The meteoric rise of mobile phones is fascinating, but it also normalized having an app for everything. Sure, super apps are there, but they never get as much attention as they deserve anywhere else, except maybe China.
Although there may not be enough super apps as there should be, some apps don’t hesitate to borrow features from dedicated apps. It makes sense when the borrowed feature feels like a natural fit.
I have many such apps on my Samsung Galaxy phone, and I recently discovered one more: the Samsung Camera app, which is preinstalled on every Galaxy handset.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I used the Samsung Galaxy app only for taking photos. But it all changed when my partner asked me to send some chapters of a new spy thriller book I recently bought.
I almost downloaded another app for this, but then I found what we can consider a natural fit in the Samsung Camera app: the ability to scan pages.
Samsung Camera’s scanner is good enough for me
It’s one less app I need on my phone
After she asked for those, my immediate thought was to use the Camera app to capture and then send those photos.
I opened the app, but instead of capturing a photo of the pages of the first couple of chapters, I used the tiny scan button.
How come I found it this late, you ask? Well, that’s because I never took photos of text documents using the camera app on my Samsung phone.
The scan button shows up on the camera interface only when you try to take a photo of written or printed text. It’ll automatically disappear if the camera focuses on something else.
However, you need to enable the Scan documents and text toggle from the Camera settings for this to work. In addition, I’d also recommend turning on the Auto scan feature.
After these two are enabled, you don’t need to tap the shutter button to bring printed text onto your phone. Your Galaxy will automatically capture documents and text.
When it comes to capturing documents, I prefer scanning them rather than taking photos. Scanning focuses on the document and removes distracting background, making your documents more professional-looking.
Not only that, but it also gives you the option to add the text to Samsung Notes. Tap the Add to note button, and it’ll take you directly to the Samsung Notes app, where you can make more changes to the text.
It’s also worth noting that when you add the text to Samsung Notes, it automatically saves it as a note. In addition, you can save as a PDF after scanning documents using the Samsung Camera app.
So, why would I clutter my home screen by installing another app on my Samsung Galaxy phone when I can do so many things with the scan button?
The answer depends on how much scanning you do.
The Samsung Camera app can’t replace a dedicated scanner app for everyone
I’m glad that it doesn’t even try to do it
A dedicated document scanner offers plenty of features. The one that the Samsung Camera app has is less capable than the dedicated apps.
However, this isn’t remotely surprising. But I’m glad Samsung has kept it simple in its Camera app and never tried to match what a dedicated scanner app can do.
The Samsung Camera app saves these scans as individual image files in your Gallery, so if you want to compile multiple scanned pages into a single file, you need to look elsewhere.
If Samsung Notes is installed on your Galaxy handset, you can club them into one file, but the results are nowhere close to what you’d get with a dedicated document scanner app.
For example, a dedicated scanner app has features like direct export to Microsoft Word and putting your signature on the document. Some of the document scanners also come with AI features that can summarize your documents.
You won’t get all these features on the Samsung Camera, and missing functionalities don’t make the app any inferior. If anything, it allows Samsung to position its Camera app as software that performs light scanning tasks in addition to taking photos.
Advanced scanning features will make the Camera app feel unnecessarily heavy. That’s not what I want.
I want the Camera app to take stunning photos, while also being good at scanning a few pages when I need it. That’s what the Samsung Camera app does.
I don’t need a dedicated scanner app on my Galaxy phone
I remember using Microsoft Lens to scan plenty of documents using my Android phone when I was in college.
This is almost a decade ago, and I don’t remember the last time I wanted to scan something using my phone until my partner wanted me to.
There is no better indication than this to suggest that my scanning workload is light.
Now that I have found the scanner button in the Camera app, I don’t need to spend time finding and installing the best scanner app.
