Brother DSMobile Scanner (DS-600)

by Brother

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 1.9 x 1.6 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B003CYKBAU
• Item model number: DS-600
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (125 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #14 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Scanners
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The DSMobile 600 is an easy to use, compact, color scanner perfect for mobile professionals or for use at home. This scanner provides a simple but effective tool to capture, manage, and archive documents of many types. It connects directly to your computer via USB cable and allows you to scan and save images of documents. It is powered by the USB cable so you don't need a separate power supply. Getting organized has never been so simple.

Small Business - Keep track of business receipts by scanning and easily accessing the files on your PC.

Home & Home Office - Scan your recipes, newspaper clippings, photos, tax receipts, bills and statements to better organize.

Mobile Professionals - Scan documents on the go and send paperwork back to the office when you’re in the field.

Lightweight and Portable
Its small, compact design allows the DSmobile 600 to fit on your desk or slip into your laptop case for use on the go. The portable scanner allows you to quickly scan and save images and documents in Adobe Acrobat, JPEG and TIFF file formats. It is powered through the USB connector on your computer so you don’t need to worry about batteries or a separate AC power supply.

Versatile
You can quickly scan varied media, from business card size to documents up to 8.5” x 14”. In addition to scanning business documents, it’s perfect for scanning receipts, news articles, handwritten notes, school papers, photos and more.

Complete Software and Scanning Solution

DSmobileSCAN II allows documents to be saved as Adobe Acrobat, TIFF or JPEG files.

PageManager Version 7 allows users to scan and organize digitized files with the ability to view, edit, send and save files in many formats.

TWAIN and WIA drivers allow users to control all scanner details and settings. TWAIN is compatible with any software application that uses TWAIN device input so users have an array of scanning applications to choose from.

High quality, optical scanning resolution up to 600 dpi.

Key Features

• Scan business cards as well as documents up to 8.5” x 14” in size
• Scans black and white or color documents
• Compact and lightweight at 12.2 oz and 11” wide
• High-quality, optical scanning resolution – up to 600 dpi
• Scans up to 5 pages per minute (Black/White)
• Included USB cable draws power directly from the PC – no battery or wall outlet required

Benefits of Scanning

Go Paperless

Reduce the clutter around you. Scan, save, access and manage important documents from your computer. No more huge piles to sort through to find what you’re looking for.

Get Organized

It’s easier to manage and organize files on your computer than to manage lots of paper. Once documents are scanned, create folders to organize your items so you can find them easily when needed.

Share Files

Once a file is scanned to your computer, it’s easy to share. Easily scan to PDF, TIFF or JPEG formats and attach to e-mails to send to friends and colleagues.

Keeping a Back Up

Scan important documents to make sure you still have a copy in case you misplace the original.

Carry Less

If you’re on-the-road for days at a time, why carry all that paper. Scan the files you’ll need and just take your PC. If you carry the DSmobile 600 along, you can scan documents on your trip and cut down on what you carry home.

What’s in the Box
• Protective Carrying Bag
• USB Cable
• Software CD-ROM
• User Manual
• 2 Photo Sleeves (for scanning pictures)
• 2 Calibration Sheets
• 1 Cleaning Sheet

Product Description

When exceptional quality scanning is a must and space is an issue, reach for the perfect solution, the Brother DSMobile 600 scanner. This powerful, compact, and lightweight 600-dpi color scanner is combined with dynamic software to provide exceptional quality scanning and easy management of documents and photos. The DSMobile 600 provides a high resolution scan utilizing the high speed USB 2.0 interface. The additional software will enhance and simplify your scanning needs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

272 of 277 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect portable scanner, July 1, 2010

By 

Book and Dog Lover (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Brother DSMobile Scanner (DS-600) (Office Product)

(What's this?)

The DS-600 scanner is a super light-weight scanner that barely takes up any room on your desk. I admit that when I opened up the box and saw this scanner, I didn't expect it to work all that well - it seemed too small and too light to do a good job. However I was pleasantly surprised.

Although it's tempting to connect everything at once, there is a warning that you must install the driver and scanner software before connecting everything. The CD-ROM offers the install in several languages and it is very easy (and quick) to install everything needed.

