ID Tech EconoScan - $74I purchased this several weeks ago. This is the first barcode scanner I have ever purchased or used. It has a keyboard "wedge" which means that computer essential sees it as another USB keyboard, what it scans are sent as keystrokes and whatever application currently has focus receives the data. Installation and configuration were easy but the scanner has to be aimed just right to get a scan.
Symbol LS2208 - $134Just arrived today in my office. This seems to be the low budget model. The spec listed tolerances for roll, pitch and skew; so it gives me hope this will be better at scanning than the EconoScan; which did not even list these attributes in its spec. Which makes me think the EconoScan was not built for tolerance for these things. I bought this one with an RS232 cable, as I think this will be final solution. The keyboard "wedge" solution requires that the target software application remain in focus to work properly. The installation I'm looking at will not support this.
Unitech MS120 - $85The wand format is the orginal barcode technology and one I remember my library having when I was a kid. The format might not be exactly what I'm looking at but the low cost made it necessary that I look to see how it works. The orginal wands would just output the light levels it saw and your software would have to decode the barcode as it was swipped. This model has a built in decoder so I should be able to get regular ASCII data out of it. I'm not looking to write a barcode decoding software.
Symbol CS1504 - $110This is the one I am most interested it. It has been built to be given to end consumers so they can scan barcodes in promotional and marketing materials. It was built to be operated from a keychain and stores the scans in memory. Afterwards it is docked and the scans downloaded. It can also be run in a tethered mode. I'm particularly interested in this because of it's portable nature and the likelyhood that it is very good at scanning codes. This might work very well in the office environment.

