally produce great-looking text, with a few small exceptions.
Differences were especially apparent regarding how well each model could render color documents and photographs. These days, it is more common to want to print a digital photo, but occasionally, you need to digitize a printed photograph. Document scanners haven't traditionally been ideal for photos, but we still test their capabilities by scanning some images to see how well each model performs in that capacity. We then grade each model based on the scan clarity and color accuracy.
The V600 is a flatbed scanner that creates s-tier scans for both photos and documents and can even scan film negatives. It creates great-looking digital copies of text documents, but much more slowly than the dedicated document models with feeder and output trays. I would particularly recommend this scanner to photographers or to anyone who regularly scans photos.
Epson Perfection V600Brother DS-640
Select 'Compare Other Products' to see how other scanners look in our photo scanning tests. We tested photos of people, outdoor landscapes, a city background, and black and white images.
The Canon ImageFORMULA R40 earned one of the highest rankings for near-perfect black-and-white scanning and above-average color scanning performance. Although the sharpness of the digitized photos was nearly as good as the original, there was some minor over-darkening of dark areas and overly brightened light areas. Other models, namely flatbed scanners, were able to maintain more true light and dark distinctions.
The Epson FastFoto FF-680W was even stronger in our scan quality tests. It produces crystal clear characters on an entirely white background, renders text documents and graphs to near perfection, and does an amazingly good job scanning photos and maintaining accurate colors and composition. However, it didn't earn a perfect score because it can occasionally saturate some colors.
The Workforce ES-60W and the Brother DS-640 are above-average portable scanners capable of challenging other top models. The scanning performance of the compact and portable ES-60W was surprisingly good and overturned the notion that only traditional desktop or flatbed-style scanners can offer premium performance.
Scan Quality Specs
Optical Resolution
Output Resolution
Color Depth
Grayscale
Epson FastFoto FF-680W
600 DPI
1200 DPI
24- bit
8-bit
ScanSnap iX1600
600 DPI
1200 DPI
not specified
not specified
Epson WorkForce ES-60W
600 DPI
1200 DPI
16-bit
8-bit
Brother DS-640
600 DPI
1200 DPI
24-bit
8-bit
Epson Perfection V600
6400 DPI
12800 DPI
48-bit
16-bit
Fujitsu Fi-8170
600 DPI
1200 DPI
24-bit
8-bit
Despite its relatively low price tag, the Brother DS-640 also earned high scores on our scan quality scoreboard. Throughout our tests, it rendered PDFs with clear text and accurate colors. It even did a decent job of scanning photographs (though we wouldn't feed treasured old photos through it for fear they'd be bent — a flatbed model is still best for this application).
Although the Epson Perfection V39 II didn't do as well in our document scanning tests, it did produce excellent-quality photo scans and is more than up to the task of digitizing your family albums.
Overall Scan Quality
If you work in an office that processes important forms and documents, you need crisp and clean scans, like you'd find from the Canon ImageFORMULA R40. If you are a passionate photographer, preserve the quality of your compositions with the Epson FastFoto FF-680W or the Epson Perfection V600. I found these to be the scanners most capable of maintaining legibility, color accuracy, and visual clarity.
Scan Quality
Product
Document Scanning
Photo Scanning
Epson Perfection V600
9.5
9.7
Epson FastFoto FF-680W
8.7
9.2
Canon ImageFORMULA R40
8.7
8
Brother DS-640
7.3
9
ScanSnap iX1600
8.0
8
Epson WorkForce ES-60W
7.3
8
Xerox Duplex Combo
5.7
8
Epson Perfection V39 II
6.7
6.5
Canon imageFORMULA R10
7.2
5.7
Epson WorkForce ES-400 II
7.0
4.7
Fujitsu Fi-8170
6.3
5
Epson WorkForce ES-50
5.8
4.7
Plustek ePhoto Z300
5.3
4
Speed
Let's face it: nobody likes the scanning process, so the faster you can get it over with, the better. To test speed, we scanned the same double-sided, 10-page document on each model and timed how long it took from loading the first page to opening a complete PDF. I gave the results a 30% weighting in the overall scores of each product. We then converted these times into page-per-minute (ppm) figures. Models with automatic document feeders were much faster than those that required loading each page individually.
