I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 Review | A large bookscanner in 2023

I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 Accessories and options

Let’s first start with the book cradle of this device. The A0 Suprascan comes with an 180 degree book holder, that is split into two individual frames. Those frames can move up and down individually to scan books, just like a normal book cradle.

Second we have the flat holder, which is recommended when you want to scan loose documents, such as technical plans, maps or even posters.

Add to this the flattening glass and I must say you are in pretty good shape to scan just about anything on it. But the size comes with a drawback, the size of the machine.

It’s bigger than 2m on one side, and not the side you would expect it to be. Also, you get a huge weight for the machine, nearly 200kg. So moving it around without wheels is not the best of ideas. .

I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 features

This is more or less a manual scanner, as the operator has to constantly adjust the book cradle and flattening glass. Besides that, to flip the pages he has to rely on his fingers. But all in all, given the size of the thing, it does not really matter, there are not many bookscanners this big on the market.

As expected, the Suprascan comes with an integrated workstation to control the entire scanning process. It’s quite a delicate thing, so it’s good to have it setup directly from the factory. .

I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 Technical specs

The scanning area is A0, as mentioned before in the description. To be more precise, it’s 33 by 47 inches when you look at the scanning area. This is really big, so normally even the largest standard documents can be scanned on it.

The speed is not impressive at first, given that it’s 140 pages per hour. But just imagine that you are scanning an A0 each time and transferring the data. It’s not fast, but it’s not slow either. It’s a different market altogether when comparing to usual scanners.

Also, it’s good to have a combination of USB and Ethernet, given that a lot of data is transferred back and forth. .

I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 Image quality

The scanning resolution goes up to 600dpi. But in general, the combination between the linear CCD and the light that moves along with the CCD is ideal for perfect lighting.

The images should be even and correctly luminated. It’s not like an area sensor, where you would have slight darkening on the edges, or in some cases a darker center of the image. .

I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 Software & File formats

The Yooscan software was developed by I2S solely to fit the Suprascan, or maybe better, with the Suprascan in mind. It can accommodate both small and large books, but also do some map scanning or even posters.

The output files vary between the usual TIFF, Jpeg and PDF, to even PNG and DNG files. The DNG is very good when you have a back light source to scan transparencies, and I2s knows that this is sometime required. .

I2S SupraScan Quartz A0 vs Klip Snap

Here are the key differences between these two book scanners:

There are not many scanners as different as these two devices. The Klip as you know is a small bookscanner, that works in conjunction with the SV600 as a capturing unit.

On the other hand, the Suprascan is an A0 book and document scanner, that will accommodate both books and large documents. It comes with a linear CCD camera with relatively perfect scanning quality, given its construction.

On the other hand, the KLIP is focused on scanning normal books at normal quality. It offers very affordable scanning for standard projects and even passionate individuals, given it’s low pricing.

The Suprascan is on the expensive side, but it is more focused on high end scanning and projects where image quality is a priority, rather than speed. I think for most individuals, this is a prohibitive device, given that it’s close to 100 thousand dollars.