I scanned several documents of various sizes - a one page black and white document in a very small font, a take-out menu, a business card, some pages in bright colors with lots of contrast, and several photos. All documents scanned perfectly - the small fonts of one document were clear and scanned to match exactly the existing document. For the color documents - the one document with bright colors and high contrast and the photo (with faded colors) were identical to the original documents. Note that you can't modify the documents (for example, some scanners provide options to tweak photos - that's not available here.)

You can save documents in PDF, JPG and TIFF format. File names and locations are easy to change. You can save documents in these sizes: letter, legal, A4, B5, A5, A6 and Business Card. There are options and settings that you can customize, but you don't need to - it works perfectly straight out of the box.

Documentation (besides the piece of paper that warns you to install the product before plugging in the scanner) consists of a ~50 page User Guide in PDF format that's on the CD-ROM. I'd say "User Guide" is a misnomer as while it does a good job describing how to install (for Windows and Mac systems) the scanner driver, Dsmobile scanner, and PageManager, it barely describes how to "use" the scanner (besides connecting it, calibrating, and clicking the desktop icon). The DSmobile scanner comes with two 4x6 sleeves which besides telling that you should clean them, are never described (I'm assuming you should use them to scan photos as that's how I used them). The scanner's options and ability to customize also aren't documented. Luckily the product is easy to use.

The CD-ROM also lets you install PageManager vsn 7.x which you can use to view, organize, edit, and send your digital files. I didn't play too much with PageManager, but it appears easy to use.

With a carrying case included, this is one scanner that you can easily take with you. If you want a scanner that doesn't take up a lot of room and does exactly what it should, check out the DS-600.

73 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Works very well, not perfect, September 13, 2010

By 

J. Toms (Connecticut USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brother DSMobile Scanner (DS-600) (Office Product)

I have bought three of these for my business, to scan documents from the road and send them in to clients. I only use black and white at 300dpi, which creates a very small file but a very clear image for documents. This scanner does the job well, and none of my three scanners has broken down yet, after 6 months of light use. There are several drawbacks:
1) Almost every page gets scanned in a little crooked. I'm thinking that there is a knack to getting it to go through perfectly straight but I haven't figured it out yet, one of my employees does pretty well though. Anyway, it is good enough, but still annoying
2) The whole process is tedious with multiple pages, hand-feeding one at a time, going through the program to tell it to scan each page. I shouldn't complain because this is a portable scanner, but one day maybe someone can make a portable scanner that can handle multiple pages by itself.
3) Occasionally it has trouble identifying that a piece of paper has been put into the scanner. The easiest solution for me has been to unplug the USB connection, plug it in again and try again.
4) You can only scan individual sheets, you can't scan out of books, newspapers, etc., like the HP Capshare 920. (The Capshare is unique in that it was made in the 1990's and is still better than anything on the market today. Unfortunately they stopped making it, you have to find it on Ebay.)

Everything else is great, it gets its power from the USB connection and does its job.

Update 2/24/2011: It has now been a year, and all three scanners are still running strong, no problems. Problem #3 that I mentioned above has ceased to be a problem, I think I was somehow putting the paper in wrong. You have to slide the paper in far enough to trip a tiny switch, and then allow the scanner to automatically pull the paper in about an inch before you start the scan.

95 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent scanner, room for improvement, July 15, 2010

By 

Rane Wallin "ThatPoshGirl.com" (Reno, NV) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother DSMobile Scanner (DS-600) (Office Product)

(What's this?)

I've used this scanner to scan documents for work, as well as pictures and drawings. I thought it worked fine for scanning documents into Adobe Pro. I didn't have any problems running OCR after scanning my paperwork. For images and drawings, I am unimpressed.

Even at 600 dpi the scans were unclear, with lost information. One drawing I scanned just looked like chicken scratch because the scanner couldn't read the finer lines. It also doesn't have anything to guide your document through the scanner. I would have been easy to include a small guide bar that swings out from the document feeder area. Without the guide it is difficult to feed documents through straight.

Another issue I had with it is that it doesn't know when it is not scanning something. For instance, if a document isn't far enough in to be caught by the feeder, the scanner will still scan even though there is nothing feeding through. If you are in a hurry, this is a huge waste of time.

Overall, I think this is an average mobile scanner. It is fine for documents, if you have nothing else available, but I wouldn't want to use it on a regular basis.