Speed-Related Specs
Auto Document Feeder
Duplex Scans
Epson FastFoto FF-680W
100 pages
ScanSnap iX1600
50 pages
Epson WorkForce ES-60W
✖
✖
Brother DS-640
✖
✖
Epson Perfection V600
✖
✖
Fujitsu Fi-8170
100 pages
The Fujitsu iX1600 ScanSnap was our favorite for high-speed scanning. It blew through our 10-page duplex document in seconds. Its automatic document feeder aided this speed, which can handle up to 50 pages, allowing you to breeze through mid-length documents quickly.
The Canon imageFORMULA R10 is a force of nature when scanning documents, but its slower than the competition when processing photos.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
The Canon imageFORMULA R40 is another speedster. It could actually handle an average of 15 black and white pages per minute, and with a large feed tray, it could quickly complete larger tasks without compromising scanning quality. It only loses out to the ScanSnap due to slower colored scans, taking about twice as long to complete such tasks.
The Epson WorkForce ES-400 II is an impressive model with regard to speed, rivaling the fastest model in our lineup.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
While the Fujitsu iX1600 ScanSnap is among the fastest models we tested, the Epson WorkForce ES-400 II also offers impressive speeds. It can handle a single color sheet on a duplex setting at 600 DPI in 14 seconds and churns through larger multi-page documents at a rate of almost 11 pages per minute. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer the high scan quality of the iX1600, but it may be an okay option when speed is a priority, and it costs a significant amount less than the iX1600.
Whether big or small, black-and-white or color, the Fujitsu Fi-8170 makes swift work of any task.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
The Fujitsu Fi-8170 is worth an honorable mention alongside its iX1600 sibling. While its page-per-minute average speed of 18.9 is astounding, and it has a much larger 100-page automatic document feeder, the price makes it unreasonable for anyone aside from those working in a high-intensity office setting. The automatic feeder allows you to blaze through a 100-page document in just a few minutes, a feat that would require slowing down to reload the document feeder of the iX1600 and nearly all other scanners we tested. The capacity of the Fi-8170 earned it recognition for being one of the best high-volume scanning devices you can put in your workplace.
Large document capacity and speed are key features of the Fi-8170.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
The Xerox Duplex Combo is a flatbed scanner worth mentioning, and although it is only a middle-of-the-road product, it also incorporates a feed tray and is reasonably fast at 7.4 pages per minute. It is an interesting hybrid that is fairly run-of-the-mill but might be an okay option for those seeking a more versatile device.
Scan Speed Time
Product
Single Page
10 Page Duplex
10 Page Simplex
ScanSnap iX1600
0.2
0.5
0.4
Fujitsu Fi-8170
0.1
0.6
0.5
Canon ImageFORMULA R40
0.4
0.7
0.7
Epson WorkForce ES-400 II
0.2
0.9
0.9
Epson FastFoto FF-680W
0.2
1.0
0.9
Xerox Duplex Combo
0.3
1.4
1.3
Canon imageFORMULA R10
1.3
2.6
2.1
Epson WorkForce ES-60W
0.4
4.5
2.1
Epson Perfection V39 II
0.2
5.7
2.7
Epson WorkForce ES-50
0.3
6.1
2.9
Brother DS-640
0.4
7.2
3.4
Epson Perfection V600
0.6
10.0
4.8
Plustek ePhoto Z300
1.5
15.5
7.6
Flatbed Speed
Since all the flatbeds we tested are geared for photo scanning, they take much longer to scan text pages than their document-oriented counterparts. Scan times were somewhat variable, but on average, the Epson V600 took 40 seconds to scan a single text page, while the Epson V39 II does the job in half the time; it is still rather slow. None of these models are great for scanning long, multi-page documents.
Overall Scan Speed
Our scan speed testing consisted of a single sheet duplex 600 DPI color scan and a 10-page document 600 DPI black and white duplex scan. The former gave us insight into how each scanner handles detail-rich tasks, while the latter helped us arrive at a page-per-minute average for high-volume document scanning tasks. The ultimate standouts from these tests were the general-purpose Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 and the photography-focused Epson FastFoto FF-680W. The Fujitsu Fi-8170 was even more blindingly fast, but its price makes it difficult to recommend.
