Wifi Portable Scanner 900DPI A4 PDF/JPEG, W4S MiNi

I have owned scanners for 14 years now and consider them absolutely essential. My current one is a multi-purpose printer, copier, scanner combo, so when I was offered this portable, wand-style scanner to test and review, my first thought was: who would need one of these? A couple of weeks after taking this small MSI scanner out of the box, I think almost anyone could use one. It comes with an 8GB memory card, USB cable, instructions in English, a software CD, cleaning cloth and a very useful protective sleeve with drawstrings (with a bit of a chemical smell so that a little airing was needed).The obvious applications are to copy business and legal documents, pages out of books, receipts and invoices while on the go, however, once you have one of these in your bag or briefcase, your imagination will be stimulated. I was shopping the other day and by pure chance saw a remnant of some beautiful fabric for sale. I scanned the fabric, emailed the photo to my home computer and my husband confirmed that it looked great next to the sofa. I bought the fabric on the spot before someone else did. I have used this scanner to copy recipes and photos when visiting an elderly relative who does not have a computer and, of course, it's great if you are doing research at the library and don't want to queue up for the photocopier.I find it most useful to scan directly to the memory card using 3 AA rechargeable batteries (not included) and later downloading to my computer via the USB cable. Scanning is really easy and intuitive, going slow and letting the little rollers glide over whatever (flat) object you wish to copy. Getting started took a little time. The instructions are difficult to read and not entirely clear. Formatting the card requires something like a ballpoint pen and I had to push really hard to activate the button. I then used the same system (and strong approach) to set the date and time on the right before closing the top of the scanner. The software does not work with Windows 8 (as I found out) but is compatible with Vista and Win 7. Even without software, my laptop was able to download the files from the memory card by way of the USB cable or wirelessly. All in all, this is a sturdy, very portable scanner which produces great scans in JPG and PDF format, B&W or colour. I was surprised at the quality of the images.