Do you even need a scanner at all?
- David Moore
- Mar 12, 2019
- 2 min read
If you buy a new printer these days it is more likely to be an all-in-one that does scanning and printing and a bazillion other things that you probably haven't even thought you don't need.
It is likely to be weirdly cheap too, because you know ink is where the money is made.
But may I suggest that you probably don't need a scanner...or a fax?
Several years ago I focused on getting a better printer...that just printed...and avoided any that included scanners and stupid scanner sheet feeders.
The things are fricken enormous. Look at that dog ugly thing pictured above. Seriously, who designs these abominations?
Besides, I couldn't remember the last time I needed to scan.
It was probably when I last sent a fax and, I am going to judge you now, if you are still sending faxes you either need your head read or you need the head read of the person who insists you still send them faxes...probably both because it takes 2 to play the fax game.
So I bought a printer that just printed and had a much better (read cheaper) cost per page. I also upped the image quality and print speed by getting a laser printer.
Then, you guessed it, I had to scan something. Uh oh!
But being the whiz (ahem) that I am I decided to just take photos of the document with my smart phone and email them off instead. That worked brilliantly...mostly.
When I wanted to send multiple page scans it sucked a bit.
So I found an app' - Tiny Scanner. Oh yes, of course there's an app' for that...
For $5 I get a scanner that goes with me to my new phone. Unlike the scanner in my printer which could well go to the tip before I ever use it.
The Tiny Scanner app' isn't all beer and skittles.
If I need to bulk scan lots of pages and I need them to be uniform and of a good quality then Tiny Scanner doesn't cut it.
But if you are just informing people by scanning and forwarding stuff, then it is brilliant.
If you are like my house, then there's a chance your partner will have their own printer anyway. Mine does, and it has sheet feed scanner in it.
So we have the best of both worlds...all worlds.
So before you just go out and buy your next printer that does everything, have a think about whether you actually need everything...or if your partner already has everything.
You may just get by having a printer than only prints...well.
David
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