Review

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 17 No 03 - May/June 2009

Built around Kodak's highly successful i1220 scanner, the new addition to the Scan Station range, the 500 series, takes the Scan Station concept - user-friendly network scanning - to the next level.

Its nearest direct competitor is probably HP's Digital Sender, and the Kodak device compares extremely well with the longer established HP product: the Scan Station 500 is around three times faster, and significantly smaller in terms of desktop space, than the Digital Sender. Perhaps more importantly, the Kodak offering is also much cheaper.

It is important to emphasise that this is not just another document scanner. With the Scan Station users can send a scanned image directly to network shared locations, email, fax, FTP and network attached printers in a way that is genuinely extremely user-friendly and intuitive. A large LCD touchscreen offers 'one touch' scanning using simple icons, and access can be managed within the Windows LDAP login process, making it secure as well as straightforward. A robust 75 page document feeder passes pages into the duplex scanner at a rated speed of 30 pages per minute (60 images per minute) at 200 dpi, and the Scan Station 500 can handle up to 1,500 pages a day in comfort. If required, a flatbed can be easily attached as well, in order to offer 1200 dpi scanning; something else that competing devices are rarely - if ever - able to offer. The 520 variant even allows ISVs to embed their own application software.

An unusual and appealing addition in the user-friendliness stakes is the ability - new in our reviewers' experience - to add voice annotations to scans before sending to their destination, with a built-in microphone and speaker. While at first this might seem a rather pointless gimmick, in practice it offers a very sensible alternative to email notes or other ways that a user might otherwise rely on to explain background or give additional instructions. With a voice attachment there is very little chance of a recipient misconstruing the meaning - a problem we have all experienced with email! The Scan Station 500 offers all the intelligent image processing you'd expect of a top-end Kodak scanner: border removal, deskew, blank page removal, auto orientation and the full iThreshold functionality. This gives another advantage over competing approaches including standard office MFPs: the user can see exactly what they are sending before it goes, reducing the likelihood of having to re-scan and re-send poor quality images. This reduces delays in workflow and of course improves service.

Ultimately, Kodak's proposition for the Scan Station 500 is a simple one, as can be seen in their marketing blurb: "Getting documents into the workflow fast is essential. Helping your business do more with those documents is even more important. That's why we built the Kodak Scan Station 500. It's a document scanning device loaded with smart features that make it easy to integrate, scan, and share." It's rare to find a marketing campaign that accurately sums up the actual business benefits of a new product, but in this case we believe Kodak have got it just right. More info: www.kodak.com/go/docimaging

VERDICT: The Scan Station 500 presents a real opportunity for Kodak to attack a market currently dominated by HP, and this device appears to have the functionality and ease of use to secure them a significant piece of that lucrative market.

Review