I remember the moment vividly. I was sitting in a cramped hotel room, the night before a major client presentation, surrounded by a chaotic blizzard of receipts, signed contracts, and last-minute research notes. My briefcase had become a black hole of paper. The hotel’s “business center” was a single, ancient computer connected to a flatbed scanner that moved at a glacial pace. Each scan was a multi-step process: lift the lid, place the document, close the lid, press scan, wait, save, repeat. It was inefficient, frustrating, and a complete waste of precious time. This experience crystallized a modern professional’s dilemma: we operate in a digital-first world, but physical paper remains a stubborn reality. Without a way to bridge that gap quickly and efficiently, especially when away from the office, productivity grinds to a halt and clutter reigns supreme.
- Time-saving, fast scan speeds. Scans color and black and white documents at up to 16 ppm. (Color and monochrome scan speed, letter size paper at 300dpi.)
- On the go scanning. Powering the Brother DS-640 document scanner through the included micro USB 3.0 cable to a laptop or PC enables scanning from virtually anywhere and makes the DS-640 highly...
What to Consider Before Buying a Portable Document Scanner
A portable document scanner is more than just a piece of hardware; it’s a key solution for reclaiming control over your workflow and physical space. It’s an investment in efficiency, organization, and peace of mind. For the traveling professional, it means instantly digitizing expense receipts and signed documents. For the genealogist, it’s a tool to preserve fragile family photos and records while visiting relatives. For the small business owner, it’s a way to maintain a lean, paperless office without sacrificing a huge amount of desk space. The core benefit is transforming tangible, vulnerable paper into secure, searchable, and shareable digital assets, anywhere, anytime. Getting the right tool for this job can be transformative, and you can see its full feature set and user reviews to understand just how capable these small devices can be.
The ideal customer for this type of product is someone who values mobility and immediacy. This includes road warriors, remote workers, field agents, students, and anyone with a small or home office where a large multi-function printer is impractical. It’s for the person who needs to scan a dozen documents a week, not hundreds a day. Conversely, it might not be suitable for those who need to digitize large archives in bulk. If your primary task is scanning multi-page reports or entire books, a desktop scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF) would be a far more efficient choice. Likewise, if your sole focus is achieving the absolute highest archival photo quality, a dedicated flatbed photo scanner might be a better, albeit less portable, alternative.
Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:
- Dimensions & Space: The primary appeal of a mobile scanner is its small footprint. Look at the exact dimensions and weight. Can it slide into your laptop bag without a second thought? The Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner, for example, is less than 12 inches long and weighs just over a pound, making it a benchmark for portability. Ensure the device you choose truly fits your mobile workflow.
- Capacity/Performance: Performance in this category is measured by pages per minute (ppm), resolution (dots per inch, or dpi), and media handling. A speed of 15-16 ppm is excellent for a single-sheet mobile scanner. Pay attention to whether the device can handle different media types, such as plastic ID cards, embossed cards, receipts, and photos. Single-pass duplex (two-sided) scanning is a premium feature not often found in the most compact models, so decide if that’s a must-have for your needs.
- Materials & Durability: A portable device will inevitably face more bumps and jostles than its desktop counterparts. Look for a sturdy plastic construction that feels solid, not flimsy. The internal rollers and scanning mechanism are the most critical components, so a trusted brand with a history of reliability, like Brother, often provides more peace of mind. A protective carrying case, though often sold separately, can be a worthwhile investment.
- Ease of Use & Maintenance: How is the device powered? USB-powered scanners offer the ultimate convenience, eliminating the need for a separate AC adapter. The software and driver installation should be straightforward across different operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux). Long-term care involves occasional cleaning of the rollers and glass scanning strip to prevent lines and smudges on your scans, so check how easy it is to access these components.
While the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner 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...
Unboxing and First Impressions of the Brother DS-640
Pulling the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner from its box, the first thing that struck us was its sheer compactness. It’s essentially a sleek, black bar, barely wider than a standard ruler and weighing about the same as a small tablet. It feels dense and well-constructed, without any of the creakiness you might expect from such a lightweight device. There are no flimsy trays or complex parts; the design is minimalist and purpose-driven. In the box, you find the scanner itself, a Micro USB 3.0 cable, and the necessary documentation. The simplicity is the point. The single USB cable for both power and data is a game-changer for portability, a feature that instantly makes it more practical than older models that required a separate power brick. Setting it on a desk next to a laptop, its diminutive size becomes even more apparent; it takes up virtually no space, making it an ideal companion for a crowded coffee shop table or a minimalist home office. It’s a stark and welcome contrast to the bulky, space-hogging all-in-one printers we’ve tested for years.
