For awhile, the hand-held scanner looked like a good deal for the casual scan fan because it was much cheaper than a flatbed model. These scanners are portable, so you can carry them to different work locations. And when you’re not working on a project that involves scanning, you can tuck the thing away in a drawer.
But using a hand-held scanner isn’t always a pleasant process. You need to roll the scanner (which looks like a plastic letter T in 900-point Futura Extra Bold) very straight and very slowly across the document you’re scanning. If you move or shake the scanner, your image may come out with slightly wavy lines (like a monitor that’s out of adjustment). If that happens, you have to repeat the scan. Because the hand-held scanning device is usually just a few inches wide, you have to scan a large image in two or more passes. Moreover, flatbed scanners have dropped in cost so much that handhelds aren’t even a significant bargain.
