Customer Reviews

Pentax DSmobile 600 Scanner

5 star:		(109)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

We use this scanner to digitally file our statements and bills. It scans quickly and quietly, without the need for an adapter and without taking much space on one's desk. It partners well with Adobe Acrobat -- we have Acrobat Professional which allows us to crop document edges if the original is less than 8.5 x 11 -- and I've seen no software compatability issues with Windows XP Home or XP Professional. It also allows you to continuously scan multiple page documents (as opposed to scanning each page as its own PDF file).

The one criticism that I have has to do with the software that accompanies the scanner. It does not apparently remember the last settings (e.g., resolution, color vs B&W, and destination directory) so you have to re-enter all of these each time you sit down to scan.

We haven't tried using it for any graphics purpose, but from what I can tell, it's not likely to perform like a flatbed scanner for this purpose, at least for serious graphics work. For a casual scan of a photo for a document or a webpage, it would probably work just fine.

Absolutely satisfied!

Update (5/2009)
Scanner still working great. Also realized OSX's "image capture" program works great with this product too (it's in your applications folder).

I just got this scanner and am using it on OSX 10.5 (Leopard); it works beautifully. I found using the scanner with Photoshop to be slow, but I was amazed to find it also works with ironicsoftware's Yep! PDF management program. You can scan directly into PDF from Yep quickly and beautifully.
You will have to download the OSX drivers from Pentax's website (it is easy to navigate and find).
I am a scholar and have used this machine to scan in articles I can't find online. The DSmobile scans a full page (black and white) in under 10 seconds. If the page has been folded (not a crisp piece of paper), you will have to make sure guide the paper with your finger, otherwise, it may get hung-up in the scanner's rollers. Overall, this is an excellent product, and it works seamlessly with my Macbook Pro.

OK, I like this product, I really do. The quality is pretty decent, it's not too slow, it's pretty easy to use. All good things. My quibbles are with the software for Mac users, or I should say, the lack thereof. All of the software that is advertised for this product is for Windows ONLY. It says that it is compatible for Mac OS X, but you have to download the drivers from the Pentax website (which is fine) but the drivers to not operate the button on the scanner, it is non-operational with Macs, and it does not include PageManager 7, so you CANNOT make PDF files with it alone, that it advertises.

Amazon's page says, "One touch of the button on the DSmobile 600 will launch your choice of compatible scanning programs. Make a preferred scanning program your default and that one touch will initiate that program." It should indicate that this applies to Windows users ONLY. If you do a little digging on Pentax's website it says it won't work. So, while this scanner is good, you need your own software, like Photoshop or other design software (or even Word:Mac) to use it.

BUYER BEWARE!! I'm not saying I regret the purchase entirely, I just don't thin it's fair that I paid for software I did not get. The 3 stars is for the software only, the scanner itself is really nice.

This little scanner is the answer for those that need a quick and convenient way to copy documents. Works exactly as it was advertised.

I'm a mortgage originator and occasionally meet my customer at a location other than my office. This is the easy alternative to a copy machine and works great when I copy driver's license (or other ID), bank statements, etc. It won't replace my larger (sheet feed) scanner for speed, but speed is okay for small jobs, and the quality is great.

I use it with my laptop to scan mainly letter sized documents, to include old mimeograph and spirit duplicator (remember the purple print?)pages and it works just as well as my flatbed scanner. I use the B&W setting for mimeo and have to switch to color for the purple print. Super convenient and easy to use if you read and follow the instructions.

I have hundreds of articles, reviews, and other articles that rip out of magazines for later use. I have kept them categorized in file folders but I'm tired of the space they consume. We already have a flatbed scanner so I started scanning some of them to PDF. It was not even worth the hassle. I looked at a highly rated scanner that has a document feeder and has a version especially made for the Mac, but it is $500. No way.

Having looked at all of the less expensive scanning options I went with the DSmobile 600. All I can say is, fantastic. I had read all of the reviews from Mac users and understood that you need to get the driver from the Pentax site. It was that simple. In fact, the CD that comes with the unit is essentially worthless for Mac users. Just ensure you have some image capturing software, install the Mac driver from the site, hook up the scanner, select the scanner in your image capturing software, and start feeding the scanner.

