Chinese manufacturer eLoam has introduced a line of portable and very fast document scanners that look like they solve typical scanner issues, such as speed and footprint. These crane-arm scanners feature cameras that can take hi-res photos and convert them to PDF, TIFF, JPEG, movie files, or display them via a USB connection. That could make them handy for impromptu presentations and for sharing images of group projects. The scanners fold up and are fairly lightweight, so they're portable as well. Unfortunately the company was not yet able to provide a sample for review, nor do they seem widely available in the US.
Scanning Specs
eLoam literature claims that the scanners can scan documents as fast as two pages per second; presumably this is for scanning books. The cameras have a frame rate of 20 frames per second. The S200 has a maximum resolution of 1600x1200; the K300 and the H300 of 2000x1600; the S500 of 3000x2400.
Some of the scanners have stages that can be removed so larger objects can be scanned.
Size and Weight
The S200 is 8 cm wide, 24 cm high, and 10 cm deep; the stand is 24 cm high. It weighs 0.55 kg.
The K300 is 8.5 cm wide, 32 cm high, and 11 cm deep; the stand is 45 cm high. It weighs 1.08 kg.
The H300 is 10 cm wide, 27 cm high, and 9 cm deep; the stand is 38 cm high. It weighs 0.55 kg.
The S500 is 9 cm wide, 41 cm high, and 10 cm deep; the stand is 41 cm high. It weighs 0.8 kg.
Options and Software
The scanners feature a one-touch scan button that automatically creates PDF files. They can, depending on the model, scan A3, A4, B4, B5, A5, B6, A6, and business-card-sized documents. The can also scan 3-D objects. Files can be saved as PDF, TIFF, or JPEG (or movie files, but eLoam did not specify the file type). The scanners work with via USB and are plug-and-play; they also are Energy Star compliant. The software includes optical character recognition (OCR) capability.