Ease of Use
I gave a 20% weighting in the overall scores to our Ease of Use tests, as most users regard scanning as a mostly straightforward task. All but the most dedicated photo editors will simply wish for a scanner that you can plug and play. Initial setup (including unboxing, calibrating, and getting a scanner to communicate with its associated software) can either be a simple and straightforward task or one so frustrating that it makes even the slickest model not worth buying. Small touches like how easy it is to load and unload paper and a clean user interface can make a model feel user-friendly or like it's been sent to turn your office chores into a never-ending purgatory.
To test Ease of Use, my team and I connected each of our models to multiple devices. We spent hours scanning various documents, receipts, ID cards, and more to uncover all the minor annoyances that might leave you wishing you'd bought a different model.
Scanning receipts with the Canon ImageFORMULA is easy due to its intuitive design that's built for all kinds of paper materials.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
Luckily, most scanners were relatively easy to use, with multiple models sharing some great scores for the ease-of-use test metric. No model is perfect, but these top-performing options generally provide an easy setup and good user experience. The Canon ImageFORMULA R40, in particular, stood out for its easy setup, which only took about five minutes. It has intuitive software and one-button scanning that takes out any guesswork. It also has a document feeder and output tray that are simple and effective for improving usability.
The Epson FastFoto FF-680W has an autofeeder and paper tray that I love to see on an office scanner.
Credit: Natalie Kafader
I found the Epson FastFoto FF-680W to be a straightforward and easy experience. This model directs you to download the software from the manufacturer's website, and the installation process comes with step-by-step instructions that couldn't be simpler. There are quite a few buttons and indicator lights to learn, but a few minutes with the manual will solve that issue quickly enough.
As a portable scanner with similar capabilities to the R40, the Canon imageFORMULA R10 is another intuitive product, perhaps even more so than any other scanner on this list. The R10 is the very definition of “plug and play” with its pre-installed software that runs on the scanner itself and is ready to go right out of the box. It doesn't have a paper output tray, which can be a tad inconvenient during on-the-go jobs, but it competently handles any document processing job with the push of a single button.
Overall Ease of Use
Setup time and interface complexity were the two pillars of our ease-of-use testing for scanners. In those regards, the Canon ImageFORMULA R40 provides a simple experience from start to finish. The Epson FastFoto FF-680W is nearly as streamlined, only requiring a little more time with the manual before you're ready to take full advantage of its many features. For a truly plug-and-play experience that requires nothing more than unboxing the hardware itself, the Canon imageFORMULA R10 is the obvious winner.
Ease of Use
Product
Setup
Interface
Canon imageFORMULA R10
10.0
8.0
Canon ImageFORMULA R40
9.0
9.0
Epson FastFoto FF-680W
9.0
8.5
Epson WorkForce ES-400 II
9.0
8.0
Brother DS-640
7.0
9.0
ScanSnap iX1600
7.0
9.0
Epson WorkForce ES-60W
8.0
8.0
Epson WorkForce ES-50
9.0
7.0
Epson Perfection V39 II
9.0
7.0
Epson Perfection V600
6.0
7.0
Xerox Duplex Combo
6.0
7.0
Plustek ePhoto Z300
5.0
8.0
Fujitsu Fi-8170
5.0
6.0
Software
A device's software can easily make or break your scanning experience. Ideally, you want software that makes installation simple, offers intuitive file management, and can make scanned documents text-searchable using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). We installed our scanners' software packages onto multiple Macs and PCs, managed thousands of files with each OS, objectively rated OCR accuracy to find the best software, and gave this metric a 15% weighting in the overall scores.
Scanners with advanced OCR can digitize any form, such as tax documents, and give you the ability to CTRL+F search for any string of text on the page instantly.
Credit: Sentry Kelly
Optical Character Recognition is great because it makes searchable PDF text that can really streamline the process of filling out forms and entering data. If this is a key part of your workflow, check out the Epson FastFoto FF-680W. It was able to recognize all but the messiest of handwritten text while never failing to recognize any handwritten numbers. The Canon ImageFORMULA R40 and the Epson WorkForce ES-60W also have very powerful OCR capabilities, and at lower price points to boot.
Intuitive software seen in scanners like the Epson WorkForce ES-400 II and many of our other frontrunners will unlock great productivity features when managing documents.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
Behind the top models, the Epson WorkForce ES-400 II and ES-50 offer reliable software performance that is stable across a range of platforms and also offers nearly perfect optical character recognition.
The Fujitsu ScanSnap iX600's optical character recognition might fail to recognize messy handwriting or smudged receipts.
