Flip-Pal mobile scanner

The Flip-Pal mobile scanner is different from any other portable scanner I've ever tested, and I mean that in a good way. Every other battery-powered scanner with PC-free scanning I've seen, even the ones that claim to be photo scanners, are sheet fed, which means you risk harming your photos, and delicate originals in general, when you feed them through the scanner. The Flip-Pal mobile scanner is a flatbed, which eliminates the risk. Along with the reasonably good scan quality and some other pluses, that's enough to make it Editors' Choice.

The Flip-Pal also shares an important advantage with the Visioneer Mobility and the nearly identical Xerox Mobile Scanner, both Editors' Choices for a sheet-fed portable document scanner. Most PC-free scanners scan to memory, without giving you any way to see the scan until later, when you move the file to your PC. The Flip-Pal and the Xerox and Visioneer models are unusual, however, in giving you a way to see your scans on the spot, while you can still rescan if you have to.

The Flip-Pal offers a built-in 1.7-inch color LCD to show the scans. You can't zoom in on the image the way you can with most cameras to check scan quality in detail, but the LCD is big enough to show any major quality issues. The scanner also supportsbut doesn't come withan Eye-Fi card, which you can use to send your scans to an Android or iOS device for a better look.

The Basics
There's literally nothing to set up with the Flip-Pal. It runs on four AA batteries, which come already installed. All you have to do is pull out the plastic piece that keeps the batteries from making electrical contact. There's also software on the 2GB SD card the scanner comes with, but you run it from the card, so there's no software to install either.

The Flip-Pal is about the size of a slim hardcover book, at 1.3 by 10.3 by 6.5 inches (HWD). The flatbed measures 4 by 6 inches and is covered with a slightly larger lid. The LCD and menu control buttons are to the right of the lid, with the Power button, Scan button, and SD card slot lined up along the scanner's right side. Putting the Scan button on the side may seem like a mistake at first glance, because you have to hold the scanner in place when you push the button. However there's a good reason for putting it there.

The flatbed lid is designed to come off, and the bottom of the scanner includes a window that's lined up with and the same size as the flatbed. The two features together let you scan originals that won't fit under the lid, like photos mounted in an album. Simply snap off the lid, flip the scanner over, and put the flatbed on top of the original. Then adjust the position by looking through the window, and hit the Scan button. Because the button is on the side, it's just as easy to get at whether the scanner is upside down or right side up.

The same trick lets you scan originals that are larger than 4 by 6. Take a set of overlapping scans, looking through the window to make sure you're positioning the scanner correctly for each one, and then use the stitching software on the SD card to stitch them together later on your computer.

Scanning
Scanning with Flip-Pal is supremely straightforward. The only scan option is resolution, with choices of 300 or 600 pixels per inch (ppi), although the 300 ppi setting is generally high enough for photos. You can also set how long the scanner waits for activity before it turns itself off, with settings of 1, 2, and 10 minutes. Beyond that, most of the menu choices simply give you help information, like how to scan large originals.

To scan, you position the original in the flatbed, or the scanner on the photo, and hit the Scan button. As the scan proceeds, the image shows up on the LCD, so when the scanner is right-side up, you can see the scan in progress as well as the final result. You can also use the menu buttons to scroll through scans already on the card.

Timing the scans is a little tricky, since it's hard to pinpoint when the scan finishes, but I timed the scans at roughly 8 to 9 seconds at 300 ppi and 16 to 17 seconds at 600 ppi. In both cases there's an additional 7 or 8 seconds needed for the scan element to return to its starting position, but you can start setting up for the next scan while that's happening.

Scan Results

When you're finished scanning, you can plug the memory card into you computer if you have an SD card slot, or you can plug the card into the supplied adaptor and then plug the adaptor into a USB A port on your computer. Either way, you can then run the Flip-Pal software from the card or simply treat the card as USB memory and copy the scan files, which are in JPG format, to your computer.

If you want to do anything more with your photos than print, email, or archive them, you'll need to get software elsewhere, since the SD card doesn't offer anything that rises to the level of being a photo editor. However, it's worth knowing that in addition to buying the scanner by itself, as tested, you can also get it with software. Both the Flip-Pal mobile scanner with Digital Creativity Suite 3.0 DVD ($209.99 direct) and the Flip-Pal mobile scanner with CraftEdition 2.1 DVD ($199.99 direct), include the identical scanner covered here plus an assortment of programs, including photo editors, with different software in each bundle.

What comes with the Flip-Pal scanner as tested is the stitching tool I already mentioned and a tool for restoring color to faded images. Anyone with an old, faded photo will appreciate the color restore feature, which did a good job in my tests of rejuvenating the color. The stitching tool also worked well. I scanned a 5 by 7 photo, for example, in two overlapping scans, with the stitching tool taking just 19 seconds to join them into one image. With a letter-size original, I needed 9 scans, with the stitching taking 1 minute 23 seconds.

Image quality was easily good enough for casual photographers. Colors in most photos were a little darker than the originals and, in some cases, more saturated. However, the scans were well within an acceptable range for what you can think of as snapshot quality or a little better. Serious photographers who want the best possible scans won't be satisfied with the results, but most people will find them more than good enough, even for printing out additional copies suitable for framing.

The one improvement I'd love to see in this scanner is a larger LCD, or at least the ability to zoom in on the image. I'd also like the scanner better if it came with more programs, but that's not really an issue, given the two other versions that add more software at only a moderately higher price. More important, if you don't need the programs, you can save money by getting the version as tested, which actually turns the lack of software into a plus. Along with the flatbed, for scanning without risking harm to the originals, plus the flip-over design, that makes the Flip-Pal mobile scanner a shoo-in for Editors' Choice.