Portronics Scanny Portable Scanner

Portable scanners come a dime-a-dozen these days and yes they can prove to be very useful devices for frequent travelers. Today we have with us a portable scanner by Portronics, and it’s quite an impresser in terms of looks, but does it perform well too? Let’s find out.

Design
Unlike the previous blue color pen-like scanner, which was quite tacky in terms of build quality, this one is good, not only in terms of build quality but also in aesthetics. Now, we’re not talking about a super-stylish 007 like thing, but it looks professional and the overall finish is up to the mark. It sports an all-black matte finish and the cover of the battery compartment is silver-grey. Overall, it’s a nice looking piece of hardware.

The Scanny, is slightly wider than magazine width and slim and light enough to be carried around in your laptop bag without adding to the load. In fact it’s lighter if you carry it without the bundled pair of AA batteries.

At the side you’ll find a mini-USB port, a micro-SD card slot. Speaking of bundle, the box you see in the first picture and the memory card, do not ship with the unit, but the OCR software CD, the sleeve, lint-free cloth, manual, USB cable and the double AA batteries do. The slightly corny name ‘Scanny’ doesn’t go well with the price tag. Something like ‘ScanX’ or something more mature would’ve been nice. Although the price is a bit over the top for the intended purpose, the quality of the product and the results are stunning.

Features
When it comes to features, it’s the simplicity that impresses us most. You have the option to scan at low and high resolution and to toggle between the two simply push the DPI button. To toggle from color mode to black and white, just push the C/BW button above the DPI button. This way you don’t waste space on your memory card, and also save yourself the trouble to turn documents from color to black and white on your PC. Speaking of PC, since this device uses external batteries, you don’t need a PC while scanning documents or charging the device.

In fact, even if you’re only carrying your smartphone and this scanner, you can send scanned documents via your Internet enabled cell phone. Just take the memory card out of the scanner and put it into your phone. Also, when you connect you PC to the device, there’s no need for drivers, it shows up like a just another removable device.

The monochrome LCD keeps you informed about the parameters. It reads how many scans have been stored, the mode (low/high resolution). It shows what scanning mode the device is set to, color/monochrome scanning, high/low resolution and also shows the remaining battery life. When you press the Scan button to start scanning, the green light shows up, and if you go too fast, the red one illuminates, prompting you to restart the scan and go slow. Finally, Portronics claims that the device can do about 250 scans on one pair of AA batteries.

Performance
Performance is the highlight of this product. It’s quick, but it isn’t dirty. Although, the back cover reads ‘maximum scanning speed at high resolution with color is 13 seconds’, we scanned a full color magazine cover in six seconds. And the same cover could be scanned in 3 seconds at low resolution (color).

Considering the functionality and performance, we’d say that the Scanny is a nice to have for travelers and business people alike. However, at Rs 5,999 it’s a little too overenthusiastic, so, there’s very little value for money for a not-so-frequent user.