In our office, we used to have a corner affectionately—and despairingly—nicknamed “The Paper Mountain.” It was a teetering monument to contracts, invoices, client forms, and receipts, growing daily. Finding a specific document was an archaeological dig, a frustrating time-sink that killed productivity and frayed nerves. The risk of losing a critical piece of paper was a constant, low-grade anxiety. This scenario is all too common in businesses of all sizes. The promise of a paperless office remains elusive, not because we lack the will, but because we often lack the right tool. A simple all-in-one printer-scanner combo just can’t keep up with a real influx of documents. We needed a dedicated, high-speed solution to turn that physical liability into a secure, searchable digital asset. This quest led us to investigate a dedicated workgroup scanner, a machine built for one purpose: to digitize documents with relentless efficiency.
- ROBUST CAPTURE SOLUTION: The Brother ADS-4700W Professional Desktop Scanner is a great choice for busy offices and workgroups, built for the demands of how work now works
- FAST, MULTI-PAGE SCANNING: Scans single and double-sided materials in a single pass, in both color and black / white, at up to 40ppm(1) for increased productivity. Quickly scan a variety of document...
Choosing Your Digital Gatekeeper: What to Consider Before Buying a Document Scanner
A document scanner is more than just an office gadget; it’s a key solution for reclaiming physical space, securing sensitive information, and dramatically improving workflow efficiency. By converting stacks of paper into organized digital files, businesses can create searchable archives, simplify sharing and collaboration, and establish robust backup and disaster recovery plans. It’s the bridge between the analog world of yesterday and the fast-paced digital demands of today. For any organization drowning in paperwork, the benefits are immediate and profound, transforming chaotic paper trails into streamlined, accessible data.
The ideal customer for this type of product is a small-to-medium-sized business, a busy home office professional (like a lawyer, accountant, or realtor), or a specific department within a larger corporation that processes a high volume of documents. If you’re handling daily stacks of invoices, multi-page contracts, or patient records, a dedicated scanner is a necessity. However, it might not be suitable for those who only need to scan a document once a month. For casual users, a smartphone scanning app or the flatbed on an all-in-one printer is often sufficient. If your primary need is scanning fragile photos or bound books, a flatbed scanner would be a more appropriate alternative.
Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:
- Dimensions & Space: A desktop scanner is a permanent fixture. You need to account not just for its footprint (12.6″W x 11.7″D for this model) but also for the space required for the paper input and output trays. Ensure you have a dedicated spot on a desk or credenza where it’s easily accessible without creating clutter.
- Capacity/Performance: Two numbers are paramount: pages per minute (PPM) and Auto Document Feeder (ADF) capacity. The Brother ADS-4700W boasts a swift 40 ppm and an 80-page ADF, which is excellent for its class. This means you can load a large stack of documents and have them digitized in just a couple of minutes, a critical factor for high-volume environments.
- Materials & Durability: Look for a robust build quality designed to withstand daily use. Pay attention to the warranty, as it’s a good indicator of the manufacturer’s confidence in the product’s longevity. The Brother ADS-4700W comes with a reassuring three-year limited warranty, which is significantly better than the one-year standard often seen in this category.
- Ease of Use & Maintenance: How you interact with the scanner is crucial. A large, intuitive touchscreen, like the 4.3″ display on this model, can drastically simplify operations compared to navigating menus with clunky buttons. Also consider the long-term care; rollers and pads are consumables that will eventually need replacing, so check for their availability and ease of installation.
Making the right choice is about matching the machine’s capabilities to your specific workflow. While our focus here is on a single, powerful machine, the market is filled with excellent options catering to different needs.
While the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless is an excellent choice, it’s always wise to see how it stacks up against the competition. For a broader look at all the top models, we highly recommend checking out our complete, in-depth guide:
- OUR MOST ADVANCED SCANSNAP. Large touchscreen, fast 45ppm double-sided scanning, 100-sheet document feeder, Wi-Fi and USB connectivity, automatic optimizations, and support for cloud services....
