Canon ImageFormula DR-C125 review

Canon's new ImageFormula DR-C125 is an A4 document scanner designed for the desktop of anyone who needs regularly to capture multiple-page documents. With a dedicated host PC, it would also be at home serving low-volume demands in a workgroup. It has a remarkably small footprint that's no bigger than a typical VoIP desk phone, achieved with what Canon says is a unique vertical 'J' paper path.

Sheet-fed scanners don't come all that much cheaper than the DR-C125, but the new ImageFormula's specifications are better than you might expect at the price. It's a duplex colour device with a 600dpi optical resolution, ultrasonic sensors for detecting when more than one sheet has been fed into the scanner (known as ultrasonic double-feed detection) and a reasonable 1,500-page daily duty cycle – plenty for the intended application. It's rapid, too, with a claimed 25 page-per-minute and 50 image-per-minute maximum speed.

Canon has clearly worked hard to make the DR-C125 as easy as possible to share desk space with.

Canon has clearly worked hard to make the DR-C125 as easy as possible to share desk space with. The upright design includes clips for tidying up excess cable lengths, and the shallow footprint means it can sit unobtrusively behind other items on a desk – although the extending paper guides atop the input tray mean that you can't quite place it flush against a wall or partition at the back.

Depending which font you're thinking of, we'd say that the scanner's paper path is more 'U' than 'J' shaped. Sheets are pulled through a conventional input and pass through a 180-degree turn with a radius of about an inch before being deposited in the output tray, which lies parallel to the input. There's a flip-switch to enable a straight path for special media, but the 60-degree tray angle means that this is only truly straight when the scanner is placed at the very front edge of a surface, allowing paper to fall to the floor.