Brother Wireless High-Speed Desktop Document Scanner, ADS-2700W, Touchscreen LCD, Duplex Scanning

Use case:Scanning handwritten letters (~1 page at a time), handwritten homework assignments (up to 40+ pages at a time), and old documents (~5 pages at a time).Features I use:WiFi, Scanning from the computer, OCR, PDF High CompressionFeatures I do not use:TWAIN, mobile scanning, wired ethernet connectionSetup:Setup is easy and painless. Unit has few buttons, which I love. Menu navigation is intuitive and uncluttered. WiFi connection worked on the first try. Two thumbs up!Scanning on the computer:Usually with my printers and scanners I go to the manufacturer's site and only download the drivers. I do not download utilities or software packages because they tend to be bloat (Ahem, Canon and HP). But after installing Brother's drivers and initiating scan-to-computer via the scanner touchscreen, I realized that options like pdf file size/compression, OCR, and TWAIN were missing. Files sizes also came out quite large - too large.I was thinking of returning the unit, but decided to give Brother support a chance because the unit was just so well made and so nice to use. In less than 2 business days, Brother sent me a response explaining that the features I couldn't find (pdf file size/compression, OCR, and TWAIN) were actually in the Brother iPrint&Scan software utility. I downloaded the utility from the Mac App Store, connected my scanner, and still didn't find any of the features in scan options! So I ran a scan anyway and found out that the options are all available AFTER you scan. PDF file output size/compression, OCR, and TWAIN were all there! I tried OCR and the various file size outputs at 300 DPI and they worked as expected. Well, that is aside from the High Compression option, which sometimes caused parts of the image to be in focus and others to be blurry. I'll be contacting Brother about that for a future software fix.About 2 weeks after initial setup the scanner would take an additional 10-15 seconds or so after cold boot up to be detected by my computer, but it never failed to connect. It's usually about 10 seconds, but sometimes it's a little faster and other times it's a little slower.The software saves the files a bit slow. It can take up to a minute to save files. That may be because I am running a dual-core processor Mac, which takes longer to process the file compression and OCR in the background. Your mileage my vary. Again, I'm not a business user, so I can wait.Conclusion:If you are a casual user who has outgrown your existing flatbed printer scanner or is looking to upgrade from an old one, the 2700W is an excellent choice. In the month that I've had it I've already scanned more than 200 pages and it's never let me down, lost connection, or failed to scan properly. Brother customer support is also excellent and timely. The unit is also well-built and the plastic and finish on the plastic is of a very nice quality. I highly recommend it.

This is an amazing product, and what I've become accustomed to from Brother. The machine is a workhorse - I bought this product 3+ years ago, as part of digitizing my world. I had boxes and boxes of documents, receipts, and photos to scan. The scan time is fast, scans both sides, great resolution, directly into PDF format or JPG for photos, as one continuous file or a separate file for each page being scanned, into your chosen folder location on your PC or on to a thumbdrive. Save profiles for diff doc settings (output format, resolution, Substantial duty cycle - I was scanning 2-3,000+ pages per day consistently without issue or jamming. Connects to wireless network easily. Machine is small and compact, which makes it convenient to access on the corner of my desk. My only issue is the LCD display options - could be better designed to make setting up and accessing profiles easier - but even on just this feature, I rate it 4 out of 5 stars. Finally, the price makes it an incredible value. Given the volume of scanning that I was doing, I fully anticipated that I would need to replace this in the first year... but it is still going strong. While my volume of scanning today is down to modest level of activity, the fact that it is so convenient means I scan everything the moment I touch it - no more paper stacks.

I was looking for a standalone scanner that I can use with my home office--I move from computer to computer and normally want documents sent to my FTP server, but sometimes emailed or copied. I had bought the Fujitsu that hospitals use, but it turns out that basically none of the Fujitsus can really be used in standalone mode. I returned it and bought this.This brother is exactly what is wanted. It is small, fast, and does a good job with the scan. I have it connected by wired ethernet and there appears to be no network bottleneck. It can pound through a stack of papers, front and back, in just a few seconds. The controls are also good. You can set it up so the most common destinations are on the home screen so you can do 1 touch scanning to four different places. At the office we have a document scanner that is very effective but you have to go through so many menus to get to what you want to do! I have a shortcut set up for my FTP server, one to email the scan to me, one to email the scan to my wife, and one shortcut sends it to my printer. This scanner is easily configured via its web interface and basically doesn't have any problems.By the way, only the higher-end brothers say they can scan directly to printers, but many networked printers have a FTP server built in. I'm using a brother HL-L8360CDW printer. If you tell your scanner to use your printer as an FTP destination, anything you send there will get printed out. Amazing!There are a lot of document scanners out there that are fast and handle lots of shapes of paper, but this is the cheapest by far that is really good as a standalone device. And it has the best interface I have ever seen on a document scanner. Very happy.