What We Like
- Exceptional portability; extremely lightweight and compact design
- Powered entirely by a single USB 3.0 cable, no AC adapter needed
- Surprisingly fast scanning at up to 16 ppm for its size
- Versatile media handling for documents, receipts, photos, and plastic cards
What We Didn’t Like
- Software and driver installation can be problematic on some systems (especially Windows 11)
- Uses an outdated Micro USB 3.0 port instead of the modern USB-C standard
A Deep Dive into the Brother DS-640’s Real-World Performance
A spec sheet can only tell you so much. To truly understand a device like this, you have to integrate it into your daily chaos. We put the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner through its paces for several weeks, using it in a home office, on the road, and for a special project: digitizing a shoebox of old family photos. Here’s our detailed breakdown of how it performed.
The Freedom of True Portability and Design
The single greatest strength of this scanner is its design philosophy. It is built from the ground up to be forgotten until it’s needed. At just under 12 inches long and weighing a mere 1.5 pounds, it disappears into a laptop sleeve or backpack. We took it on a short trip, and it was a revelation. Being able to scan signed contracts and travel receipts directly to our laptop in the hotel room, rather than stuffing them into a folder to deal with later, was liberating. This is a level of convenience confirmed by numerous users, with one noting it’s a “great scanner for traveling” and perfect for their “small backpack.” The magic lies in the single Micro USB 3.0 cable. Not having to hunt for a free wall outlet or carry a proprietary power adapter is a massive advantage. It draws a meager 2.5 watts, so it won’t put a significant drain on your laptop’s battery. The build feels robust enough for travel, and the simple, single-sheet feed path means there are few moving parts to break. The only real critique we share with some users is the choice of a Micro USB 3.0 Micro B connector. In an era dominated by the reversible and universal USB-C, this feels like a step back. While the cable is included, finding a replacement in a pinch is far more difficult than finding a standard USB-C cable. Still, for what it’s designed to do—provide high-quality scanning anywhere—its physical design is nearly perfect. You can check the latest price and availability of this incredibly portable tool.
Scanning Speed and Image Quality: Punching Above Its Weight
For a device this small, the speed is genuinely impressive. Brother claims up to 16 ppm, and in our testing with standard letter-sized documents at 300 dpi, we found this to be accurate. A page feeds through smoothly and quietly in about four seconds. One user enthusiastically reported scanning “60 photos in 5 minutes,” a feat that would have taken them “20 minutes” on their old all-in-one’s document feeder. We had a similar experience digitizing a stack of old 4×6 photos. While you have to feed them one by one, the process is so quick that it never feels tedious. The quality is excellent for documents. Text is crisp and clear, thanks to the built-in text enhancement features. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) in the bundled software worked well, converting scanned invoices into editable Word documents with a high degree of accuracy. Photo scanning, as many users discovered, is another strong suit. We scanned photos from the 1940s through the Polaroid era of the 80s, and the results were fantastic. The scanner captures colors accurately and provides enough detail for digital archiving and sharing. As one user happily stated, “the black-and-white photos actually are coming out great.” It’s important to set expectations, however. While it handles resolutions up to 600 dpi (interpolated up to 1200 dpi), some advanced software features are limited to 300 dpi. We also occasionally encountered a thin white line on a scan, which, as another user noted, is usually caused by a speck of dust on the sensor—a quick wipe with a microfiber cloth resolves this immediately.
The Software Experience: Simple Power Meets Potential Frustration
This is where the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner presents a dual personality. The hardware is brilliant, but the software and setup experience can be a significant hurdle for some. Let’s start with the positive. For many, including our tests on a MacBook Pro and a Linux machine, the process is smooth. As one user running Ubuntu Linux reported, they “downloaded drivers from Brother – works PERFECT.” On macOS, the Brother iPrint&Scan software is intuitive and simple. You can easily configure workflows to scan directly to a file, email, an application, or a cloud service with a single click. The image optimization tools—like automatic color detection, background removal, and bleed-through prevention—work seamlessly in the background to improve scan quality without user intervention. This simplicity is a core part of its appeal and a reason why many find it so incredibly easy to use.
However, the user reviews are filled with tales of frustration, particularly from Windows 10 and 11 users. We encountered this on one of our Windows 11 test machines. Multiple users reported that the driver and software package would repeatedly fail to install, rendering the scanner completely unusable. “Three attempts to install software failed,” one user lamented, “Wasted hours of my time.” Another stated, “my computer refuses to download the drivers… Can’t use it so have to return it.” We experienced similar connection errors, where the software couldn’t find the scanner despite it being plugged in and powered on. While we eventually resolved it through manual driver installation via the Device Manager, it was not the plug-and-play experience one would expect. This inconsistency is the scanner’s most significant flaw. If you get a smooth install, it’s a dream. If you don’t, it can quickly become an exercise in frustration. The device’s reliability is high, but its setup process is a gamble depending on your specific system configuration.
What Other Users Are Saying
Across the board, sentiment for the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner is largely positive, focusing on its core strengths of portability and speed. Many users echo our findings, calling it “amazing” and “perfect for small desk.” One user’s story about preserving family memories truly captures its potential: “My mom has boxes and boxes of old family photos that I’m worried will be lost forever… This scanner has done an amazing job with Polaroids, 4×6”, and even photos from all the way back in the 40s.”
