A version with a camera would be nice, if it could recognize the packaging and you didn't have to aim at the barcode. A cheap android phone might be a good platform for this (camera, CPU, WLAN, battery all already integrated)
The rub is you need a fairly accurate camera, and while it would probably be ok in iOS, the experience in android would vary depending on your hardware.
The dedicated laser scanner is cheap, accurate and reasonably compact (only the head is important, the rest of the handle is cabling and empty space), which is why I'd like to try combining it into a small handheld device, ultimately.
I don't know, maybe that's overkill and just pointing the barcode at a dedicated reader is actually the better experience.