HP Virtual Focus Group – Document Scanning

If you recall. I’m a member of a virtual focus group for HP. As such I am doing side by side comparisons of both an HP Photosmart C6380 and the Kodak ESP 7.

Scanning. Lots of people may not have a scanner or an all in one and may think they have no need for a scanner. I promise you, there are lots of things you can scan. We suffer from document overload, both in this house and as a society. One of the ways I thought I could help get organized is to get rid of the paper. Now some paper you just can’t get rid of. So why not scan it? That way you still have it but you don’t have the paper. Plus side? Scanned documents don’t rip or fade, and they take up a lot less room then paper does.

Here’s the HP Photosmart C6380.

Now here’s a look at the Kodak ESP 7.

Much like the printers, the scanner lid on the Kodak is larger and heavier than the HP. The scanning area is the same – 8.5 x 11.7 inches.

Quality wise I found both sets of scans to be very comparable, no clear winner there. The winner came with the actual scanning process itself.

Scanning through the Kodak takes place from the front of the scanner or using the Kodak AiO Home Center software. If you’re scanning five pages you will wind up with five files. Each scan you will have to choose where to save to and what to call it. Now get this. The prompt on the screen gave me the impression that one folder would be created and each paper would get a different number. That didn’t happen. I scanned all pages into the same folder, on my desktop. When I looked into the folder, only one scan was there. Why? Because instead of the pages getting names with the numbers they apparently all got named the same thing, overwriting each other.

Scanning through the HP takes place from the front of the scanner or using the HP Solution Center software. Here the HP blew the Kodak out of the water. I had the same five pages. The HP allows you to scan one page and then gives you the ability to add more pages to that same file. What a time saver over the Kodak! Plus the other feature I really liked is that I could chose what format file I scanned into – document to pdf, email or tif image.

Stay tuned. The next installment will be on copying.

Tags: HP Photosmart C6380, HP Virtual Focus Group, Kodak ESP 7, printers

Category: Tech