Kodak i3300 Scanner - Review 2022

Positioned between the Editors' Pick Kodak i3250 and the highly capable Kodak i3500, the Kodak i3300 Scanner ($4,495) is 1 of Kodak Alaris' i3000 series of heavy-duty, loftier-volume certificate scanners. Like several of its siblings, the i3300 rapidly and accurately scans one-and two-sided documents up to tabloid-size (xi-past-17 inches) and across. Compared with some other certificate scanners we've tested, information technology'south a chip slow when scanning to searchable PDF, but non enough then to detract from its suitability for midsize-to-large document-direction systems. That makes it a highly sensible selection—and our new top option—as a wide-format high-volume certificate scanner for large workgroups and medium-size offices.

Big and Capable

Unlike the Kodak i3250, the i3300 doesn't come up with a flatbed scanner, just you can add either a legal-size ($495) or tabloid-size ($1,400) one equally an accessory, via USB cable to the aforementioned PC connected to the i3300. As with the Kodak i3400, which also lacks a flatbed scanner, what makes the 2 add-ons accessories rather than standalone scanners is that yous can't use them unless you also have the i3300 (or another supported scanner) installed on the estimator.

At 9.4 past 17 by 14.6 inches (HWD) with its trays closed and weighing 35 pounds, the i3300 is the same size and weight as the Kodak i3400 and i3500. Information technology'southward slightly shorter and four pounds lighter than the Kodak i3250 and i3450. All of them are nearly the same size every bit a modest all-in-1 printer. Another top pick, the Panasonic KV-S5076H, stands almost four inches taller, three inches longer, and seven pounds heavier than the i3300.

The i3300 has a daily duty bicycle of 17,500 pages, which is two,500 pages higher than the Kodak i3250, ii,500 pages lower than the Kodak i3400, and 7,500 pages lower than the Kodak i3500. The Panasonic KV-S5076H, on the other manus, is skillful for a whopping 35,000 pages per 24-hour interval.

Like most of the other i3000 serial models, the i3300 has an automatic document feeder that holds upward to 250 sheets of 20-pound paper; the Kodak i3500 holds up to 300 sheets. Many of the i3000 series models take two paper paths, one that curls the page upward and sends information technology to the acme of the device (its output bed), and another direct-through path that sends scanned documents out through a slot on the back of the chassis onto your desktop. The straight-through path allows yous to scan thicker, card-stock-similar originals, as well as longer pages (in Long Document mode) up to 160 inches long.

Features abound on the i3300, including ultrasonic feed detection, which Kodak Alaris calls Intelligent Document Protection, that really listens for the first sounds of an original starting to misfeed in in the paper path. At starting time signs of misfeed or a page about to be mutilated, the scanning machinery shuts downward.

For connectivity, the i3300'south merely choice is USB three.0 (which is backwards-compatible with USB ii.0). It supports nine resolutions between 100 dots per inch (dpi) and 600dpi, and you can salvage your scans to the following file formats: TIFF, JPEG, RTF, BMP, and image and searchable PDF. Much of this functionality—such as setting resolution and file formats—is handled through the bundled software, as are most other features (discussed in the adjacent section).

Located on the right-forepart corner of the chassis, the i3300'southward control panel features an 18-characters-per-row, three-row monochrome LCD for displaying workflow profiles (divers from the accompanying software). It likewise has five buttons: Up and Down (for scrolling through profiles), Start (or Scan, to initiate scans), and Simplex (one-sided) and Duplex (two-sided) modes.

Piece of cake Setup and Software

As big and formidable as the i3300 seems, it'southward surprisingly easy to install and put to work. Except for a few pieces of tape, packing material is minimal, and getting information technology up and running requires just a power brick and a USB cable (both of which are included). Installing the software, however, requires making a few choices, such as whether to use the scanner with Kodak Alaris' feature-rich Capture Pro Limited Edition programme, or its easier-to-use Smart Touch interface utility. If your office or workgroup has an established certificate-management organization, you can utilise that, besides.

In addition, I ran into a small problem while installing the software. Though it said it was going to, the installation program would not install the Smart Bear upon scanning utility; later on trying to go it to work twice, I had to find the program'due south setup files on the included disc and manually launch them—a remedy that, I suspect, not only are many users not comfortable with, but likewise one that some users may not even know about. But then, your Information technology staff volition most likely install the i3300, and they shouldn't have a problem figuring this little snafu out.

