Product Description

Weighing just 12 ounces and measuring only 1.5"H x 2" D x 11" L, the Pentax DSmobile is the ideal scanning solution for people on the go or work in a confined environment. Simplified sheet-fed design make scanning from business card size to legal paper size douments is an easy one-step opertaion. Consuming only 0.001W sleep, 0.2W standby and maximum of 2.0W when operating, power is drawn directly from a laptop from the USB port, eliminating the need got a heavy and bulky power source adapter. Reliabilty and quality images are assured with the use of an advanced Contact Image Sensor Optical Module with fewer moving parts than units equiped with a traditional CCD module. 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.

Product Details

• Color: Black
• Brand: Pentax
• Model: 206700-501
• Dimensions: 3.40" h x 9.20" w x 12.10" l, 1.65 pounds

Features

• Only 12 ounces and measuring just 11 inches in length
• User-friendly sheet-fed design
• Optical Resolution: 600 dpi
• Scanning Modes: 48-bit internally, outputs 24-bit true color; 8-bit gray scale; 1-bit bi-level B&W
• Operating Systems: Windows Vista, XP, 2000, ME SE, Mac OSX 10.3 and later (download from www.pentaxtech.com)

Amazon.com Product Description
Weighing in at less than 12 ounces and measuring just 11 inches wide, the Pentax DSmobile lets you carry around all you need to scan everything from a business card to an 8.5 by 14 inch document. The scanner draws power from its USB interface so no clunky AC adapter is needed. Bring it along with you and you can instantly transmit a printed page via email, fax, or the web. The scanner has a hardware optical resolution of 300 dpi and the included OCR software automatically converts the document to editable text.

The scanner uses a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) to achieve its smaller volume and lighter weight, and also requires less power consumption and lower maintenance than a traditional CCD. The DSmobile has few moving parts, which promotes high reliability and nearly maintenance-free operation. It consumes only 0.2 watt of power in standby mode and a maximum of 2.2 watts of power when scanning. The Pentax DSmobile 600 Scanner is compatible with Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. It is backed by a 1-year warranty.

What's in the Box
DSmobile 600 scanner, leather case, 35-inch USB cable, user's manual, instllation guide, software CD, calibration card, and two 5x7-inch photo-scan sleeves.

Customer Reviews

Excellent Organizational Addition
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!

Mac OSX Tricks
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.

Good Scanner, not so much for Mac Users
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.