Doxie makes handheld scanners, which seemed the perfect replacement for my flatbed scanner that is currently without working drivers for any modern OS.

I opted for the DoxieOne even though my scanning is primarily for Linux and there it wasn’t going to use all the integration and software the device comes with.

Doxie’s failure to integrate with Linux is a bit baffling but the basic behaviour is absolutely acceptable. It connects as a standard storage device by USB and you can just use all your usual tools against the device’s drive.

The scans produced are good quality and unlike a flatbed it will scan any length of document as long as it is roughly A4 or less in width. Of course you can’t use it to scan books (although there is a mini-flatbed version) if that matters to you.

The only real difficulty in using the Doxie is that an slight misalignment when you first engage the roller can get very pronounced by the end of the scan and the result is a picture at an angle that is hard to fix up in an image editor. If I realise that something is feeding incorrectly I tend to rescan as it is easier.

I was looking for a portable scanner that is easy to store and interact with and the Doxie meets the bill in an elegant way.