- FAST DOCUMENT SCANNING – Speed through stacks with the 50-sheet Auto Document Feeder, perfect for office scanning and working from home
- Portable and Travel friendly: This portable document scanner for laptop is a small scanner with feeder for mac and pc that fits easily in your bag for work, home, school, or travel. Take it everywhere...
First Impressions: Unboxing the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless
Pulling the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless from its box, the first impression is one of professional-grade solidity. It’s not a lightweight, flimsy piece of plastic. Weighing in at 6.4 pounds, it feels dense and well-constructed, ready for a demanding office environment. Assembly is straightforward; the main scanner body and the feeder attachment click together satisfyingly. The clean, white aesthetic is professional and fits well in a modern office. What immediately stands out is the large 4.3” color touchscreen, which dominates the front panel. It’s bright, responsive, and a significant step up from the button-based interfaces of older or more budget-oriented models. Setting it up on our Wi-Fi network directly from the touchscreen was a breeze, taking only a few minutes to connect without needing to tether it to a computer first. This initial experience was promising, suggesting a modern, user-friendly device ready to tackle our paper mountain head-on.
What We Like
- Blazing fast 40 ppm / 80 ipm single-pass duplex scanning
- Large 80-sheet Auto Document Feeder handles big jobs with ease
- Excellent connectivity options: Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and USB
- Versatile standalone operation via large touchscreen to scan directly to cloud, email, or USB
- Robust 3-year standard limited warranty provides peace of mind
Limitations
- Included desktop software suite feels dated and unintuitive
- Automatic image processing like blank page removal can be inconsistent
A Deep Dive into the Brother ADS-4700W’s Performance
An impressive feature list is one thing; real-world performance is another. We put the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless through a grueling series of tests, digitizing everything from pristine single-page letters to crumpled, multi-page reports, receipts, and even plastic ID cards. Our goal was to push it beyond the marketing copy and see how it truly functions in a busy, and sometimes messy, office environment. The results were a fascinating mix of exceptional hardware capability and perplexing software design choices.
Raw Scanning Power and Hardware Performance
At its core, the Brother ADS-4700W is a mechanical beast. The raw scanning performance is nothing short of spectacular. Brother claims 40 pages per minute, and in our tests with standard 8.5″ x 11″ documents at 300 DPI, it consistently hit or even slightly exceeded that mark. Because it’s a single-pass duplex scanner, it captures both sides of a page at once, meaning you get a blistering 80 images per minute (ipm) for double-sided documents. We loaded the 80-sheet ADF to its full capacity with a mixed batch of reports and watched it chew through the entire stack in exactly two minutes. There’s a deeply satisfying, industrial hum as it works, with each page being picked, scanned, and ejected with precision. We experienced zero misfeeds or jams with standard office paper. The scanner also handled a variety of media types adeptly. Thin, flimsy receipts went through without issue, as did thicker card stock and laminated ID cards. The ability to handle this variety without constant adjustments is a massive timesaver. The hardware feels incredibly reliable; it gives the impression that it could run all day, every day, which is exactly what you want in a workgroup scanner. Even some of the most critical user feedback we found online conceded that the hardware itself feels solid, a sentiment we wholeheartedly share.
Connectivity and Standalone Versatility: Its True Superpower
Where the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless truly distinguishes itself from the competition is its versatility. This is not just a PC peripheral; it’s a fully functional, network-aware appliance. The combination of Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, and USB 3.0 covers every conceivable connection scenario. We tested the Wi-Fi extensively, and it maintained a stable, fast connection throughout our office, even at a distance from the router. But the real game-changer is the functionality unlocked by the 4.3″ touchscreen. We created several custom shortcuts for our most common workflows. For example, one button was configured to “Scan to Accounting Folder,” which would scan a batch of invoices as a multi-page searchable PDF and send it directly to a specific network folder. Another was set to “Email Legal,” which would scan a contract and open an email with the file already attached. The most impressive feature for us was the completely PC-free operation. We plugged a USB memory stick into the port, loaded documents into the ADF, and saved them directly to the drive using only the touchscreen interface. We also configured it to scan directly to our company Google Drive and Dropbox accounts. This standalone capability is a massive benefit, allowing anyone in the office to walk up and use the scanner for a critical task without needing to log into a dedicated computer. As one user aptly noted, the color touchscreen is a “big improvement,” turning the scanner into a self-sufficient workhorse.
