Brother (Renewed) RDS-940DW - USB

Easily scan 2-sided documents up to 15 pages per minute with this compact, wireless scanner. Includes free mobile app for on-the-go scanning and sharing. Review: What an amazing little scanner. - I was fully prepared to be shipping this unit back if it did not live up to expectations but it is staying with me. I’ve had a number of portable document scanners over the years with a varying degree of success with each. I did a great deal of research into this type of scanner prior to ordering which included the ScanSnap, Doxie, canon and Fujitsu equivalent models. I am a prolific archivist and detest paper so any paperwork given to me gets scanned in and stored electronically. With the MFD shortage brought on by covid I struggled to get a worthy replacement MFD for home with an ADF when the ADF on my Canon just wore out. Over the recent year my job has changed to that of a more flexible worker either from the Office, home or client sites so a portable unit that can be added to my office in a rucksack was the best fit. Anyway enough about my situation. This unit can scan to a machine over USB, Wi-Fi and via a memory card you insert into the back of the device. Whilst the memory card does not petrude it would be nice if there was a clip or cover over it to stop it from being accidentally ejected. This may after all contain sensitive information or the remains of sensitive information after deletion. Scanning to the memory card is OK and just OK. Each page is saved as a separate document, even when selected PDF and 2 Sided each side will be safed as a separate document and not combined. You just put another piece of paper in the feeder and it scans and saves. There I no method, that I have found documented to continue a scan to the memory card into one file. The scans require assembly into a single file after the fact in the included software. I use this feature only for documents of one page. Only when there is no other practicable choice do I use this for multipage scans as it is a bit of a ball ache. Quite why they didn’t make use of the “WStart/Stop” button is anyone’s guess. The Wi-Fi functionality is OK, it is a bit slow in my experience. There is also no “known” Wi-Fi settings listed on the device’s settings so it just remembers the previous network it is connected to. It would be useful it it retained the settings for a number of networks to allow it to move between home, work and Mi-Fi adapter without having to repair the thing by the WPS button each time. As you can tell I mostly use my device over USB, its plug and play and fast. The built-in blank page detection is brilliant and the Brother iPrint & Scan software really is very good. This has a continuation feature so you can just keep stuffing pages into the feeder and they become one document. Automatic page rotation is also a good feature that works well as does deskew. The ability to insert a few pages at once would be nice but it isn’t worth sacrificing the extra size needed to support this. As a portable unit it would have been nice if it included even a cloth carrying case to stop it from being marked in my bag but this is an extra purchase. On th front of the feeder there is a peper guide for the feeder of the slidy piece of plastic type but there is no resistance to moving it so it is pointless. I may well gluee mine in position at somepoint. Despite these shortcomings it works well, the scans are good and it chewed through a massive backlog of scanning in a short period of time and will be taking up its place in my Office in a rucksack. Review: Sony CECHZA1 USB AC power adapter will charge this scanner from the wall - A lot of criticism from this scanner is the requirement to have to charge it via a PC, with the inability to charge via a regular cable into a plug socket. After some trial and error I have found this scanner can be charged from the wall using a Sony AC charger adapter, which is designed for the PS3. These adapters can be sourced online for around £15 and whilst not as streamlined as a simple USB cable into the wall, it’s not far off and makes life a bit more convenient than having to plug into a PC, if it’s something that is important to you. Should Brother have supplied something similar with the scanner? Well it would have been no bad thing... Much has been said of the scanner, so I wont repeat much of what has been said. The bonus feature for for me was 2 sided scanning which saves a bit of time and similar units at this price point and less do not offer this. A couple of reviews have mentioned that tatty paper with creases and folded corners can make for the feeding mechanism to suck the paper in at a slight angle which makes for a slightly wonky scan. If you feed it carefully it can largely be avoided. There are 3 media transmission options; tethered to a PC, send to micro SD card, send to wifi device (needs connecting to a wifi network broadcast by the scanner, not your home wifi). I’ve not tried tethered scan in but image capture works well via SD card and via wifi to app on phone. The scanner scans quick enough, the limitation on speed is having to manually feed additional sheets in. I can’t comment on battery life as I’ve not used it that extensively yet. My only observation is the battery light moves from green (fully charged, high charge) to orange (less charge) quite quickly. Now I have the Sony adapter I am less bothered.