Review: Plustek PL 806 Scanner
The Plustek PL 806 is an excellent choice for small business users or as a secondary scanner in a larger organisation. Superb scanning speed and quality coupled with essentials such as document feeder, PDF output and one-touch scanning make this a very efficient and useable scanner. The stunning part is the price, at around £170 the PL 806 is an absolute bargain considering the performance on offer. A Revolution in Desktop Scanning Until recently purchasing a scanner left you with a difficult choice, you could either shell out thousands of pounds on a networked scanner-copier from the big players like Minolta or you could settle with the rather dissatisfying compromise of Desktop Scanning. The latter option has until recently never been a realistic solution for business use. Even if you found a desktop scanner with an automatic document feeder the scanning speeds were abysmally slow and invariably the operation of the scanner involved some clumsy form of interaction with a PC. Desktop scanning was seriously lacking the flow and efficiency that networked scanner-copier units provided. The entry of products like the Plustek PL 806 marks a milestone in scanning. Whilst the unit looks similar to its Desktop Scanning predecessors, its performance and usability are something altogether quite revolutionary. High Productivity Scanning We tested the Plustek’s scanning speeds with realistic settings for business use (resolution of 150 dpi [dots per inch] and greyscale output). The unit managed a blisteringly fast 9 pages per minute with these settings. (It is important to note that manufacturers often quote their scanning speeds with the scanner set in black and white mode, where the image quality is substantially less than greyscale). Usability The PL 806 offers more than just fast scan performance, it is also a well thought out device in terms of usability, requiring minimal supervision during use. The unit has 4 programmable buttons which allow for one-touch scanning to any location on your computer, without any PC interaction. This functionality allows you to directly allocate documents to the In-Post, Out-Post and Filing sections of DMSPROTM Document Management Solution. The Plustek also has a robust 50 page ADF (Automatic Document Feed) which will allow you to scan long documents without any interaction with the scanner. Document Output The PL 806 is capable of outputting documents as PDF, Jpeg and Tiff formats. For business use PDF is the de facto standard, largely because documents can easily be viewed in Acrobat Reader. DMSPROTM Document Management Solution is designed to process scanned documents in either PDF or Tiff format and works seamlessly with the PL 806. Web Links DMSPRO Document Management Solution Plustek PL 806 Product Information Page Adobe Acrobat Reader
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