Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W Review | Why buy it in 2019?

Speed & Document size

The Imagecenter ADS2800W wireless scanner is able to process A4 documents and other paper that is up to 8.5 by 14 inches in size.

The scanner comes with a CIS sensor and is capable of achieving an optical resolution of 600dpi. I don’t think there are many scanners in this price range that offer all the connection alternatives: Gigabit Ethernet, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or Wifi.

When using the simplex scanning mode, expect a scanning speed of 30ppm. You can also do duplex in a single pass and that will take you to 60 images every minute.

The daily duty cycle for which this scanner is setup is around 3000 sheets every day. That is beyond what you will need most of the time and it will take approximately 200.000 pages for the consumable rollers to require changing.  

Paper Handling

The ultrasonic sensor is designed to detect overlapping pages and to stop the scanning immediately. You will be notified by this as soon as it is detected to manually solve the issue.

In the document feeder, you should be able to fit around 50 sheets of A4 bond paper. This is more than enough for a small office scanner.

Handling paper that goes from 27 to 413 g/m2 is good enough for office documents and the occasional card stock that you get from time to time.

It also has a long page scanning mode which allows you to go all the way up to 197 inches in length. Beyond this size, the scanner will stop scanning and detect a paper jam.  

Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W accessories unboxing

This device is not on the light side, but it’s not heavy as well. I think it probably has an average size and weight, therefore you won’t have any issues moving it around.

In the box, besides the scanner and input or output trays, you will also get a bundle of drivers and software.

Besides Twain and Isis drivers, you will also get the Abby Finereader and Nuance Paperport. These are 3rd party software that allows you, for example, to handle OCR, to Multi or Single File PDF.  

Productivity features

The auto-crop feature is designed to detect the size of your page and to crop it according to the exact size the document has.

Auto rotation of documents can be done by activating this setting from the driver and let it adjust your scan to landscape or portrait automatically. It saves a lot of post scanning effort.

I love that the ADS 2800W comes with auto color detection. This helps a lot, especially considering that the machine is missing a multi-stream function.

Last but not least, blank page detection is another productivity feature that you should use when scanning. It’s available in the driver of this scanner and should increase the scanning capability of this device significantly.  

Features for Image Quality

Don’t neglect the background cleaning function. It might not be activated in the standard profile, but go in the driver and turn it on. Clean images are mandatory when scanning nowadays.

Cleaning the edges of your documents is possible with the edge cleanup function. Even for lightly torn paper, this corrects it nicely and the scans will look great.

When a bad paper is going through the scanner or you forgot to clean the rollers, significant document skew will happen. The deskew feature corrects this problem and straightens your documents.

The hole punch removal is another setting we love using, especially for perforated sheets. It detects the holes and applies the background color to them.

Streak filtering is not available with this device, so I’ll guess you’ll have to clean the scanning guide much more often.

Extra Features

We suggest you use the manual feed function on this scanner, especially for documents that are fragile or a bit thicker.

This includes documents with a carrier sheet. Separating documents automatically is a big thing these days, and you can use white pages, patch codes or even barcodes for separation.

The barcode detection feature is also a great asset if you have an indexing software to capture that from the detected barcode.

Last but not least, automatic OCR is available and can be used with the Abbyy Finereader software bundled with the scanner.

Unfortunately, you won’t have a zonal OCR so indexing documents based on certain fields will be harder to achieve.

 

Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W vs Fujitsu Scansnap ix500

	Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W	Scansnap ix500
Scanning area	A4 – 215.9 mm x 355.6 mm ( 8.5 in. x 14.0 in.)	A4 – 216 x 360 mm (8.5 x 14.17 in.)
Connectivity	Gigabit Ethernet, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or Wifi	Wireless and USB 2.0, 3.0
Sheets per minute	30PPM	25 PPM
Images per minute	60IPM	25 IPM
Document Thickness	27 – 413 g/m2	40 to 209 g/m2 (11 to 56 lb)
Daily Duty Cycle	3000 Sheets	400 sheets
Multifeed Detection	Ultrasonic Sensor	Ultrasonic double-feed detection sensor
Streaks Correction	No	Yes
Hole Punch Removal	Yes	No
Document Separation	Yes	No
Barcode Recognition	Yes	No
Price	Check price on Amazon	Check price on Amazon

The capture zone on the Scansnap ix500 (Approx. A4 – 216 x 360 mm (8.5 x 14.17 in.)) is bigger than the one on the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W which has a surface of A4 or 215.9 mm x 355.6 mm ( 8.5 in. x 14.0 in.).

