Raven Original Document Scanner

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Raven Original Document Scanner	A4	8.5 in. x 11.7 in.	Wi-Fi (2.4ghz), Ethernet	17	34	50 sheets	1500 sheets	Click for more info

What can we say about the Raven Original Document Scanner that we haven’t already said. We really love this product, as it is very close to the perfect A4 scanner under 500$.

First of all the scanning speed. It’s not a huge speed, it’s not even fast, but considering the price point and other features it has, it’s more than enough.

At 17 pages per minute in simplex mode is definitely on the low side, but the automatic duplex mode will be of great help to turn out 34 images per minute.

While it has a low duty cycle of around 1500 sheets, the feed roller replacement intervals are quite long, around 150.000 sheets. So you will definitely save a lot of money not having to replace consumables so often.

Another great thing about this scanner is the large touchscreen. You can easily go through the menus or input email addresses and content to the scans attached.

Last but not least we have the connectivity. It uses both and Ethernet connection or a Wifi connection. This means that you have the freedom to choose how to integrate the scanner in your workflow.

Epson DS-530

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson DS-530	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Ethernet (optional)	35	70	50 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Epson DS-530 is a much faster scanner than the Raven. At under 500$, it seems to be good value for money.

Starting with the speed, this will reach around 35 pages per minute in simplex mode and double that in duplex mode. Yes, the scanners processes both sides of the document automatically.

The daily duty cycle is larger than the estimated cycle for the Raven, and can go up to 4000 sheets every day. Now, we must be honest, you will never reach this value in normal use. You’d have to scan like a madman every minute of the working day.

On this scanner you will be replacing the consumables, brake rollers and feed rollers every 100.000 pages. It’s not a small number but it’s not a large one. I would say it’s within market range.

What I wish this scanner had is a standard wifi or ethernet connection. Ethernet is available, but only as an optional. USB 3.0 is included, so at least as a desktop scanner, you should be fine with this scanner.

HP Scanjet Pro 2000 S1

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
HP Scanjet Pro 2000 S1	A4	8.5 in. x 11.7 in.	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	30	60	50 sheets	2000 sheets	Click for more info

The HP Scanjet Pro 2000 SI is a popular scanner with a lot of customers. I don’t know if it’s popular because of the performances it offers or just because HP has such a good distribution platform.

Anyway, this is another A4 scanner that should be below 500$. It scans at around 30 pages per minute in simplex and 60 images per minute when working in duplex mode.

The daily duty cycle has been adjusted for 2000 sheets which is more or less on par with the Raven Original Scanner. Considering the scanning speed and size of the ADF, I would say this is more or less what you should be getting on a busy day.

Other elements such as the feed roller replacement intervals are more or less on par with the Epson. Replace them every 100.000 pages just to be sure that it pulls pages correctly and does not jam or multifeed very often.

This is a desktop document scanner only as it works with a USB 2.0 connection. It might not be as fancy as a 3.0 connection, but at this scanning speed, it should not be a problem.

Brother ADS-2200

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Brother ADS-2200	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	35	70	50 sheets	3,000 sheets	Click for more info

I like Brother scanners, and the ADS-2200 is a candidate for a good scanner under 500$. It has decent specifications, scanning at around 35 pages per minute in simplex mode.

The ADF has a size of approximately 50 sheets. This value is good enough for most office applications, but it will definitely struggle when scanning larger volumes.

The multifeed detection sensor is present, which is good to know. Just to make sure you don’t run into multifeeds too often, try and clean the rollers or every 100.000 sheets just replace them.

This scanner is also a desktop scanner, as it only offers a Hi-Speed Usb 2.0 connection. As with other scanners in our test, this won’t prove to be a problem with most of the scanning you do.

One thing I wish this scanner had is a larger software bundle. Yes, PaperPort is a good software, and the Presto! PageManger will work quite well, I wish there was a more purpose built software for this scanner.

Still, I guess for this budget, this will do, and should get you through your day more or less quite well.

Epson ES-400

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson ES-400	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Ethernet (optional)	35	70	50 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

The ES-400 is another option coming from Epson for a good scanner under 500$. This device offers a scanning speed of 35 pages per minute. Within this test this is quite a reasonable value, so I guess you really can’t expect more.

While the scanning size is up to A4, it does offer a long document scanning mode, which allows you scan narrow but very long documents, upt to 240inches in size. That is not bad actually, so keep this in mind when you do have such projects.

I wish the Ethernet connectivity was standard, as buying it as an option will only increase the price of this scanner, sometimes going over 500$.

The rest of the features are pretty good actually. It comes with software included for OCR. The optical character recognition app included with the scanner is the Nuance OmniPage software, which is usually quite a good engine to process searchable PDF or Word files from scanned documents.

I also heard good things about the Epson Scan 2 which can be easily set up and create scanning shortcuts for various settings.