Visioneer Strobe XP 100

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Average
Colour sensitivity	Good
Resolution	Good
Ease of Installation	Good - quick to install
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Compact, easy to use, portable
Disadvantages:	Can only scan single sheets

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought my Visioneer Strobe XP 100 because it is a great little scanner for use on the move. My main PC that I use for work is a laptop with docking station and I wanted something that would easily connect with that. I needed something that would let me organise all of my documents, photos, articles, brochures, and business cards and this Visioneer gave me all of that in a very compact unit that was light and easy to carry. It will pack easily into a decent sized laptop bag and gets its power from the USB port which mean I am able to scan documents anywhere I go and I don't have to carry lots of power leads and adaptors.

It is a small scanner which works by means of a roller which takes in your document through a slot on the top, passes it over the scanner, and then pushes it out through the back. Because of its method of operation it is less than 300mm wide (12") and barely 50mm deep (2") so it takes up no space at all. The downside is that you can only feed in single sheets of paper which means lengthy documents have to be scanned page by page and you can't scan directly from a book as it won't fit through the roller! Given that I mainly use it for mobile use that isn't much of a disadvantage from my point of view. It scans single sided in either black and white or colour.

It comes complete with a comprehensive range of software including ScanSoft PaperPort Deluxe making it easy to organise all your scanned documents in one place. Using this software you can scan and file all of your documents and photographs electronically, together with your electronic documents from Microsoft Office, PDF files from Adobe Acrobat and image files from other applications.

Once you have scanned documents into PaperPort you can very easily drag scanned documents to the PaperPort link bar to edit them in your favorite applications just by picking them up and dropping them over the various icons. If you have scanned a few documents and want to combine them together you can again just drag them and drop them, rearrange the pages and put annotations on any of your scanned documents.

You also get ScanSoft TextBridge Pro 9 OCR which will very quickly turn scanned documents into editable, formatted text. You can use the text in virtually any word processing, desktop publishing, or web publishing program.

I found it very simple to set up the scanner to work with my PC and they provide a helpful calibration sheet to ensure that the settings are correct. It is very easy to use and for normal use all you need to do is present the document to the slot on the side and it will take it and scan it to your standard settings. Once the scanning is complete it will open up the PaperPort software automatically and place your new document on the 'desktop' in that application. You have the choice of scanning items in the standard PaperPort format or a JPG files, BMP files or TIFF files.

You can use PaperPort to store your items and then use the handy built in search facility to locate them at later dates. It will also let you set up folders to enable easier filing and retrieval. To print scanned documents you merely pick up the item from the desktop and drop it on the printer icon and it will be automatically sent to your default printer. The roller will easily cope with business cards and photos enabling these to be filed as well.

All in all this is a very handy piece of equipment for anyone needing scanning on the move, or indeed for light users with limited space on their desktop. I have had mine for over two years and it has survived with no problems over that period. It is currently retailing at around £110 ex vat which I consider to be good value for such a practical piece of equipment.