Buying a Production Scanner
Recently I had to buy a scanner for work. I have used a scanner only a few times and my experience has usually been frustrating. And this wasn't your $100 scanner we were looking for, we wanted to buy a production quality scanner.
So, after some research and visiting a few resellers, here is how we arrived at which scanner to buy -
First of all we have to know the important specification of a scanner:
- pages per minute (ppm)
The ppm of a scanner is given at 200 dpi (dots per inches). The ppm will decrease with higher dpi. You should know how many pages you are going to scan every day. I think that unless all you do is scanning, you should be OK with 20 ppm.
- Optical resolution (not digital)
Always look for optical resolution. Digital resolution is Bull. 600 dpi is good. 300 dpi is for losers :)
- Page size it can scan (letter/legal)
Are you always going to scan standard letter size documents (A4)? Most scanners only scan letter size documents. If you want to get really serious and go for legal size (A3), you have to pay more.
- Flatbed or Automatic Documnet Feeder (ADF)
Most scanners come with both, although, I doubt you will much use the flatbed option. That is for scanning pictures, cards, etc.
- Bubdled Software and the software you can use
Perhaps the most important part. From the deomonstration I saw, Kofax capio along with VRS seems the best option. VRS (virtual re-scan) lets you make changes to scanner settings with reference to an already scanned document (you can see the effect of your new setting on the scanned document), and when you re-scan the document, the document is scanned with the changed settings.
So, I will take you through our decision making process with the above parameters and the scanners we evaluated.
PPM: We were not big on PPM. Most scanners are above 15, and that works just fine. Infact, most decent scanners are above or near 20.
DPI: Whether to go for 300 or 600 dpi optical resolution. We saw both, and since we were getting 600 dpi at almost the same price, we went for 600.
Page Size: Legal was a requirement for us and because of this we had to rule out a few scaners. However, we finally decided to go for a heavy duty scanner which could do legal size and another which would only do A4.
Flatbed or automatic feeder: Not much of a problem here. We went for automatic feeder.
We get documents from all over the world, and one of the biggest requirement was that we should be able to change the settings of the scanner easily. For example, we get a lot of water-marked documents and most scanners will have the watermark very prominent. We wanted to be able to change the settings (make it bright), to get rid of the watermark. And some of the scanners we evaluated would not get rid of the watermark even if we changed the setting.
Purchased:
Fujitsu fi 5530C (Price range $2500+)
This scanner is rated as: 35ppm, 100 page ADF/ Duplex VRS/ 11.7" x 17" paper size (max). I was very impressed by this scanner. It is the smallest scanner at this price tag, can handle legal paper size and the scanning quality was tremendous. Of course, I will let you know more when I use it. This scanner does not come with Kofax Capio (almost $300), so you may have buy a license.
Bowe Bell &Howell Sidekick 1200 (Price range $850+)
23ppm/120 page ADF/ Duplex VRS / Capio/ 600 dpi optical/ 8.5" x 14" paper size
Looked good all around. Comes with Capio so you save $300 right away. The biggest drawback is it can only do A4 size paper. We bought this as a backup scanner.
Others Evaluated:
Kodak i150/i160 ($2500+)
Optical 300 dpi/40 ppm/ 11.7" x 17" /
It can handle legal paper size but the optical resolution is 300 dpi. Also, it looks really big.
Fun fact: I wanted to evaluate some HP scanner. However, they did not have any reseller in our city. And they were not willing to help. "Well, it is an HP scanner, you will not have any problem". This is what they told me. Sure, I may not have any problem but will it meet my needs? I wasn't going to put $5000 of our money for something we will eventually return.
Note: You should also look at what after-sale service you get. We got a good deal and this did not affect after decision making process.
So, after some research and visiting a few resellers, here is how we arrived at which scanner to buy -
First of all we have to know the important specification of a scanner:
- pages per minute (ppm)
The ppm of a scanner is given at 200 dpi (dots per inches). The ppm will decrease with higher dpi. You should know how many pages you are going to scan every day. I think that unless all you do is scanning, you should be OK with 20 ppm.
- Optical resolution (not digital)
Always look for optical resolution. Digital resolution is Bull. 600 dpi is good. 300 dpi is for losers :)
- Page size it can scan (letter/legal)
Are you always going to scan standard letter size documents (A4)? Most scanners only scan letter size documents. If you want to get really serious and go for legal size (A3), you have to pay more.
- Flatbed or Automatic Documnet Feeder (ADF)
Most scanners come with both, although, I doubt you will much use the flatbed option. That is for scanning pictures, cards, etc.
- Bubdled Software and the software you can use
Perhaps the most important part. From the deomonstration I saw, Kofax capio along with VRS seems the best option. VRS (virtual re-scan) lets you make changes to scanner settings with reference to an already scanned document (you can see the effect of your new setting on the scanned document), and when you re-scan the document, the document is scanned with the changed settings.
So, I will take you through our decision making process with the above parameters and the scanners we evaluated.
PPM: We were not big on PPM. Most scanners are above 15, and that works just fine. Infact, most decent scanners are above or near 20.
DPI: Whether to go for 300 or 600 dpi optical resolution. We saw both, and since we were getting 600 dpi at almost the same price, we went for 600.
Page Size: Legal was a requirement for us and because of this we had to rule out a few scaners. However, we finally decided to go for a heavy duty scanner which could do legal size and another which would only do A4.
Flatbed or automatic feeder: Not much of a problem here. We went for automatic feeder.
We get documents from all over the world, and one of the biggest requirement was that we should be able to change the settings of the scanner easily. For example, we get a lot of water-marked documents and most scanners will have the watermark very prominent. We wanted to be able to change the settings (make it bright), to get rid of the watermark. And some of the scanners we evaluated would not get rid of the watermark even if we changed the setting.
Purchased:
Fujitsu fi 5530C (Price range $2500+)
This scanner is rated as: 35ppm, 100 page ADF/ Duplex VRS/ 11.7" x 17" paper size (max). I was very impressed by this scanner. It is the smallest scanner at this price tag, can handle legal paper size and the scanning quality was tremendous. Of course, I will let you know more when I use it. This scanner does not come with Kofax Capio (almost $300), so you may have buy a license.
Bowe Bell &Howell Sidekick 1200 (Price range $850+)
23ppm/120 page ADF/ Duplex VRS / Capio/ 600 dpi optical/ 8.5" x 14" paper size
Looked good all around. Comes with Capio so you save $300 right away. The biggest drawback is it can only do A4 size paper. We bought this as a backup scanner.
Others Evaluated:
Kodak i150/i160 ($2500+)
Optical 300 dpi/40 ppm/ 11.7" x 17" /
It can handle legal paper size but the optical resolution is 300 dpi. Also, it looks really big.
Fun fact: I wanted to evaluate some HP scanner. However, they did not have any reseller in our city. And they were not willing to help. "Well, it is an HP scanner, you will not have any problem". This is what they told me. Sure, I may not have any problem but will it meet my needs? I wasn't going to put $5000 of our money for something we will eventually return.
Note: You should also look at what after-sale service you get. We got a good deal and this did not affect after decision making process.
posted by asterix at 12:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home