You can also get "smartphones" (Android handhelds) with a true laser scanning barcode reader. We have them at work. Like Zebra devices.

They sure beat camera based ones yes (although they technically also use a camera but it's really optimised for the purpose)

Most of the couriers that come to my door also use these or similar, not standard smartphones.

The barcode scanning in the Libib app (an app to keep track of books) seems quite fast, it is quite addictive to just zap the barcodes and see the book data added to the catalog.

It seems comparable to the laser based scanners used at library checkouts for example.

The magic is just software. There are extremely fast barcode scanning libraries available, e.g. Scandit.