Brother DS920DW Wireless Duplex Mobile Color Page Scanner Review
Brother DSMobile 920DW Scanner
Price : $149.99
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Brother DS920DW Wireless Duplex Mobile Color Page Scanner Feature
- Wi-Fi transfer scanned documents to your computer or mobile device
- Scans single-sided materials at up to 8 ppm and double-sided materials at up to 5 ppm in both color and black/white
- Bundled with a valuable suite of scanning software, including desktop document, receipt and business card management programs
- 4GB SD Memory Card included
- Easily scans documents, photos, plastic I.D. cards and more, from business card size up to 8.5"(W) x 32"(L)
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Costumer review
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
By rsteel1
I purchased the DS920DW to replace a Brother DSMobile 600. There are a few things I'd like to point out to prospective buyers of this device that they may not understand.
1. This scanner cannot be wirelessly interfaced with interactive scanning software on a computer. Rather, you scan to the included SD card and then transfer the images over wireless to your PC as a separate operation. You can't control scanner settings over wireless and can't initiate scanning over wireless. The scanner contains a web server that can display the SD card's contents when you connect to its IP address wirelessly and allows you to download scanned images.
2. When connected over USB, the SD card's content can be directly accessed in Windows Explorer and transferred over USB. To me this seems simpler than messing with the WiFi settings to do this wirelessly.
3. The driver software for this device does not work on my Windows 8.1 machine. It installs, but any attempt at using USB results in a USB 2023 error.
4. Since the scanner's settings cannot be modified wirelessly, you have to use the button menus on the scanner when operating in standalone (scan to SD card) mode. Not all of the scanner's capability is exposed through the button interface. For example, you can choose color or monochrome on the scanner. In the software you can choose color, grayscale and black and white.
The speed of the scanner seems to be quite good as does the image quality. One feature I liked that my DS600 lacked was a sliding document width guide that helps keep documents straight as they go through the scanner. The included software suite seems pretty extensive but since I'll be returning the scanner I haven't tested it extensively.
The scanner is quite a bit heavier than other mobile scanners I've used but is still quite portable. On of the other features I liked was the ability to open the scanner to clean rollers and clear out stray dirt.
As others have noted, the documentation included in the box is limited to a quick start guide that was not very helpful. The full manual is on the included CD/DVD. Like many with newer laptops, this was also a bit of a frustration as my machine does not have a CD/DVD player to load the software. I do have an SD slot and it would have made life much easier if the software was also included on the SD card.
All in all this may be a decent mobile duplex scanner but the wireless capabilities, the on scanner controls and the driver maturity were all disappointments.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
By Amazonian Consumer
You must first determine if this is the kind of scanner suitable for your application. The Brother DS920DW is a sheet-fed type of scanner that welcomes single sheet of copy material at a time, such as reports or presentations coming from a looseleaf binder. If you need to copy pages of information from a book, or anything that has pages bound together, then you need a hand scanner or a flatbed scanner.
There are three features that make this Brother DS920DW scanner more convenient than others: it is portable/mobile (can be battery and USB powered), it can scan two sides at once, and it can store scanned image files on a SD memory card or send scanned files to a computer wirelessly.
The DS920DW is relatively light at 1.2 pounds and measures 12.1 X 2.6 X 1.6 inches.
There is a small LCD display window on the right side of the scanner and there are 6 buttons below it to allow you to select various settings: mono or color, 1-side or 2-side, PDF or JPG file format, menu, and power. There is a suite of software provided to make managing scanned documents very easy.
19 of 25 people found the following review helpful.
By Jerry P. Danzig
I had an awful time getting my computer (running Windows 7 Home Premium) to recognize this portable duplex scanner.
The documentation is terrible. You get a Quick Start guide and a lengthier manual on the disc, but neither gives you a thorough and well-integrated step-by-step walk-through of how to get the scanner up and running. It was some time (and a phone call to Brother's tech support) before I saw anywhere that you need to press the OK button to shift between the PC and SD (self-contained) modes to engage the former.
I also found two -- count 'em, two -- last-minute clarification sheets included in the package, testifying to the inadequate documentation of the manual and quick start guide.
So after spending two hours with Brother on the phone and escalating to a second level of support, we eventually got my computer to recognize the scanner. The trick was to connect the scanner to the computer via the USB cable and then press the scanner's ON button (even though the green light was already lit) and then press the aforementioned OK button.
One down side remains -- the wireless mode doesn't seem very useful. The full-featured PaperPort scanning program they include on the installation disc seems to recognize the scanner ONLY via the USB cable.
So if you want the advanced features that PaperPort gives you, including Optical Character Recognition, you MUST hook up the scanner via USB (or read a file off the SD card). Except that PP doesn't seem to support the duplex (double-sided scanning function). For that, you need to scan to SD card and then open the file with a photo program, file viewer, or the PP program. (I later discovered that the BizCard and DS Mobile programs included -- Brother's own stripper scanner program -- support duplex.)
I also tried scanning a color document and having PP perform an OCR routine -- the results were dreadful. Completely unusable. I then tried scanning a b&w page of text and the OCR worked perfectly, sending an editable file to Word. It appears that PP will also fax a scan or enter a scan into an Excel spreadsheet.
If you use the scanner in wireless mode, it basically scans images to the SD card, and then allows you to see your images on a special website page. Why would you want to do that? Beats me!
Does all this confuse you? Me too -- and the nice (American) guys on the Brother help line in New Jersey, who said they haven't been trained on the machine yet.
