Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 Portable Scanner

Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 Scans And Delivers

Fujitsu's ScanSnap S300 is the cutest, most minimalist sheetfed scanner ever. It's so perfectly tiny and well-proportioned that the snaking USB cable actually made me feel nervous and uncomfortable. Shouldn't it use Bluetooth, or something?

Catch that about the document feeder? Yes, it's sheetfed, but doesn't look like a 20-year old FAX machine. The scanner small, attractive, and easily portable. It's also damn fast, slurping up a two-sided document and turning it into a PDF in about 5 seconds. Eleven inches long, 4 wide and 3 deep, it vaguely fits into a laptop bag and weighs 3.1 pounds. It can even chug along on bus power.

If you do a lot of scanning and don't need e-print quality, the S300 is the bomb. It's the perfect antidote to anyone who hates having to peel static-glued sheets and photos from a flatbed and sit, and watch, and wait, until the opportunity arises to do it again.

Artists, photographers, and anyone else expecting high end features like film scanning or high DPI settings, however, can get lost. This isn't your huckleberry anymore than one of those pocket printers would be at the other end of the process. You guys need to get over the minimalism and get back to work.

WIRED Decent software. Munchkin-small. Scans both sides of paper. Sheetfed. Scans with extraordinary quickness at low DPI.

TIRED Doesn't work on Macs. Maximum 600dpi. Needs 2 USB ports without AC. Good lord, nearly three hundred bucks? Really?

• Style: Accessories and Computer Parts
• Manufacturer: Fujitsu
• Price: $295