You can select the scanning quality, whether you want black/white or color, and then it's just a matter of working out what is best for your intended use. There is an OCR option which I don't use but tried it once and the results were rather impressive, but the page I scanned was mostly text so that is kind of expected. Sometimes it takes a little bit of work to get the page to actually feed into the scanner and sometimes they get a little mis-aligned, but with it being such a quick process it wasn't frustrating to redo it. And that didn't happen that often. Otherwise, the feeds are quick and doing multi-page articles is painless.

I use Yep! to manage and scan PDFs and it worked flawlessly in the set-up of the TWAIN driver, finding the scanner, and then giving great options for converting the scanned images into PDFs. With Yep! you can also assign your own metatags which are then easily searchable either in Yep! or using Spotlight. A very powerful combination. With the cost of hard drive storage so cheap nowadays, I just have all of the PDFs going to one folder and it will be more than enough for my entire collection for extremely efficient searching and perusal over the years. I consider the DSmobile and Yep! to be the perfect solution to my needs.

I bought the DSmobile scanner for two reasons: I wanted something that could scan just about anything for genealogy purposes, and I wanted to be able to do it on my Mac. Using the drive that Pentax had for the Mac on their website didn't work all that well. The images were very off center and of poor quality. That said, when I used Parallels and their Windows software, it worked beautifully! I was able to easily scan images and documents without any hassle and they turned out beautifully every time! I would definitely recommend this to others, so long as they don't plan on using the Mac driver to do so.

I use this scanner 95% for receipts and the other 5% for document scans. It does an excellent job with both. The quality is fine but most importantly it is extremely quick and simple. The software is very easy to install and the user interface is about as easy as it can get. File naming options and the choice of .pdf or jpeg are easy to find and use. I have used a Neat Receipt product as well and while it is also excellent, I don't see where it adds much for copying receipts. I bought this after one too many frustrations with our all in one HP which takes a ridiculous amount of time, preparation and disk space(software) to simply copy a receipt. After a week of business travel the last thing I want to do is spend my Saturday morning wasting time to scan in receipts. Now I don't. Plug this Pentax in and I am done in a few minutes. Or take it with me and I am done before I get home. If you just need some simple scanning to do I would highly recommend this product.

I run my business with a MacBook Pro (OS x 10.4.11) and use XP (SP2) under Parallels for a few Windows programs. This scanner works as advertised with both the Mac Twain driver and the Windows driver and program. Other than having to practice inserting sheets so they start straight, I have found it very easy to use, and this scanner is surprisingly accurate with color rendition using the Mac Twain driver. It is quick and easy, and there is really not much more to say on the Mac side. It just works and Twain is a reliable, old technology. I just "acquire" using GraphicConverter.

If only the Mac software was as fancy as the Windows software. After logging in to my XP virtual machine, touching the button on top of the scanner launches a great little program that offers a number of document formats and scanning options. I was quite surprised at the quality of PDF rendering. Live body text remains so for the most part and renders text in logically separate blocks rather each character *being* its own text box as is the case with many PDF converters, and images are rendered accurately. This will, among other things, enable me to change my workflow and get rid of at least two expensive NCR forms in favor of single sheet printed forms.

Highly recommended for small business owners on the go.

I have a portable office and use Internet faxing for most things with my wireless broadband card, what I needed was a small portable scanner to accommodate the invoices, purchase orders, etc. I collect on each project that needs to be relayed back to the office in real time. This product was the answer. I read reviews on other sights that said this product is horrible and scans crocked with a black line on each page- IT DOES, but to get around it, I just scan into Adobe Acrobat and create a .PDF document. On Pentax's website it directs users to use either Photoshop, or MS Word- I found MS Word converted the file wrong on the Mac but the conversion was good for my PC laptop (originally designed for the PC- the company just recently offered drivers for OSX)- no problems there. So if you are using a Mac you have to download the drivers from the factory's website, install them and use Adobe Acrobat for your scanning. If you want to save the file as a .jpeg, .tiff, .gif, .png, etc. you would have to scan using Photoshop and Save As whatever type of file you want. Great little unit- fits right inside my bag and is simple and fast to use- even with multiple pages. Just be careful of staples and glue from sticky notes. I would rate it 5 stars if the manufacture would disclose the bug and let the customers know another way around it.