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magazine
30
Enhanced mobility
Kodak is addressing the portable
scanner market with the newly
launched Kodak ScanMate i940. Based
on the same chassis as the Kodak i920
personal scanner, it features enhanced
mobility through the addition a USB-
powered mode that allows it to be
powered from a notebook computer.
Unlike some portable scanners,
the i940 is also supplied with a mains
adaptor as standard – with the Canon
P-215, for example, this must be bought
separately – and a 3-year warranty
offering next business day advance unit
replacement and hotline support.
Another notable enhancement is
new connectivity to Evernote, Box.net,
Go-Docs and Microsoft Sharepoint Server
that makes it easy for users to upload
scanned documents to the cloud for
storage and sharing with colleagues.
On the downside, users must still load
drivers from a CD before operation.
Kodak expects the i940 to appeal to
mobile workers, hot deskers, people who
occasionally work from home and even
commuters on long train journeys, as
well as office-based staff who value the
flexibility that it offers.
“The portable segment is showing
quite a degree of growth. Even if people
are not always using a scanner in
portable mode, it’s having the flexibility
to offer it that’s important: you can put
the i940 in your backpack and take it
with you. This makes it more usable and
gives users more opportunities to use the
scanner than if it was just tied to their
desk,” explained BuddWebster, Kodak’s
Worldwide Business and Category
Director for Document Imaging.
Plustek’s mobile office
Plustek Technology Inc. has
expanded its range of
document scanners with
the MobileOffice S410.
The USB-powered scanner
converts paper documents, rigid
embossed cards, expense reports,
business cards and more to searchable
PDFs at the touch of a button.
It can scan documents and photographs to cloud-based
applications such as Evernote and Google Picasa at the
touch of a button and comes with document management
and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Single-touch scanning and industry standard TWAIN
drivers ensure compatibility with thousands of scanning
and imaging programs including document management,
healthcare ERM, financial and other image-enabled
applications.
On the downside, the S410 scans just one side of a
page at a time and has a top scan speed of 6ppm.
It costs £166 (inc. VAT).
http://plustek.com/uk/
Launched in January, the Xerox Mobile
Scanner offers something a little different,
being the first completely cordless device.
Instead of requiring a USB connection to
a computer, the battery-powered scanner
uses WiFi to send JPG and PDF scans to a
computer, iPhone, iPad or Android device.
A free smartphone/tablet app brings new
levels of convenience by giving
users the option
to scan to a handheld device rather than
a bulky notebook. Alternatively, scans
can be saved to a USB stick. In other
respects, the Xerox Mobile Scanner with
built-in 4GB Eye-Fi SD has fairly limited
functionality, with a 6ppm scan speed,
simplex scanning, 300dpi resolution and a
choice of scanning to JPEG (for photos) or
to mono or colour PDF (for documents).
That said, this is all that many will need
and an acceptable trade-off for cordless
convenience. The Xerox Mobile
Scanner costs £213.
www.xeroxscanners.com/en/uk/
WhereToBuy.asp.
Stik thin
Planon describes its ScanStik as the world’s
smallest full page colour scanner. Even so, the
battery-powered device can still scan a full
page in 4 seconds and store thousands of
images at resolutions from 150 to 600dpi via
the integrated MicroSD memory slot. Scans
can be transferred to a PC through a USB
cable where they can be organised and
edited using bundled ABBYY FineReader
SE and PaperPort software. Connecting
the scanner to a PC will also charge
the ScanStik’s rechargeable lithium
polymer battery.
www.planon.com.
In other respects, the i940 offers all
the functionality and quality you would
expect from a Kodak desktop scanner,
including TWAIN and ISIS drivers for
easy setup and integration with existing
systems and software programs; Perfect
Page Image Processing technology
for optimising scan quality; and the
one-button Smart Touch application
launcher that allows users to scan
directly to searchable PDF, email, the
cloud, networked folders, other software
applications and to a printer for copying.
The i940 has scan speeds of up to
20 ppm in colour, grayscale or B&W
(or 40ipm when scanning double-sided
documents) and scan resolutions of up
to 600 dpi. A high-capacity automatic
document feeder can handle media
between DIN-A4 and business cards (the
i940 comes with Presto Business card
management software). There is also a
hard card feeder.
Later in the year, Kodak is launching
the i940M, the first Kodak scanner to
offer Mac OS compatibility. The Kodak
ScanMate i940 costs 420 euros.
kodak.com/go/docimaging
Scanners
Mobile scanner round-up
Brother expands scanner offering
Brother has just brought out a new range of scanners,
which includes two mobile scanners (the DS-600 and
the DS-700D) and an A3 desktop model (the ADS-2100).
Brother’s USB-powered, colour scanners are lighter than
the Canon model (600gm vs.1kg), arguably making them
more suitable for dedicated mobile working solutions, but
are slower (3ppm colour and 10ppm mono or 5ppm mono
on the DS-600) and can scan only one sheet at a time.
As well as providing a useful mobile scanning capability
for individual office workers, the inclusion of TWAIN and
ISIS drivers means Brother’s machines are also likely to be
of interest to developers of fully integrated mobile working
solutions for field-based staff.
Brother’s document management scanner, the ADS-
2100, scans mixed batches of documents up to A3 on both
sides at speeds of 24ppm/48ipm in colour, black & white
or greyscale. Compatible withWindows, Mac and Linux
computers, the scanner has TWAIN and ISIS drivers for
integration with document management systems and the
ability to scan directly to a USB stick or Microsoft Office.
www.brother.co.uk/scanners
Wireless in every way