However, the negative feedback is just as consistent and centers on two key areas. The first is the software and driver installation. One frustrated user’s experience is a stark warning: “The most irritating thing I’ve dealt with in a while. I haven’t even used it once… it to continuously tell me there’s a connection error.” The second major issue reported is with paper handling on non-standard documents. Despite claims of scanning documents up to 72 inches, one user found it impossible to scan receipts longer than a foot. They reported, “it would stop toward the end 100% of the time,” giving a “Document Jam” error even when no jam was present. This suggests a potential limitation in the firmware or sensors that buyers should be aware of if scanning long-form items like receipts is a primary use case. It’s clear that while the hardware is capable, its operational envelope can be narrower than advertised under certain conditions.
How Does the Brother DS-640 Compare to the Alternatives?
The Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner excels in its niche, but it’s important to understand where it fits in the broader market. Depending on your specific needs for volume, features, and media type, other options might be a better fit.
1. Epson FastFoto FF-680W Wireless Photo Scanner
- World’s Fastest Personal Photo Scanner (1) — scan thousands of photos as fast as 1 photo per second at 300 dpi (2); batch-scan up to 36 photos at a time
- Preserve Your Priceless Photos — restore, organize, protect and share photos; scan Polaroid photos, panoramas, postcards and photos up to 8" x 10"
If your primary goal is to digitize massive archives of family photos, the Epson FastFoto FF-680W is in a different league entirely. This is a specialized, high-speed photo scanner with an automatic document feeder that can process a photo per second at 300 dpi. It’s designed for bulk projects, capable of handling stacks of photos of various sizes in a single batch. It also offers wireless connectivity for added convenience. The tradeoff is size and cost; it’s a desktop unit that is significantly larger and more expensive than the Brother DS-640. The Epson is for the user undertaking a serious archival project, while the Brother DS-640 is for casual photo scanning on the go.
2. ScanSnap iX1400 Color Document Scanner
- SIMPLE, ONE TOUCH SCANNING. Press one button and documents are scanned, cleaned up, and organized. QUICK MENU lets you quickly scan-drag-drop to your favorite computer apps
- CAPABLE OF MANAGING ALL YOUR PAPER. Business cards, receipts, and even envelopes are no problem for the iX1400
The ScanSnap iX1400 represents the next step up in a dedicated desktop document scanner. It’s a workhorse built for efficiency in a home or small office. Its key advantages are a large 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) and true one-touch scanning simplicity. While it connects via USB like the Brother, it’s designed to live on a desk and rapidly process multi-page documents. It offers robust software that is widely praised for its reliability and ease of use. A user who needs to regularly scan 10-page contracts or 20-page reports would be far better served by the ScanSnap. The Brother DS-640 wins on portability, but the iX1400 wins on sheer volume and batch-processing efficiency.
3. Epson Workforce ES-400 II Document Scanner with ADF
- FAST DOCUMENT SCANNING – Speed through stacks with the 50-sheet Auto Document Feeder, perfect for office scanning and working from home
- INTUITIVE, HIGH-SPEED SOFTWARE – Epson ScanSmart Software lets you easily preview scans, email files, upload to the cloud, and more. Plus, automatic file naming saves time
The Epson Workforce ES-400 II is a direct competitor to the ScanSnap, offering a powerful feature set for a busy desktop environment. It boasts fast speeds of up to 35 ppm/70 ipm (images per minute, counting both sides) thanks to its single-pass duplex scanning capability, a feature the single-sheet Brother DS-640 lacks. It also includes a 50-page ADF and advanced TWAIN drivers for broad compatibility with imaging software. Choose the Epson ES-400 II if you need high-speed, two-sided scanning for a heavy daily workload. The Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner is the tool you take with you; the Epson is the powerful engine you leave at your home base to power through paper stacks.
Our Final Verdict on the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner
After extensive testing and poring over real-world user feedback, our verdict is clear. The Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner is a phenomenal, highly specialized tool that excels at its primary mission: providing fast, high-quality scanning in the smallest possible package. For the traveling professional, the minimalist home office user, or anyone who needs to digitize single documents, receipts, or photos away from a desk, its combination of speed, quality, and USB-powered convenience is almost unbeatable. It is a device that can genuinely streamline a mobile workflow and help conquer paper clutter wherever you are.
However, its excellence comes with a significant caveat: the software and driver experience can be a lottery. The frustrating setup issues reported by a notable number of users, especially on Windows systems, cannot be ignored. This, combined with the dated Micro USB port, holds it back from unequivocal perfection. We recommend the Brother DS-640 Compact Mobile Document Scanner to those who prioritize portability above all else and are comfortable with potentially troubleshooting a rocky software installation. If that sounds like you, this little scanner is an outstanding value that will serve you well. For a closer look at this powerful portable scanner and to decide if it’s the right fit for your needs, you can find more details and purchase it online.
Last update on 2025-11-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API