The Software Conundrum: A Tale of Two Experiences
This is where our review becomes nuanced. The software experience for the check the latest price and availability is a story of stark contrasts. On one hand, its support for industry-standard drivers like TWAIN, WIA, ISIS, and SANE is a major asset for power users and businesses. These drivers allow the scanner to integrate seamlessly with powerful third-party document management software like Adobe Acrobat Pro, Kofax, and other enterprise-level systems. In this context, the scanner is a flawless piece of data-capturing hardware. However, when evaluating the bundled software that Brother provides for the average user—Brother iPrint&Scan Desktop—the experience is deeply disappointing. We encountered the same issues mentioned in numerous user reports. The interface is clunky, unintuitive, and feels like a relic from a decade ago. It’s functional, but it lacks the polish and streamlined workflow we expect from modern software. We found its automatic processing features to be unreliable. The “Blank Page Removal” setting was inconsistent, sometimes leaving blank pages in and other times removing pages that had faint markings. The auto-crop feature frequently left large, unnecessary white borders around the document. This confirms the feedback from one frustrated user who described the software as “miserable” and “a complete disaster.” It’s a baffling disconnect: world-class hardware paired with entry-level, frustrating software.
The Modern Lifeline: Mobile App and Security
Fortunately, there is a silver lining to the software story: the Brother Mobile Connect app. In our testing on both iOS and Android, the mobile app provided the modern, intuitive experience that the desktop software lacks. The app discovered the scanner on our network instantly, and within seconds, we were initiating scans directly from a smartphone. The interface is clean, simple, and effective. We scanned a 10-page document, and it appeared on our phone almost immediately, with options to save it, share it to cloud services like OneDrive, or email it. This aligns perfectly with positive user experiences where setup and scanning via a phone were “a blink of an eye” fast. For quick, on-the-go scanning tasks, the mobile app is a fantastic workaround. On the security front, the scanner’s Triple Layer Security features are robust. These include things like Secure Function Lock to restrict features for certain users and support for 802.1x network security protocols, which are essential for deployment in corporate environments where data protection is paramount. This makes the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless a secure and compliant choice for businesses that handle sensitive information.
What Other Users Are Saying
Our findings are strongly echoed in the broader user community, which paints a picture of a product with clear strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side, users consistently praise the scanner’s raw speed and hardware capabilities. Many, like us, highlight the large color touchscreen and the ability to scan to a USB drive or cloud service without a computer as major upgrades over previous models. One happy customer noted, “You are able to use the scanner without a laptop or computer…it connects right away to [the] app and [is] ready to start scanning in no time.” The seamless experience with the Brother Mobile Connect app is another recurring point of satisfaction. Conversely, the criticism is almost unanimously directed at the desktop software and drivers. One user, who identified as an IT professional with 25 years of experience, called the software “perhaps the worst I’ve ever seen,” detailing hours spent trying to get it to work without errors. Another lamented that the software “reminds me of using software in the mid 90’s. It’s cumbersome, unintuitive and lacks polish.” This consistent feedback confirms that the hardware is a winner, but the desktop software experience is a significant hurdle for many.
Head-to-Head: The Brother ADS-4700W vs. The Competition
No product exists in a vacuum. To give you the full picture, we’ve compared the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless to three key alternatives, each excelling in a different area.
1. Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W Wireless Scanner with Auto Document Feeder
- ScanSmart AI PRO Technology — Intelligently convert and extract scanned information into smart digital data – making your documents AI-ready
- Export to Financial Software² — Turn stacks of receipts and invoices into categorized digital data that easily integrates into financial applications, such as QuickBooks and TurboTax
The Epson RR-600W is a direct competitor but with a specialized focus. While its scanning speed is comparable at 35 ppm, its main selling point is the included ScanSmart Accounting Edition software. This software is specifically designed to intelligently extract data from receipts and invoices (vendor name, date, amount, etc.) and export it directly to accounting software like QuickBooks or TurboTax. If your primary goal is digitizing financial documents and streamlining bookkeeping, the Epson’s specialized software provides a level of automation the Brother software lacks. The Brother is a more versatile generalist, but the Epson is the specialist’s choice for financial paperwork.
2. ScanSnap iX2500 High-Speed Document Scanner
- OUR MOST ADVANCED SCANSNAP. Large touchscreen, fast 45ppm double-sided scanning, 100-sheet document feeder, Wi-Fi and USB connectivity, automatic optimizations, and support for cloud services....
- CUSTOMIZABLE. SHARABLE. Select personalized profiles from the touchscreen. Send to PC, Mac, mobile devices, and clouds. QUICK MENU lets you quickly scan-drag-drop to your favorite computer apps
The ScanSnap line, now from Ricoh, has long been the gold standard for user-friendly, high-performance scanning. The ScanSnap iX2500 is likely a placeholder for the popular iX1600 model, but the principle remains. ScanSnap’s key advantage has always been its software. The ScanSnap Home software is polished, intuitive, and designed to “just work” right out of the box, with excellent automatic document recognition and profiling. While the Brother scanner offers broader professional driver support (TWAIN/ISIS), the ScanSnap provides a superior, integrated software experience for the everyday user. If you prioritize a seamless, frustration-free software workflow over deep integration with third-party enterprise applications, the ScanSnap is often considered the top choice.
3. plustek OS1180 A3 Flatbed Scanner
- Maximum Scan size - 11.7"x 17" (297 x 431.8 mm) Large Format Scanning, easy digital Tabloid or A3 size paper.
- No more waiting - by LED Light Source, Save Energy, No Warm Up
The Plustek OS1180 serves a completely different, but equally important, purpose. It is a flatbed scanner, meaning it has no automatic document feeder. Its superpower is its ability to scan oversized documents up to A3 size (11.7″ x 16.5″), as well as bound books, magazines, delicate photos, and fragile historical documents that could never survive a trip through an ADF. The Brother ADS-4700W is built for speed and volume with stacks of standard-sized paper. The Plustek is built for size, fragility, and versatility. If your workflow involves large-format items or non-standard media, a flatbed like the OS1180 is not just an alternative; it’s a necessity.
Final Verdict: Should You Buy the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless?
After extensive testing, our verdict on the Brother ADS-4700W Desktop Scanner Wireless is clear but conditional. As a piece of hardware, it is absolutely superb. It is fast, reliable, and features best-in-class connectivity and standalone functionality that can genuinely transform an office workflow. For a business that plans to integrate it with professional document management software via its TWAIN driver, this scanner is a top-tier choice that delivers exceptional performance and value, backed by an outstanding 3-year warranty. However, for a user who expects to rely solely on the included Brother desktop software, the experience can be a frustrating journey of navigating a clunky, outdated interface. We recommend it highly for tech-savvy users, offices with IT support, or anyone comfortable using the excellent mobile app or web interface for their primary workflow. For those seeking the most polished out-of-the-box software experience, alternatives like the ScanSnap might be a better fit. Ultimately, this is a professional-grade machine with a consumer-grade software weakness, but its hardware prowess and versatility are so strong that for the right user, it’s an undeniable powerhouse.
If you’re ready to tackle your paper mountain with a scanner that offers incredible speed and unmatched flexibility, we believe the Brother ADS-4700W is a fantastic investment, and you can see its full feature set and user reviews right here.
Last update on 2025-11-11 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API