When you think of scanners, it's quite likely that you think of large, bulky, flatbed devices that require you to clear some precious real estate on a crowded desk and find a free power input for yet another power cord.

Compact; Doesn't require additional power cord; Consistently produced high quality scans across the board; Extremely easy to use

No option available to adjust contrast or saturation

A close cousin to the Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula P-150 Scan-tini ($295 direct, 4 stars), and one small step up in Canon's line, the Canon imageFormula P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner ($325 direct) combines a not quite identical scanner with improved software.

Automatic document feeder; Duplexes; Rated at 15 pages per minute for black and white as well as grayscale

Relatively big and heavy for a portable scanner; Application programs don't install by default

Canon has been making scanners for years, so the company certainly knows its way around the category. But the portable scanner market is highly competitive, with everyone from Xerox and Brother to Fujitsu and Neat Receipts looking for a piece of the action.

Duplexer lets you scan two-sided documents; Multiple ways to connect to your PC or Mac; Easy-to-use Auto Start feature; Excellent scan quality

Business cards can jam during scanning; Doesn't include power adapter; Relatively bulky; Slower scanning speeds on photos and business cards

Sheet-fed duplex scanners are usually hefty desktop affairs, but the Canon ImageFormula P-215 is small enough to slip into laptop bag. Julian Prokaza takes a look.

The Canon imageFORMULA P-215's predecessor, the imageFORMULA P-150M , was a decent portable scanner, but it wasn't without its problems. Its occasional paper jams, misfeeds and unrecognised documents made it a less than reliable scanner. Can the Canon imageFORMULA P-215 avoid the sins of its father?

Don't quite know where the trend started, or why, but lately I've seen a lot of portable document scanners. Most of them have been decent--they are fast, lightweight and portable, and there's very little to complain about, except that they are typically also light on paper guides, which means that...