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600 x 600 dpi, Color Depth: 24-bit (16.7M Colors), USB 2.0, RJ-45 Network Adapter, 10/100BaseT |  |
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| Product Reviews from Amazon.com (Rating System 1 to 5) |
| Review | Rating | Last Updated | Almost Luxury - but needs much much much faster CPU and more RAM
We've been using ours for about 14 months.
The engineers who developed this unit did a beautiful and daring job to come up with a new product category. What's great about the scanner as directly networkable ethernet appliance is that it fundamentally changes workflows, and makes scanning available to everyone around.
We bought this 50% because it was network attached, 50% because it has a great sheet feeder.
Kodak came through with significant software upgrade last summer that supports (somewhat awkward, but okay) file naming directly at time of scan - through the unit's touch screen. This is a huge help. The Scan Station software takes some getting used to, but is very well through out and can be configured for operation by people who really can't deal with technology. A relatively geeky person doing set up (and taking a day or two) can make life really smooth and easy for his or her non-geeky colleagues.
The difference between the 5 stars and 3 stars is simple: The CPU and RAM are not adequate and not upgradable.
As you probably understand already if you are reading this review, the scanstation a scanner wrapped around a Windows workstation, disguised as something almost as simple as fax (or a toaster for that mater. Despite the value of the integration of the scanner into an applicance (the success in "hiding" the technology behind a simple user story) it is impossible to get away from the fact that the CPU power really does matter and the Scan Station 100's processor isn't good enough .
We are talking about a Celeron D (2.4 GHz) - something that would have been in a Walmart $500 home office computer from 2003, 2004. Weak when it was new years ago, an 1/100th the speed it could be. RAM upgradableness would also be very great (2GB is what we would do.
Although it's not the only technical option - the key to this scanner is that it make it easy for a whole of office of people who don't really understand what a "searchable pdf" document is to product them anyway.
But OCR and creating a searchable PDF take time. The result is that if you have more than 50 pages (25 sheets) you're in trouble. And you must wait for the OCR to complete before adding more paper.
Even great equipment can mean change - and change means resistance. We can't put every manager under a command to scan or walk the plank - so going paperless requires cheerleading and internal marketing. It is the "appliance" nature of the Scan Station 100 that's great. It would be *much* *much* easier to sell coworkers taking the trouble to scan documents if the Scan Station 100 did not have an obviously obsolete and we could spend some extra money on extra RAM.
The basic engineering and and concept is beautiful. Did I mention that the feeder is great? (Basically the feeder doesn't jam, and can take checks, previously stapled 20 page contracts (staples removed), brochures, most things that look at all reasonable to get through a feeder. Put them in the feeder and it just scans them right in. Great... but then you wait.
The scan station is priced as a luxury experience, and it almost delivers-- if it weren't for all those pesky pixels and processing time. Despite what the Kodak engineers may have hoped, we are in a rush, and the processing unit in the scanner is what keeps our users from wanting to hug it in gratitude.
- Almost in love (did I mention it that it could be faster?)
*PS: If we have something huge we scan .tiff images directly to the file server and then do the OCR and Acrobat conversion on a separate system. not something our typical user can really deal with, however. And it's techy enough to defeat the concept of a democratic, simple, accessible "appliance" style piece of hardware (which is what you are paying for).
| 3 | Today | 2 already died on us
My company bought two of these for light (a few pages every couple of days) to moderate (few pages a day, with occasional big jobs) scanning duties. One of them has worked fine. The other we have had to replace twice. Luckily we have been under warranty both times. The first one would turn on, but the screen never loaded to the menu. The second one made one load popping noise, after having been used sparingly for only a couple months, and wouldn't turn on again. Hopefully the third time will be the charm, but I'm not too optimistic. | 1 | Today | Works great! Even with a mac.
I have had this product for about a month now and am still completely satisfied with it. It scans great, and I love that it scans both sides at once. Although undocumented, you can FTP the file to a mac. That's nice since I only use macs with it.
I have had issues with the enclosed USB thumb-drives. My computer says they are drawing too much power and then the USB port shuts off. This doesn't bother me because I use my own, larger, USB drives anyway. You have to use a Windows PC to save configuration files to the USB drive if you want to do anything other than saving to the USB drive (like email, FTP). | 4 | Today | Handy, if you need one
A networked scanner is a lot less kludgy than having a stand alone computer and attached scanner. This device has decent scan quality, but is a little noisy, and Kodak's "support" and "documentation" is laughable. Every so often I attempt to scan to a networked printer, which is supposed to be possible; then I give up in frustration after spending a while with the configuration software. It scans nicely to both a networked drive and to an email, and it is pretty fast.
A user who was not Windows network savvy would never be able to set this thing up. On the other hand, once it is set up, a child could scan and email something readily. | 3 | Today | Wanted to review favorably, but cannot.
I have owned my Scan Station 100 for 13 months and enjoyed it (after a difficult set-up)- however, it DIED on me today (Powers on, but touch screen stays blank) I called Kodak tech support who told me they have seen this problem. They said "loose solder or a bad board" and I would have to send it to Kodak for a $385 repair plus shipping. Yes it is one month out of its 12 month warranty, but if it is a known problem, management at Kodak should accomodate customers. Sorry to have to give it a bad review, but don't pay $2,500 for a scanner Kodak acknowledges sometimes dies within the first couple of years, and they are not willing to support it.Kodak Scan Station 100 | 2 | Today | Incredible Quality
I had read the one previous review of this product on the site and was a little leary. However, I have been nothing but impressed.
Setting it up was easy. The quality of the scans is like nothing I have seen. We scanned in some bright red address labels as a test and it looked like you could peal them off your computer screen. It scans into many different formats (we use searchable PDF which most other scanners don't do).
It is also fairly small. It takes up about the same area as a all-in-one would (fax, scanner, printer). What you don't realize, though, is that this has a computer chip in it that makes it as powerful as the PC next to it. You should also note that it is network ready, so you can plug it in and the whole office can share it.
The only negative of the product is its price. Unless you need all the functionality it offers (which I did), it might be tough to justify paying almost 3X what an HP (for instance) might cost. However, I am very happy with the money I spent. | 5 | Today | So far, not easy to configure
I am a Mac User and used to user friendliness. This scanner has the most cryptic documentation I have seen. For a "network friendly" it is incredibly difficult to configure, this despite nearly every page saying "easy to perform" in the users guide. Have a look at the videos on the Kodak web site - all flash, no useful information. Well that is how it arrives. Great looking device, but difficult to use. As if to back it up, try customer support - if you can get through and try leaving a message, not exactly prompt call returns. Definitely an obtuse user device and I run my own servers, so I am relatively qualified to comment on configurability. Best wishes if you buy one. | 1 | Today |
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