Epson DS-1630

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson DS-1630	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Ethernet (optional)	25	10	50 sheets	1,500 sheets	Click for more info

The Epson DS-1630 is one of our favorite network flatbed scanners which is also a sheetfed scanner. Now it is important to mention something first: The Ethernet network port is an optional with this one. There are very few scanners that have a flatbed and ethernet communication as standard and usually the network connection comes as optional. If you do not opt for the networking option you still get a 5 gbps USB 3.0 port included as standard.

It’s not the fastest scanner ever built with a scan speed of just 25 sheets per minute and 50 images per minute when doing duplex scanning. This flatbed scanner has a pixel density of 600×600 dpi when you run the document through the automatic document feeder ADF and 1200 dpi optical when you place the document on the flatbed photo scanner unit. Both are without any software interpolation and are made possible by the included CCD sensor (Charge-Coupled Device) backed up by an LED light source, this type of image sensor is most commonly found in flatbed scanners. All papers up to a document size of A4 can be scanned and the maximum scan size is 8.27 in. by 11.69 in (Basically A4 format). In long document mode it can scan documents up to 120 inches long. You can stack up to 50 documents in the sheet feeder tray.

Epson have been careful to include a complete bundle of software with this color document scanner for all your needs: Epson Document Capture, Epson Document Capture Pro, Server Epson Document Capture Pro, Epson Scan 2 and ABBYY FineReader. The inclusion of the ABBYY Optical Character Recognition software is welcome because it will allow you to automatically create searchable PDFs and Word Documents out of your digital images. The Capture Pro app is shipped with all Epson color scanners.

The included software on this duplex combo scanner comes with document imaging features like automatic rotation, color detection and cropping along with background cleaning and deskew. All of these features will help later by reducing the need for Photoshop to get better and more accurate digital copies. Lightroom or GIMP. The scanning software also scans directly online to cloud storage platforms like Google Drive, DropBox or Evernote.

The Epson Scan 2 software will output the following file formats: JPEG, TIFF, Multi-TIFF, PDF, Searchable PDF, BMP, PNG and the Document Capture Pro for Windows computers can output: JPEG, Bitmap, PDF, Searchable PDF, TIFF, Multi-TIFF, PNG, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX

As far as drivers go, this scanner has both TWAIN and ISIS which are the most common types of scanner drivers and most of the software for scanning that you can download supports at least one of these standards.

Epson DS-50000

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson DS-50000	A3	11.69 in x 16.53 in	USB 2.0 Type B, Wired Network (optional)	15	N/A	N/A	N/A	Click for more info

The Epson DS-50000 is a pure network flatbed scanner. It does not have an automatic document feeder, just the flatbed unit. It has a CCD sensor (These types of sensors usually have a better RGB Color Depth than their CIS counterparts) that scans at an optical resolution of 600 dpi black and white and color, something which we consider to be a good enough image resolution for even the more demanding applications such as photo scanning. People who don’t use scanners on a regular basis might be misled by the 4800 dpi scanners out there that that is the resolution they need. It is not practical to use that except for certain special situations because the file size is going to make sharing and editing extremely hard. A 4 inch by 4 inch scan at these resolutions can get up to 2GB in size. For text, no more than 300 dpi is needed in reality.

This flatbed scanner too comes with a hispeed USB port as standard and if you want it to communicate with your home network or office network you will have to pay extra for the Wired Network option. This device also has the ISIS, WIA and TWAIN drivers that we mentioned before.

The bundled document scanning software with this large format scanner is pretty much the same as with the DS-1630 document scanner: ABBYY FineReader Sprint 8.0, ABBYY FineReader Sprint 9.0, Epson Document Capture Pro, Epson Document Capture Pro Server, Epson Event Manager, Epson Scan. The scanning software is compatible with both of the major Operating Systems: Mac OS X and Windows. The Epson Capture Pro app also has the ability to scan to e-mail and to an internet FTP server. You just provide the access details and make sure it’s connected to the router which in turn is connected to the Internet. You can find the complete list of features of the Capture Pro app on Epson’s official website.

Along with a variety of multifunction printers and photo printer scanners, Epson also makes the Fastfoto ff-680w, a dedicated photo scanner with an ADF system and network connectivity and the Epson perfection v850 Pro, a high-quality flatbed color scanner but which lacks network connectivity.

Hp Scanjet Pro 4500 fn1

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Hp Scanjet Pro 4500 fn1	A4	8.5 in. x 11.7 in.	USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed), Built-in Fast Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-TX network port	30	60	50	4000 sheets	Click for more info

HP doesn’t make just multifunction laser printers and inkjet all-in-one printers, they also make great office document scanners. The HP ScanJet Pro 4500 fn1 is the last network flatbed scanner we will be reviewing here and it is the only one that comes with network connectivity as standard. It has USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed) and also Built-in Fast Ethernet 10/100/1000 Base-TX network port. To take advantage of the Gigabit Ethernet network interface in your local network, always make sure your router has gigabit ports on it, many routers still don’t have that.

It’s a faster desktop scanner with fast scan speeds of 30 PPM color and a daily scanning volume of 4,000 sheets. auto document feeder capacity is up to 50 sheets and the device can scan documents that are really long up to 122 inches. It has a generous touch screen included

HP included the following software with the 4500 fn1 network scanner: Kofax VRS Pro, HP Scan, HP EveryPage, I.R.I.S. Readiris Pro OCR, Nuance PaperPort. The Epson scanners are superior to this network flatbed scanner because of the ABBYY software. The HP Scan software is capable as well of connecting to the wide area network and uploading your scanned documents to Google Drive and Dropbox.

This high-speed network document scanner has most of the ICE image correction features you would expect from an image scanner such as the ability to automatically crop, deskew or clean the background. Most of these features are integrated into the Kofax VRS Pro which we use all the time in our own digitization center. It doesn’t have multi-stream, an option which we always use when setting up our project.

This color flatbed scanner is energy star certified and has minimal power consumption when scanning. HP provides TWAIN, WIA and ISIS drivers on their website compatible with both Mac and PC. If you like this machine but you want higher specs, then the ScanJet Enterprise flow 7500 production scanner is more appropriate. It too has a flatbed included. HP also makes the Digital Sender Flow 8500 fn2 high-speed network scanner which is more appropriate for large document management operations and the Enterprise Flow S3 sheetfeed scanner but that one doesn’t have flatbed support.

Which Network Flatbed Scanner should I get?

Let’s face it, you don’t have much choice in this space because the options are very limited. The Epson DS-1630 is the best value for money that you can get while having the desired features: Flatbed and network connectivity and an extra automatic document feeder which we know will come in handy at some point. You may have a question now: Where are the Canon CanoScan Lide 300 & 400, Epson Perfection V550, Epson Perfection V600, Epson Perfection V800, Expression 12000xl Perfection v850 pro? While they are great flatbed scanners, they are not network scanners. There is no wifi or ethernet built into them. We also did an article about flatbed wireless scanners if you want to check it out. Also, if you decided portable document scanners are the way to go this time, our recommendations are: Brother ads-1700w wireless portable scanner, fujitsu scansnap ix100 mobile scanner, epson workforce es-400 portable scanner and the xerox duplex travel. If desktop document scanners are what you actually need, then some great are: Fujitsu scansnap ix1500 color duplex document scanner, xerox documate 6400, Kodak Alaris i2900, Brother ADS-2700W wireless document scanner, Canon ImageFormula R40 wireless office document scanner, Visioneer Patriot h60 and the best buying options for these are Amazon, BH Photo Video, Best Buy, B&H and Office Depot.