Many times while away from the desk, business travelers find the need to quickly scan a document, and while there are apps that allow using your iPhone or iPad to scan, there is just no replacement for a true document scanner. Enter the Doxie Go Wi-Fi Scanner.
Overview
The Doxie Go Wi-Fi scanner is a portable, wireless, rechargeable scanner that allows users to scan documents sheet-by-sheet, without the need to have the scanner connected to a computer.
The Doxie Go Wi-Fi is just under 1 foot in length, and less than 2 1/2 inches wide and tall, it is reasonably light, coming at just over 15 ounces. The Doxie Go has onboard storage, which allows scanning of pages without the need for a computer or iOS device. The scanner can save around 300 pages @ 300 dpi. (I didn’t scan that many pages, that is the manufacturer’s number.) There is also a SD card slot provided on the device to allow usage of SD cards for additional storage.
Setup of the Doxie is a dream, only taking a few moments after you first charge the scanner. My suggestion is to immediately take the Doxie out of the box and plug it into charge, using the supplied power supply. It takes quite a few hours to charge.
After charging, setup consists of turning on the scanner, and feeding in the supplied calibration sheet. The calibration process is automatic, and only takes around 15 seconds, and you are ready to start scanning.
The Doxie Go Wi-Fi has a it’s own built-in Wi-Fi radio, activated by a button on the back of the scanner, which can either be used to make a direct connection to the scanner, as it will act as it’s own hotspot, or it can be setup using Mac or PC software to connect to your own Wi-Fi network, making it easier for all of your computers and devices to connect to the Doxie. (There is also a supplied USB cable that can be used to connect your computer directly to the scanner.
I immediately started feeding everything in sight that was flat and would fit into the slot. (Well, everything that was made of paper, anyway.) The scans took around 13 seconds per sheet of paper. (Note, the Doxie is a single-sided scanner, so you’ll have to feed the same sheet through twice if there is information on both sides of the sheet.
I scanned everything from drawings, to printed document, to photos, and the Doxie did a fine job each time. For scanning of photos, the Doxie includes a plastic sleeve which the photo goes into.
While the Doxie did a great job scanning, like most sheet fed scanners I’ve used, you have to be very careful inserting the sheet into the scanner, or you may wind up with some black space on the resulting scan. This can be fixed in the Doxie app.
The Doxie app also allows saving of scans in various formats, to your hard drive, or to a number of cloud storage services, including Doxie’s own. The Doxie app can also do OCR to create editable PDF documents.
Speaking of the Doxie app, the software isn’t supplied in the box, but a quick download from the Doxie website, and you’re ready to go. There is also an iOS app available, which allows you to connect wirelessly to the scanner and download the scans. I found it to be quite basic, and I couldn’t view the scans in order to select the scan I wanted to download. This may be because I am running iOS 9 on my iPhone, and Doxie may need to update for that. UPDATE: I’m not sure what happened the first time I used it, but I have since tried the iOS app again, and it worked perfectly, and I was able to see the thumbnails of the scans. Put this one down to user error. My apologies.
The gallery below demonstrates the quality of the scans from the Doxie Go Wi-Fi. The one on the right was done using the supplied Photo Sleeve.
Verdict
The Doxie Go Wi-Fi scanner performed like a dream. other than the occasional “cock-eyed” scan, everything I scanned with it was sharp, and extremely readable. The Doxie would make a great addition to the toolkit of any road warrior, as it should fit nicely into any user’s backpack or briefcase.
The only issue I could find with the Doxie was the power button, which is not recessed in any way, so it could accidentally turn on while in your backpack, and could possibly not be charged when you need it most.
Rating: [4.5/5.0]
Price: The Dxie Go Wi-Fi usually retails for $229. However, our MacTrast Deals partner currently has the Doxie available for $175, a savings of 23% off of the regular retail price. (That’s even cheaper than Amazon.com’s current price of $224.44!) For more information, please visit the MacTrast Deals site.
Pros:
- Small, rechargeable, and fast.
- Easy to carry around in a backpack or briefcase.
- No need for a computer or other device to scan.
- On-board memory allows scanning multiple sheets before needing to offload to another device or the cloud.
Cons:
- Takes awhile to charge when you take it out of the box.
- The power button could be accidentally pressed while in a backpack, resulting in a dead Doxie.
The Doxie Go Wi-Fi scanner was provided to me at no cost for my honest review. I was not compensated for this review. All thoughts and opinions are mine.
