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...

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?

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.

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

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

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

I would be very careful purchasing this item if you run Vista or XP. You''ll probably be happy with it if you are on Windows 7. If Canon fixes their software, this would be great. For now, I can only use it in the mode that has only simple scanning.

You don''t need to load software to get this scanner to work; The scanner has self contained software for simple duplex scans; It comes with software to do more advanced scans.

I was unable to get this to work on computers using Windows Vista and XP with the extra software; It worked with no problem on Windows 7; When I called Canon, they too had problems.

The Canon P-215 scanner is excellent. It efficiently scans both sides of a page at the same time. Scans are automatically created as PDFs, which makes it easy to store or share the files. A nice feature is that this item doesn't require a power supply.

Canon's P-215 is the only portable device in the company's ImageFormula range of high-speed document scanners. Despite a footprint half the size of a sheet of A4 paper, it incorporates an automatic document feeder (ADF) more commonly found on full-sized scanners and MFPs.

Perfect for mobile workers who need to keep up with the paperwork, but who are frequently on the road and so don't have access to a permanent office, the Canon P-215 undoubtedly fills a need.