Buyers Laboratory LLC, the world’s leading independent tester of document imaging products, announced its prestigious Winter 2012 “Pick” awards in the scanner category today, with honors going to one Kodak product and four Canon products. The “Pick” awards acknowledge the products that gave the best performances in BLI’s extensive suite of laboratory tests.

The Winter 2012 scanner “Pick” winners are:

EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
KODAK i5800 
“Outstanding 130-ppm+ A3 Production Scanner”

CANON U.S.A., INC.
Canon imageFORMULA DR-M160
“Outstanding 50- to 70-ppm A4 Departmental Scanner”

Canon imageFORMULA DR-M140
“Outstanding 30- to 49-ppm A4 Departmental Scanner”

Canon imageFORMULA DR-C125
“Outstanding 20- to 30-ppm Workgroup Scanner”

Canon imageFORMULA P-215
“Outstanding Mobile Scanner”

Unsurpassed Usability
The 210-ppm KODAK i5800 high-volume production scanner surpassed BLI’s expectations in more ways than one. In addition to its excellent productivity, the i5800 has a variety of features meant to ease the scanning experience, including an adjustable base, a tiltable control panel and the ability to remove misfeeds with the touch of a button. A virtually unlimited number of customizable scan profiles can be created for frequently used operations. Users can also program custom alert sounds for different error conditions and set scan, maintenance and user counters. Plus, its advanced media handling capabilities allow the ADF to handle rice paper, checks, carbonless forms and even documents up to 180". But these features mentioned are just a few of the reasons BLI selected the i5800 for a Winter 2012 “Pick” for “Outstanding 130-ppm+ A3 Production Scanner.”

“The KODAK i5800 is designed with the user in mind,” said Lisa Reider, BLI’s senior product editor for scanners. “Too short to reach the ADF? Lower the scanner height and tilt the control panel. Sick of rummaging through the scanner’s insides to remove jams? Press a button to release them. Want to finely tune the image enhancements as a part of a preconfigured workflow? Program a scan profile via Kodak’s Scan Validation Tool. With the i5800, only the competition is left wanting.”

“Next-generation performance capabilities of the KODAK i5800 Scanner—including Dynamic Flow Technology, Controlled Stacking and Streak Filtering—help businesses to drive more efficient, highly-productive document capture,” said Beth Schmidt, Kodak Document Imaging’s future product manager for production capture. “Kodak’s recognition as a BLI Winter 2012 ‘Pick’ once again demonstrates our continued commitment to enable businesses to achieve greater productivity during the capture process, and generate cost-benefit savings from their enterprise-level workflows.”

A Full-Featured Family
Based on their exceptional overall performance, feature set and price point, four Canon scanners have earned BLI “Picks” in their respective categories. In addition to offering the same BLI award-winning feature set as its sister model, the imageFORMULA P-150, the imageFORMULA P-215 goes a step further and includes a dedicated card scanner for scanning thick plastic ID cards and business cards. The imageFORMULA P-215 earned stellar marks in the majority of performance categories tested, including excellent media handling and driver functionality. And its smaller than average footprint allows customers to scan on the go with little added burden.

“The combination of simple use, high image quality and built-in card scanning capability in such a compact footprint make the P-215 Personal Document Scanner ideal for office users and mobile professionals looking to take document capture beyond the walls of the office,” said Sam Yoshida, vice president and general manager of Canon U.S.A.’s Business Imaging Solutions Group. “We are thrilled that the Canon P-215 scanner has been picked as the ‘Outstanding Mobile Scanner’ by Buyers Lab.”

The imageFORMULA DR-M140 and imageFORMULA DR-M160 add oomph to the departmental category, incorporating the very easy to use Canon CaptureOnTouch scan utility with the capture power of Canon CapturePerfect and eCopy PDF Pro Office to provide a very robust software bundle. Additional highlights of these departmental powerhouses include a lower than average cost per scan, a very easy to use hardware design and the ability to scan a variety of media types, including long documents up to 118". “Canon’s DR-M140 is very easy to use and offers a unique ADF cover that opens at a near 90-degree angle for easy access to misfeeds and consumables, “noted BLI Senior Test Technician Joe Ellerman. “This design should certainly be a standard whenever possible.”

Not to be outdone, the compact imageFORMULA DR-C125 also earned a BLI “Pick” for “Outstanding 20- to 30-ppm Workgroup Scanner” thanks to its small footprint, excellent price, and outstanding software bundle. In addition to Canon CaptureOnTouch and eCopy PDF Pro Office, this scanner also comes with Nuance PaperPort, Nuance OmniPage and NewSoft BizCard software for a seamless capture workflow. As with the other Canon scanners mentioned, the imageFORMULA DR-C125 is also very easy to use, highly reliable and able to handle a wide range of paper weights and sizes—perfect for most any office looking for a robust desktop capture solution.

“We are excited to receive the ‘Outstanding 20- to 30-ppm Workgroup Scanner’ recognition from Buyers Lab for the Canon DR-C125 scanner,” said Yoshida. “From financial offices to healthcare facilities, legal offices to government agencies, the Canon DR-C125 scanner is facilitating the simple and reliable capture and distribution of information across their businesses.”

Stay tuned for upcoming Buyers Lab “Pick” award announcements in the following categories:

January 11: A4 Picks and A4 Line
January 12: Solutions Picks
January 13: A3 Picks
January 17: Solutions Line and A3 Line