In any case, I installed Smart Touch, and the install program successfully loaded Capture Pro Limited Edition, a stripped-downwards version of Kodak Alaris' highly capable scanning and imaging utility. Capture Pro Limited Edition is and so feature-rich, in fact, that you might find yourself somewhat overwhelmed. The expert news is that Smart Touch, while piece of cake to utilize and fairly easy to configure, is likewise plenty capable plenty to scan, correct (when necessary), and save your scans to useable file formats. Besides, if your organization already has a document-management system, all you really demand is a fashion to get scans imaged, converted to the appropriate searchable text format (if your system doesn't already do that), and dropped into the appropriate folder on your network

That said, the Smart Impact interface consists of nine configurable menu options (i.e. Scan to PDF, Scan to Email, and so on) that reside in the Windows system tray. You can create and edit these options, which are shortcuts to workflow profiles that control resolution, destination, file format, and more. Dissimilar some other scanner front ends that support many profiles, however, Smart Touch supports but nine. (The Panasonic KV-S5076H, for example, lets yous create up to 100 profiles.) Nonetheless, for most offices and workgroups, nine is most probable plenty, and if non, they're very piece of cake to reconfigure equally needed.

Fast Scans, Slower Processing

Chances are that most buyers of this type of high-volume scanner volition deploy it in an existing or custom document-management system, where, since most processing (converting scanned text to searchable text and indexing, for instance) takes place in the background, how fast it scans and processes them isn't critical—as long as it's fast enough to keep upward with your workload. That said, the i3300 itself is fast, but the accompanying software is a niggling slow at converting scanned text to searchable PDF files. (I tested using Kodak Smart Touch software over USB three.0 on our standard Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC running Windows ten Professional. Note that the i3300's spec canvass recommends a 3.4GHz or higher Intel Core i7 CPU, which may contribute to the somewhat slow conversion to searchable PDF.)

Kodak Alaris rates the i3300 at 70 pages per minute (ppm) when scanning ane-sided pages and 140 images per minute (or ipm, where each page side is considered an image) for two-sided pages. Without the lag time (the time between when the terminal page lands on the output tray and the software subsequently saves the file to a useable format), it managed 69.5ppm and 138.2ipm, which is very close to its ratings. When scanning and saving to image PDF, all the same, it slowed downwards to 50ppm and 93.8ipm. This is 10ppm and more than 20ipm slower than the Kodak i3500; the Kodak i3400 scored the same as the i3300 in Simplex way and a bit over 10ipm faster in Duplex manner. Panasonic's KV-S5076H managed 57.6ppm and 106ipm in this part of our tests.

Where the i3300 really took a hit, though, was in scanning to searchable PDF. Information technology scanned our two-sided, 25-folio (50 images) certificate in 1 minute 9 seconds, which is 1 2d slower than the Kodak i3500, and 39 seconds longer than information technology took to scan to prototype PDF. The Kodak i3400 was viii seconds slower than the i3300. The Panasonic KV-S5076H, on the other paw, scanned, converted the text, and saved the file to searchable PDF in but 37 seconds, or 32 seconds faster than the i3300.

OCR Accuracy

Where the Kodak i3300 outperformed the other industrial-forcefulness scanners discussed here is in converting scanned text to editable text, which in many business settings is much more preferable than brute scanning speed. Correcting errors can be a lot more than time consuming than waiting a few more seconds for imaged text to be accurately transformed into searchable text.

That said, when scanning at both 200ppi and 300ppi resolutions, the i3300 converted our Arial and Times New Roman text pages without errors down to vi points, compared with the Kodak i3400'due south and i3500's viii points for both fonts. Unfortunately, we don't take accuracy numbers for the Panasonic KV-S5076H.

A Highly Accurate High-Volume Scanner

Frankly, aside from a somewhat loftier purchase price and slightly dull conversion to searchable PDF rate, at that place'southward picayune to dislike about the Kodak i3300 Scanner. And, as I said earlier, accuracy is more than important than how fast a scanner'south software saves a file. Combined with Kodak Alaris' easy-to-utilize, highly functional Smart Bear on software and fast and durable hardware, this is an exceptional bulk-certificate scanner for medium-to-large offices and workgroups in demand of accurate scanning of oversize documents, especially stacks of tabloid-size pages. If yous need faster processing and saving to searchable text, however, the Panasonic KV-S5076H might be a ameliorate option, though you'll pay a lot more for information technology.

In whatever case, the i3300 is faster, less expensive, and more accurate than several of its Kodak i3000 series siblings, and it lists for virtually $2,700 less than the Panasonic KV-S5076H. That's enough to nudge information technology into our Editors' Choice slot equally a high-book document scanner for midsize offices and large workgroups.