Doxie Flip - Cordless Flatbed Photo & Notebook Scanner w/Removable Lid (DX70)

I really love this little scanner. You just can't beat it for scanning years and years of family photos. The thing I like best about it, is that I can sit anywhere and mindlessly scan hundreds of photos while sitting in the backyard or while watching TV. It used to be a tedious, time consuming task when I tackled it at my desk, using the flatbed scanner on my printer. I could only bear to do it for about 30 minutes at a time. But once I got this Doxie, I have finally made some real headway in getting my pictures archived.I scan each photo in a matter of seconds, mark the back with a red sharpie (to indicate that it has been scanned) and then either put it right into a photo album, or into the back of the photo box. I love the fact that, once I have a digital copy, I now feel free to cut the original photo into any size I need for my Project Life or Pocket Page Photo Album.Yes, I have a full size flatbed scanner on my Epson all-in-one printer and I use it for larger photos. I also have a NeatDesk document scanner, which is great for receipts and documents, but not good for photos. But I have 30 years worth of 4x6" family photos and scanning them on the printer requires warming the thing up, pre-scanning, choosing a field to be scanned, designating Where to save/name it, and then waiting while the scanner slooowwly does its thing. I've tried to streamline the process by scanning multiple photos in one large scan, but it makes finding and using a photo, a real pain in the butt. Because you then have an additional step: to open Photoshop and slice the collaged scan into single photos. This is not an acceptable solution for me. Way too time consuming.The Doxie is so simple, and just so much faster. In order to keep the quality high, I always scan at 600dpi, so that I retain a good result even after making changes. I originally scanned at 300 dpi, but didn't find the images sharp enough for my needs. A few extra seconds in the scanning time was just no big deal, considering the payoff in photo quality.Before using the Doxie, I thought the price was a bit high for what it does. But after using it for a month, I adore this thing! It would be a wonderful gift for anyone intimidated by technology; especially for grandparents who hold a treasure chest of family history but couldn't scan a photo if their life depended on it. Family members used to send over boxes of old photos for me to scan for them. With the Doxie, you can give them the power to easily scan the photos themselves and hand over a just one tiny SD card for you to deal with. I love it.It's perfect if you volunteer to make the memory board or video for a memorial service. A huge task, especially when you realize that no one in the family knows how to scan and email a photo! Next time I have to do this, I will either buy the family a Doxie to share, or lend them mine. All they need to know is how to push the green button.

My guess is that many of you have a scanner, and probably can’t figure out how to use it. My experience has always been that scanner software is nearly impossible to setup / configure / use and keep working. For the past many years I’ve had an expensive Fujitsu scanner for being nearly 100% paperless. This thing gobbles up mail, statement and papers and turns them into PDFs (I’ll save this for another post).However, what about all those 4×6 photos you have? Receipts? Or really large items that can’t be easily scanned? Enter Doxie. The scanner with nothing to install, no computer to plug it into, the scanner that’s easy to use and cheap. There are multiple Doxie models:Doxie Flip - flatbedDoxie One - sheet fet, basic modelDoxie Go - sheet fed, rechargeable battery, 2x the optical resolution, and built-in memoryThis post is about the FlipWhat is it?The Doxie Flip [$149 via Amazon] is a tiny flatbed scanner that doesn’t need a computer. It scans photos, receipts and large items (via a clever removable lid and software that stitches photos) and stores them on an SD card that you can later pop into your computer and download (like a camera). You can also, optionally, add an Ey-Fi card and just have the items wireless upload to your cloud of choice (or PC).Why did you get it?Every few months we get some analog photos that need scanning and recycling (we are all digital). And every few months our daughter brings home some largish piece of artwork or poster that won’t fit in our scanner. So I use Doxie to get them into the PC and archived.I pretty much just scan anything I might feel guilty about throwing away, and then I throw it away.We also have a few hundred old photos that my parents gave me (smaller than 4×6) and so over the past year I have been scanning batches of these photos. You really need a flatbed scanner to do this as any scanner that feeds in photos will get scanned in with lines on it due to the glossy paper + dust creating bands / lines on the photos. Flatbed scanners can be a bit of a nightmare when tethered to a PC so this turns out to be a great way to get all those family memories scanned and archived.So I did some research looking looking for something that was easy to use, didn’t require a PC, and was portable (this thing runs off AA batteries).How has it made your life better?It’s a lot easier to get stuff on the PC and share it. It makes getting those hundreds of analog memories we have easy to get on our PC and archived forever.What I will do sometimes is plop down in front of the TV and scan a few dozen photos in batch, then import them to the PC and recycle the photos.I just keep this little scanner in our kitchen and anyone can just grab it and scan a photo. My Eye-fi card delivers it to my PC where it’s stored on a local RAID hard drive and then backed up by Crashplan to the cloud.