HP - Scanjet N8460

Unlike most modern desktop scanners, which tend to be small and sleek, the Scanjet N8460 is a huge and far from elegant device. But then it's made that way for a reason. The reason being that it's designed to capture hundreds of documents a day, as part of a high volume document management system.

There are two components: a huge (legal size) 600dpi flatbed colour scanner with, on top, an equally large automatic document feeder (ADF). This can be loaded with up to 100 sheets at a time and will reliably handle a wide variety of paper types and weights. Jams can still occur, though, so there's also an ultrasonic double-feed detector to let you know if more than one sheet starts to be pulled in at once.

Capable of scanning in both monochrome and 48-bit colour, the N8460 is rated to handle up to 1,500 documents a day - much, much, more than cheaper devices. It's also a lot quicker. Actual throughput will depend on the type of document being scanned, selected resolution and file format, but typical A4, black and white documents can be scanned at 200dpi and saved as TIFF files at an impressive 35ppm. The N8460 can also scan both sides at once, effectively doubling that to 70 sides per minute.

To connect to a PC there's a USB 2.0 port on the side and plenty of space at the front for the LCD display and a set of controls for walk-up operation. All the usual buttons to start and stop scans are to be found here, along with a customisable set of Quick Start buttons to apply user-defined scan profiles to, for example, scan to a PDF or editable Word document, e-mail application or SharePoint server.

Everything needed to drive the scanner is included in the box, starting with HP's Windows-based Smart Document Scan Software (SDSS). An ISIS-based application, this lets you operate the scanner remotely to scan to a variety of graphics and text formats. Readiris Pro OCR software is also included to generate editable text, and ScanSoft PaperPort to file and manage the documents produced.

Added to which you can re-size, straighten and crop documents as they're scanned, re-order and rotate pages and generally enhance the content using Kofax VirtualReScan (VRS).

We had very few problems putting it all together, although it does take a while to get used to the way the various tools work, and new operators will need basic training. On the plus side, the Quick Start buttons help automate repetitive procedures while the inclusion of ISIS and Twain drivers makes it possible to integrate the Scanjet N8460 with larger document management applications.

It all works as it should and there's no doubting the capabilities of this HP scanner. But if you're only going to scan in a few documents a day the price is hard to justify and cheaper devices are likely to be just as good. The fact that it doesn't have an Ethernet interface for network sharing could also be an issue. However, it compares well on price and functionality against other high volume scanners and, if looking at those, is well worth considering.
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