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Visioneer V9450 PDF Scanner

Desktop PDF scanner.

Kelvyn Taylor, PC Magazine 27 Oct 2003

Scanning documents direct to PDF seems to be a rapidly growing use for scanners - last month (PC Magazine, July 2003) we reviewed Fujitsu's tiny SnapScan! duplex scanner and now there's a similar offering from Visioneer. At least that's what we hoped, but in the flesh it's clear that they're two rather different animals.

The 9450 PDF is advertised as an office productivity scanner, a claim reflected by a software bundle that includes a full version of Acrobat 5.0 and ScanSoft's PaperPort 8.0 document management application. TextBridge Pro 9.0 is included for advanced OCR and you also get a copy of ArcSoft's PhotoImpression for basic image editing.

The scanner itself is a fairly standard A4 flatbed unit with a built-in automatic document feeder that connects to the base of the scanner via a captive serial cable. Disappointingly for a fairly high-resolution product (it has an optical resolution of 600 by 1,200spi), the interface is USB 1.1 rather than USB 2.0, which doesn't allow for very fast data transfer. Scanning our standard A4 magazine cover target at 300spi and 24-bit colour took 39.88s, and scanning a mixed batch of 10 colour documents at 24-bit colour and 150spi took 3m 38s, equivalent to 2.7ppm. Claimed scan speed is 8ppm for 200spi black-and-white scans - testing in this mode gave a time of 1m 25s for the same 10 documents, or 7ppm. Unfortunately, we found the unit to be obtrusively noisy during scanning, which isn't good for a product that's intended to live on your desktop.

By using a 180-degree paper path for the ADF and using the lid as the output tray, the 9450's footprint has been kept down, but at 44 by 30.5cm. it's still the size of two A4 sheets. The power switch, interface and power ports are all arranged down one of the scanner's long sides, on the same side as the lid-hinge mechanism.

A flatbed scanner is much more versatile than sheet feed-only models, allowing you to scan books and magazines or even 3D objects. The 25-sheet ADF is very handy, although the tightly curved paper path prevents you using thicker paper or business cards. Paper handling is acceptable and the long paper rest helps keep documents square in the feeder slot. The PaperPort software allows you to drag scanned documents into Acrobat to create PDFs from PaperPort's proprietary image format, although you can also scan direct into Acrobat (or other applications such as Word or Paint) via the ScanDirect utility. You can't initiate scanning direct from the scanner - everything's controlled via the TWAIN or ISIS drivers.

The TWAIN interface is fairly easy to use with plenty of image adjustments available, although confusingly it brings up a preview of the last document you scanned - you need to hit the Preview button to refresh this.

Overall, the package isn't particularly appealing. For a sheet-feed scanner it's slow, and for a flatbed scanner it's expensive considering the specification.

Although Acrobat 5.0 is a high-value product, it's now been superseded by version 6.0 - an upgrade will cost you around £80 (ex. VAT), as Visioneer says it doesn't plan to offer Acrobat 6.0 in the near future. However, the 9450 PDF is one of the least expensive ADF/flatbed scanners on the market, so if your needs demand the flexibility of a flatbed it could be a worthwhile investment. If you're just looking for a way to quickly tidy up piles of documents, you might be disappointed.

Contact: Visioneer Europe (01483) 445480
www.visioneer-europe.com/products/9450.htm

Specifications:

www.pcmag.co.uk/2133491
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