Back in May of this year, I took a look at the ScanSnap S300, a portable scanner that creates PDF files from scanned hardcopy documents. If you need something with a bit more range, you may want to look at the Kodak ScanMate i1120 scanner, which retails for $370 to $400.
The scanner is nicely compact (at 5.8 x 11.8 x 6.2 in. and 5.9 lbs, it's not quite as portable as the ScanSnap) and easy to set up. Its onboard interface is extremely simple, especially for a business device. There are only two buttons on the device itself: the first lets you select one of nine pre-programmed scan configurations (an LED clicks up one numeral every time you hit the button, and then cycles back to 0), while the other starts the scan.
This is what Kodak calls its "Smart touch" feature, and it works pretty well. You can either use the pre-set settings that come with the scanner, or tweak them to suit your own needs. For example, you can set
configuration 2 to copy both sides of a document as a color file and save it as a PDF, and set configuration 3 to save it in black-and-white and send it to a printer. The only flaw in this setup is that it's not that easy to remember which number applies to which configuration -- so I found myself going back to the software each time I wanted to scan so that I could tell which was the current configuration.
At a resolution of 600 dpi, the ScanMate i1120 is not something you want to use for your quality photos, but it does a good job on text and day-to-day images. For a duplex scanner, it's also reasonably fast -- Kodak lists it at a speed of 20 ppm for a 200 dpi document, although for some reason, the scanner tended to pause in the middle of some of my scans for several seconds, which slowed things down a bit.
The ScanMate comes with some good software, including ScanSoft PaperPort 11 (which handles image management and editing, among other tasks) and ScanSoft OmniPage 15 OCR. Both are respected and useful applications.
As an occasional trade-show attendee, I especially liked NewSoft's Presto! BizCard 5, the most recent version of the business card scanning software (which sells separately for $69 as a download, $79 as a package). Unlike CardMinder, which came with the ScanSnap scanner, BizCard was able to convert the contents of a variety of business cards to useable text efficiently and with nary a mistake.
Like many business card apps, BizCard offers some basic contact management features, although most users will probably want to synchronize the data with other, more useful apps -- BizCard will sync with Lotus Notes, Symantec Act!, and Microsoft Outlook, along with a number of rather out-of-date PDAs. However, considering how well it handles the difficulties of business-card OCR, I'd say Presto! BizCard is a solid add-on.
The scanner is nicely compact (at 5.8 x 11.8 x 6.2 in. and 5.9 lbs, it's not quite as portable as the ScanSnap) and easy to set up. Its onboard interface is extremely simple, especially for a business device. There are only two buttons on the device itself: the first lets you select one of nine pre-programmed scan configurations (an LED clicks up one numeral every time you hit the button, and then cycles back to 0), while the other starts the scan.
This is what Kodak calls its "Smart touch" feature, and it works pretty well. You can either use the pre-set settings that come with the scanner, or tweak them to suit your own needs. For example, you can set
configuration 2 to copy both sides of a document as a color file and save it as a PDF, and set configuration 3 to save it in black-and-white and send it to a printer. The only flaw in this setup is that it's not that easy to remember which number applies to which configuration -- so I found myself going back to the software each time I wanted to scan so that I could tell which was the current configuration.
At a resolution of 600 dpi, the ScanMate i1120 is not something you want to use for your quality photos, but it does a good job on text and day-to-day images. For a duplex scanner, it's also reasonably fast -- Kodak lists it at a speed of 20 ppm for a 200 dpi document, although for some reason, the scanner tended to pause in the middle of some of my scans for several seconds, which slowed things down a bit.
The ScanMate comes with some good software, including ScanSoft PaperPort 11 (which handles image management and editing, among other tasks) and ScanSoft OmniPage 15 OCR. Both are respected and useful applications.
As an occasional trade-show attendee, I especially liked NewSoft's Presto! BizCard 5, the most recent version of the business card scanning software (which sells separately for $69 as a download, $79 as a package). Unlike CardMinder, which came with the ScanSnap scanner, BizCard was able to convert the contents of a variety of business cards to useable text efficiently and with nary a mistake.
Like many business card apps, BizCard offers some basic contact management features, although most users will probably want to synchronize the data with other, more useful apps -- BizCard will sync with Lotus Notes, Symantec Act!, and Microsoft Outlook, along with a number of rather out-of-date PDAs. However, considering how well it handles the difficulties of business-card OCR, I'd say Presto! BizCard is a solid add-on.
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