I should mention that Brother also includes another program called Button Manager which -- um, I'm really not sure what it does... I don't suppose it interfaces with Brother sewing machines so you can attach buttons to shirts and sweaters? When you register your scanner at their website, they also let you download a free receipt manager program which is supposed to let you scan, store, and organize receipts for export to QuickBooks and Quicken.
The BizCard program, which scans business cards, interpreting and storing the information, works very well. This is a handy routine, to be sure!
So I guess this scanner is useful for people who need to bring a small portable scanner to a remote site to scan stuff and save it to an SD card. AND you can use the scanner in a more full-featured mode by connecting it to your computer via the USB cable. I should mention that the scanner is completely silent in operation and, like Brother printers and fax machines, handles paper like a champ.
It can scan documents from 2.2 inches to 8.5 inches in width and 3.5 inches to 32 inches in length. It will scan a letter-sized page in 7.5 seconds at 300 dpi or 14.1 seconds at higher resolutions. Duplex speeds are lower -- 11.3 seconds per letter-sized page at 300 dpi and 19.8 seconds at higher resolutions.
Charging time for the lithium-ion battery is listed at 4 hours, with scan time listed as 140 sheets with the wireless on and 680 sheets with wireless off.
On the plus side, you get everything you need to do all this, including the SD card, the programs mentioned, the USB cable, a lithium-ion battery, and a travel pouch.
But don't be surprised if you also get some headaches trying to figure all this out. I certainly did...
PROS:
* Good portable battery-powered scanner with duplex (double-sided scanning) capability.
* Comes fully equipped with SD memory card, USB cable, lithium-ion rechargeable battery, driver, scanner software, travel pouch.
* Value-added capabilities include optical character recognition, business card and receipt organization, fax.
* Good customer support over the phone with friendly, helpful American agents and a toll-free number.
* Made by Brother, a company renowned for their superior paper-handling equipment (printers, fax machines).
CONS:
* Poor documentation. Very confusing and difficult to get scanner up and running with computer.
* Wireless capability doesn't seem very useful at present.
* Paper-feeder format prevents you from scanning books, as you could with a wand scanner.
UPDATE: I've been debating how many stars to give this product. I like the machine well enough, but the poor documentation and overall user experience to date have been less than optimal. Another case in point: yesterday I went to Brother's site to register the machine and get a FREE receipt reader program. The website absolutely refused to acknowledge my passport, which I thought we had established the week before when I was working with Brother on the phone to get the machine to interface with my computer.
Nor did the website send a link by email enabling me to reset the password, as probably more than nine out of ten good websites will do. Instead I had to get on the phone with Brother again, and after escalating to a second level, I am still awaiting their return phone call when they have discovered a solution to this most basic of problems!
Would Steve Jobs have tolerated such a poor user interface if Apple had effected such a sloppy product launch? Highly unlikely -- he would have cleaned house.
So -- though I might give the scanner itself five stars, I must give the overall user experience to date just one star. This has been the WORST USER EXPERIENCE I have encountered since the first PC I bought in the late eighties, which arrived unconfigured and with its hard drive in a paper bag! If I had been a user in immediate need of a scanner rather than an occasional user writing a review, I would have probably already sent the unit back and ordered a different one from a competitor.
I trust that Brother will clean up its scanner act in time. As I write this, however, it would appear that new users will suffer a bumpy ride...
UPDATE NUMBER TWO: Brother did get back to me at the end of the day with a fix to the password problem. It seems that there is no reset link on the page telling you there's a problem with your password. Instead, you have to get the lucky inspiration to click on the My Account button, and there you will find a password reset link. Intuitive? No, not at all. Good luck, Brother customers...
UPDATE NUMBER THREE: Well, I finally managed to download the BR Receipts program, and guess what -- I can't get it to scan receipts! I think it wants me to set up an online account and, again, it won't accept the password I had established at the other Brother site!!! So once again I am going to have to spend several hours on the phone with these guys to get this receipt program to work. Am I annoyed? VERY. Yikes...
Prospective buyers should also know that Brother only mans their support lines during business hours M-F, so you're on your own if you need help on the weekend. And good luck accessing the online chat mode, which again seems to set its own hours.
UPDATE NUMBER FOUR: I spent an hour with Brother on the phone today -- escalating to a second level of support. It turns out that you need to open a folder within a box to scan receipts! It also seems that the OCR does not always work very well, even on receipts for stores or businesses within the program's rather limited database. The solution is to highlight the pertinent area(s) on the receipt using the "Recognize Field" button, and then it will perform an OCR on just the selected area(s) -- like total amount on a bill.
It also seems that the maximum length of a receipt cannot exceed 14 inches. If you try to scan a longer receipt, you will get a document jam message, and the program will not record the scanned image. The easy fix here is to cut off the tops or bottoms of any receipts that run longer than fourteen inches.
So -- the program works, but not without some user intervention.
I have added back one star to my review, because I do appreciate the fact that Brother uses American phone support personnel, and they are friendly and helpful.
But my overall impression remains -- this product seems to have been released to the marketplace before it was ready for prime-time. And the wireless capability is more of a marketing claim than a truly useful function.
UPDATE NUMBER FIVE: To my amazement, I received a phone message today from one of the (American) support folks at Brother, checking in to see if I still had any issues with accessing their website or setting up the product.
For this level of concern and follow-through, I am giving them one more star than before. Again, what we have here is a good company offering a good product that I believe they put on the market, like Obamacare, before they had crossed all their T's and dotted their I's, at least in regard to documentation, software, and their website.
If you read this review some months down the road, I hope that Brother will by then have polished all the rough edges and that their future product roll-outs will be less problematic. Stranger things have happened, as Morticia Addams said...
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