Pros & Cons
-
- Inexpensive.
- Strong value for what you get.
- Compact and lightweight.
- Capable software suite.
- High speed for a manual-feed scanner.
- Solid OCR performance.
-
- Paper feeding is occasionally balky.
- Simplex scanning only.
- No automatic document feeder.
Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 Specs
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Ethernet Interface | |
| Film Scanning | |
| Flatbed | |
| Maximum Optical Resolution | 600 pixels |
| Maximum Scan Area | Legal |
A basic portable document scanner, the Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 ($69.99) has a lot going for it, with a compact, lightweight build, a generous software selection, fine speed, and good OCR performance. Although it lacks some key features found in the Canon imageFormula P-215II Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner ($175.00 at Amazon) , our top pick mobile document scanner, the X3 can be had at a much lower price, making it a winner in its own right.
Design and Features
Compact and highly portable, the all-black X3 ($79.39 at Amazon) measures 1.5 by 11.4 by 2.2 inches (HWD) and weighs just under a pound. It's a manual-feed scanner, limited to simplex (one-sided) scanning, as opposed to the Canon P-215II, which supports duplex (two-sided) scanning and adds an automatic document feeder (ADF). Those features make the Canon heavier (2 pounds, 3 ounces), thicker (3.7 inches) and suitable as a light-duty desktop document scanner, as well.
The RoadWarrior X3 needs no electrical outlet; it draws its power from your computer over an included USB cable, which is also used for data transfer. The Power button, at the front-right corner, is the only button on the scanner. You start a scan by pressing the page into the feed slot, which fits letter- or A4-width paper as well as 5-by-7, 4-by-6, and smaller sizes. The scanner then grips the sheet and pulls it through.
Software
Bundled software includes the Visioneer OneTouch scan utility; Nuance PaperPort Professional 14 for document management; Nuance OmniPage Ultimate for optical character recognition (OCR); Nuance Power PDF Standard, for creating, converting, editing, and sharing PDF files; ABBYY Business Card Reader 2.0; Visioneer Acuity for image enhancement; and Twain and WIA drivers, which let you scan from almost any Windows program that includes a scan command.
The Nuance programs are of particular interest. OmniPage, PaperPort, and Power PDF are among the best of their types. If you were to buy them separately, they'd cost several times the price of the scanner. Mac software is more limited, including just a scan utility and a Twain driver.
Very similar to the Visioneer RoadWarrior 3 ($99.99 at Amazon) , the X3 offers a little bit more for about half the price, including the business card program and a few tweaks to the OneTouch utility, as well as a slot for a Kensington lock.
Visioneer's Scan Utility
The Visioneer OneTouch scan utility is designed for easy scanning to a variety of destinations with a simple one-step command. File formats you can scan to include BMP, DOC, GIF, HTML, JPEG, image PDF, searchable PDF (sPDF), RTF, TIFF, TXT, and XLS.
When the scanner is turned on, the OneTouch icon appears in the system tray at the right-hand edge of the Windows taskbar. Clicking on the icon displays a box showing the current scanning profile. (By default it is set to image PDF at 300dpi with auto color detection, for paper up to legal size, and using Acuity for image enhancement.) Clicking on the box launches a dialog box from which you can change the basic profile (document or photo; black and white, grayscale, or color; single or multiple pages; and so on), and set a destination such as an Office or Nuance program, a printer, or a fax machine. The utility will select an appropriate file type for your selected destination, although you can also change the file type manually.
Speed
Speed is a tough to measure in a manual-feed scanner, as it depends largely on how quickly you can feed the sheets. The X3, at times, was balky in grabbing a sheet when I pressed it to the slot, but it did well in scan times. To scan and save a sheet to 300dpi image PDF took an average of 11 seconds, which was considerably faster than the 22 seconds the RoadWarrior 3 took to scan sheets to image or searchable PDF, and faster than the X3's rated speed of 15 seconds per page. Other file types tended to take a bit longer; it averaged 23 seconds to scan and read text to a Word file.
OCR Testing
In OCR testing using OneTouch to scan to DOC format, the X3 fared quite well, reading both our Times New Roman and Arial test fonts without error down to 8 points, and reasonably well in most of our other nonstandard test fonts.
Conclusion
As a portable, manual-feed scanner, the Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 offers a lot for its low price including speed and good OCR performance. Its software bundle includes capable programs that alone sell for several times the scanner's price. The Canon imageFormula P-215II, with an ADF and support for two-sided scanning, provides more robust scanning and remains our Editors' Choice scanner for light-duty desktop or portable use, but the X3 is an exceptional value, worthy of its own Editors' Choice for budget portable scanners.
Best Scanner Picks
- The Best Photo Scanners for 2020
- The Best Scanners for 2020
- The Best Scanners for Macs
- Top Tips for Preserving Your Photos
- More Scanner Reviews
- More from Visioneer
Further Reading
Final Thoughts
Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 Review
The speedy Visioneer RoadWarrior X3 manual-feed scanner is a great value, offering good OCR performance and a suite of capable programs that, if purchased on their own, would cost several times as much as the scanner itself.