Credit: Jason Peters
Although it is one of the all-around best scanners in our product lineup, the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX600 does a less-than-stellar job when it comes to accurate and reliable character recognition and has a significant amount of room for improvement. The Epson Perfection V600 also performed poorly for its included software. We feel like we spent more time than necessary wading through clunky menus before getting the scan settings we wanted.
Overall Software
Rating scanner software ultimately comes down to evaluating its optical character recognition capabilities and our own subjective experiences with the interface. I found value in scanners like the Epson FastFoto FF-680W that came with great optical character recognition as well as powerful image touch-up options. I also loved the Canon ImageFORMULA R40 and the Epson WorkForce ES-60W, both of which have super accurate optical character recognition and a very pleasing user interface.
Software Score
Product
OCR Score
Subjective Software Score
Epson FastFoto FF-680W
9.5
9.5
Canon ImageFORMULA R40
9.0
9.0
Epson WorkForce ES-60W
9.0
9.0
Fujitsu Fi-8170
8.0
9.0
Epson WorkForce ES-50
8.0
9.0
Epson WorkForce ES-400 II
8.0
9.0
Epson Perfection V39 II
8.0
9.0
Brother DS-640
8.0
8.0
ScanSnap iX1600
6.0
8.0
Plustek ePhoto Z300
7.0
7.0
Xerox Duplex Combo
7.0
6.0
Canon imageFORMULA R10
6.5
4.0
Epson Perfection V600
4.0
6.0
How To Pick A Scanner
When choosing a scanner, you'll want to strike a balance between all aspects of your planned usage. Whether you need to scan an occasional receipt, preserve photos, or make digital copies of large business documents, you'll need to evaluate the speed vs. quality at which you expect to be able to complete those tasks.
Photo Scanning
If you intend to scan and digitize family photos with high-quality resolution and accurate color representation, then you'll probably want to look at something like a bed scanner that allows you to lay a precious photo onto a scanning bed and close the lid flat on top of it, without bending it. While these types of scanners can be used for documents, large double-sided tasks would become a painfully tedious endeavor, requiring a lot of labor that a scanner designed for documents could handle in a flash.
Document Scanning
If you plan to use your scanner in a home office environment and want to handle serious tasks, then you probably want a model with a large document-feeding capacity and automatic duplex scanning for double-sided documents. While this type of system is not ideal for handling photos gently, it can offer as good or better quality as a bed scanner and will accurately digitize everything from text with optical character recognition to high-resolution full-page prints.
Scanning Speed
Some scanners are fast, some are even lightning fast, and some scanners, like bed scanners or mobile scanners, are painfully slow and require a lot of manual labor for large jobs. However, they produce some of the highest-quality scans as a result. If you are trying to blaze through fifty-page documents or a stack of receipts, and you need the text to be readable, and you aren't working with delicate items, you'll want to look at a scanner with an automatic document feeder and a higher scanning rate. If your goal is to accurately digitize every aspect of a treasured high-resolution photo, a slower scanner may be worth the extra detail it offers.
Scan Apps
If you only find yourself scanning occasionally throughout the year and the quality isn't crucial to you, a scanning app is likely the best option. I've tried a slew of different scan apps, including Scanner Pro, Google Drive Scanner, Apple, Adobe Scan, and Microsoft Lens. Of these, I found Scanner Pro and Adobe to be the most useful. The Adobe app comes with tons of customization, allowing users to adjust the look and size of their document. Its autoscan feature has a neat function where the software detects when you flip the page before scanning again. Some other apps, such as Google and Apple, would repeatedly scan the same page. However, a lot of its functionalities live behind a paywall. The Scanner Pro app is free and enables users to easily edit and send their documents via text or email. Best of all, it produced great quality scans in our testing, outperforming even some of the best-scoring scanners.
After using each scanner in our review for a wide variety of tasks, and stress testing for speed, resolution, and accuracy, the verdict is in on which are the best models.
Credit: Matt Lighthart
Conclusion
Scanning might not be the most glamorous part of your work or hobby, but finding the right scanner can improve organization in your life, help preserve memories, and even increase productivity. Even if your job doesn't explicitly require one, having a quick and easy way to digitize documents, photos, and receipts can keep things tidy, permanently preserved, and more organized. We hope that our detailed testing results will help you choose the model that is best for your home or small office needs.
—Sentry Kelly, Benjamin Hickok, and Jonathan Sayers
