Printer and accessory maker Brother has debuted a new line of scanners aimed squarely at small-office and home-office (SOHO) users, combining the compact footprint and price point of a portable scanner with more advanced functions normally associated with desktop workgroup devices. The flagship of the line is the ADS-1500w, which offers simplex or duplex color scan speeds of up to 18 pages per minute (ppm), a 20-sheet capacity feeder, Internet connectivity and mobile scanning compatibility.
The AWS-1500w is compatible with all three of the most common operating systems, can connect to wireless networks and offers direct uploading from scans to social and productivity services such as Evernote, Facebook, Box, Flickr, Google Drive, Skydrive and Picasa Web Albums. Other copying options include FTP, network drives, USB flash drives, email servers and directly to mobile devices running the Brother iPrint&Scan app.
In addition to duplex scanning, the unit offers a range of image-enhancement features such as blank page ignoring, auto de-skewing, auto rotation and background removal. Documents up to 34 inches long and even embossed plastic cards can be scanned (the latter through a special rear card slot). The ADS-1500w also includes Presto Page Manager 9 and Presto Bizcard for Mac, and Nuance Paper Port 12 SE and Nuance PDF Converter Professional 8 along with a copy of Presto BizCard 6 for Windows. Brother is also including its Control Center and BR-Receipts software for both Mac and Windows.
The ADS-1500w has a footprint of only 11.2 inches wide by 4.1 inches deep, and retails for $300. The company will also be introducing an ADS-1000w version with fewer features for $250 though the exact differences haven’t yet been released. Both are available for order now and are coming to stores later this month. Both come with a one-year warranty and free phone support for the life of the product.
