February 2001

SCAN STATION

Fujitsu Delivers Color in a Capable Flatbed

by Maria Medina

• SIDEBAR: Dunord Board Speeds Color

Once the exclusive domain of high-end manufacturers, color document imaging has reached a wider market in recent years, thanks to pioneering midrange color scanners from Kodak, Rochester, NY. Now Fujitsu, San Jose, CA, has introduced a flatbed scanner that combines impressive bitonal performance and modest color speed at an affordable price of $10,995.

The fi-4750C is a duplex flatbed scanner with midrange bitonal ratings of 50 pages per minute (ppm)/90 images per minute (ipm) at 200 dpi (portrait). The scanner's color speed is fairly slow at 12 ppm/24 ipm at 150 dpi (portrait), making this a better choice for those who want color as an option rather than as the usual way of capturing documents. With its 100-sheet autodocument feeder (ADF), the scanner has an intended duty cycle of about 3,000 pages a day.

In our tests, the 4750C handily exceeded its bitonal ratings, delivering 56 ppm/93 ipm at 200 dpi. The scanner met its rated 12 ppm simplex color speed at 150 dpi, but delivered only 22 ipm in duplex mode (though this was probably due to our use of a 500 MHz workstation rather than the 800 MHz recommended by Fujitsu). Capturing in grayscale, the scanner ran at 19 ppm/38 ipm at 200 dpi.

The document feeder works smoothly up to capacity as long as the documents are uniform. When scanning mixed batches with different sizes and thickness, we found the ADF to be more reliable and jam-free if we limited batches to no more than 75 pages. The feeder can handle documents as small as business cards (2.1 inches by 2.9 inches) and up to double-letter size (11 inches by 17 inches).

The 4750C impressed us with its image quality. The scanner combines a grayscale CCD (charge coupled device) with a tricolor LED (light emitting diode), a technology usually found in image setters and printers. The design renders sharp, bright color images with fine detail. Even, light text and characters were distinct, and legibility didn't suffer at 150 dpi until we went down to tiny 4-point type. The 4750C offers 24-bit color and 8-bit grayscale with a maximum optical resolution of 400 dpi. You can interpolate up to 600 dpi in color and 800 dpi bitonally.

The 4750C comes with Fujitsu's ScandAll 2000 utility, TWAIN and ISIS drivers, and Kofax support. The scanner incorporates Fujitsu's infrared double-feed detection, which finds misfeeds based on document length and thickness. In the near future, the manufacturer expects to add a post-scan imprinter option for an estimated $1,500.

The 4750C competes with the DR-5080C from Canon, Lake Success, NY (see "Canon's Business Switch Hitter," September 1999). Canon's $9,500, sheet-fed duplex scanner has a 500-sheet ADF and is rated at 53 ppm/105 ipm bitonally and 10 ppm/14 ipm in 24-bit color (both ratings at 200 dpi, portrait).

Another competitor is likely to be the recently announced Aficio IS330DC, from Ricoh, West Caldwell, NJ. Set for release in March, the IS330DC is a 36-bit color duplex scanner with a flatbed and a 50-sheet ADF, and it will be priced at less than $5,000. It will reportedly run at 13 ppm in color and 38 ppm bitonally (though no other speed or resolution information was available at press time).

As organizations discover more and more applications for color - such as Web delivery, automated document ID and document archiving - users will increasingly switch between color and bitonal scanning settings. This change is handled manually on the 4750C, but Fujitsu says it is looking into the possibility of automating the switch with barcodes or patch codes.

We were impressed overall with the 4750C. It is a versatile scanner offering impressive bitonal speed and high-quality images in bitonal, grayscale and color. If you're handling forms processing or text recognition, this scanner delivers the higher-resolution images these applications sometimes demand. The 4750C is not a speed demon when it comes to color, but this affordable scanner will give many users what they want - a fast bitonal scanner with color as an option.

Dunord Board Speeds Color

If you are looking for even faster color speed from Fujitsu's fi-4750C, board designer Dunord, Montreal, has developed a special video interface card called the I-3320-1. Dunord says the card increases the scanner's color speed to 17 ppm/34 ipm at 200 dpi while bitonal speeds shift to 49 ppm/102 ipm at 200 dpi. The supplier packages the I-3320-1 interface, a PCI card, cable, drivers and a scan-to-file utility for $1,995. For more information, call 514-284-3123 or visit www.dunord.com.