Regarding the optical sensor, the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W and the Scansnap ix500 use the same type, a CIS sensor.

What about capturing extra-long documents? The Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W is able to digitize longer documents up to 215.9 mm x 5,000 mm ( 196.9 in. ), while Scansnap ix500 can only scan sheets of paper up to 863 mm or 34 in. (Duplex), 1,726 mm or 68 in. (Simplex).

If you have a look at connectivity options, we can find Gigabit Ethernet, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or Wifi on the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W and Wireless and USB 2.0, 3.0 on Scansnap ix500.

When comparing actual digitization speed the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W will do 30 sheets in one minute. At the same time, the Scansnap ix500 will reach 25 PPM.

Read the full review of the Scansnap ix500.  

Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W vs Brother ADS-2700W

	Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W	Brother ADS-2700W
Scanning area	A4 – 215.9 mm x 355.6 mm ( 8.5 in. x 14.0 in.)	8.27 in x 11.69 in
Long Document	215.9 mm x 5,000 mm ( 196.9 in. )	196 in
Connectivity	Gigabit Ethernet, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or Wifi	Fast Ethernet, Wireless and Hi-Speed USB 2.0
Sheets per minute	30PPM	35
Images per minute	60IPM	70
Document Thickness	27 – 413 g/m2	11 lb. to 110 lb
Daily Duty Cycle	3000 Sheets	3,000 sheets
Multifeed Detection	Ultrasonic Sensor	Overlap detection (Ultrasonic sensor)
Document Separation	Yes	No
Price	Check price on Amazon	Check price on Amazon

So, how do they compare on capture zone? The Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W can capture an area of A4 or 215.9 mm x 355.6 mm ( 8.5 in. x 14.0 in.), while the other can scan an area of 8.27 in x 11.69 in.

Both the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W and the Brother ADS-2700W operate using a CIS sensor.

So which scanner can scan a longer sheet? The Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W is the one who wins here with a max. length of 215.9 mm x 5,000 mm ( 196.9 in. ).

If we look at network connection ports, we will find Gigabit Ethernet, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or Wifi on the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W and Fast Ethernet, Wireless and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 on Brother ADS-2700W.

When comparing scanning speed the Brother ADS-2700W will get up to 35 pages every minute. However, the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W can do 30 PPM.

Read the full review of the Brother ADS-2700W.  

Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W vs Brother ADS-3600W

	Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W	Brother ADS-3600W
Scanning area	A4 – 215.9 mm x 355.6 mm ( 8.5 in. x 14.0 in.)	8.27 in x 11.69 in
Long Document	215.9 mm x 5,000 mm ( 196.9 in. )	196 in
Sheets per minute	30PPM	50
Images per minute	60IPM	100
Document Thickness	27 – 413 g/m2	11 lb. to 110 lb
Daily Duty Cycle	3000 Sheets	5,000 sheets
Multifeed Detection	Ultrasonic Sensor	Overlap detection (Ultrasonic sensor)
Document Separation	Yes	No
Price	Check price on Amazon	Check price on Amazon

But which scanner can capture a larger area? The Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W. It’s able to digitize a dimension of A4 or 215.9 mm x 355.6 mm ( 8.5 in. x 14.0 in.) meanwhile the other one is only able to digitize a surface of 8.27 in x 11.69 in.

CIS sensors operate in the Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W and the Brother ADS-3600W.

So how about scanning long documents? The Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W can digitize long documents up to 215.9 mm x 5,000 mm ( 196.9 in. ), meanwhile, Brother ADS-3600W can only capture sheets up to 196 in.

So what connectivity interfaces does each ADF scanner have? Brother ImageCenter ADS-2800W has built-in Gigabit Ethernet, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or Wifi while the Brother ADS-3600W provides Gigabit Ethernet, Wireless, WiFi and SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

The Brother ADS-3600W has the advantage on scanning speed. The Brother ADS-3600W has the power to digitize at 50 pages every minute. The other ADF scanner is able to only do 30 PPM.

Read the full review of the Brother ADS-3600W.