Reviews

Canon ImageFormula DR-6030C review

Canon's latest production scanner can do no wrong as Simon Handby discovers in our review.

18 Jan 2011

In landscape orientation, the scanner fed, ejected and processed a single A4 sheet in six seconds, slowing down only by fractions of a second as the resolution was increased. Connected via USB the pause between sheets depends on the host's speed and the options selected, but it's momentary for simplex jobs at 150dpi. With deskew disabled, we timed a stack of 100 sheets at six and a quarter minutes, suggesting that the scanner is quite happy to continue feeding as the driver processes previous pages.

We continued testing, feeding and refeeding the scruffiest media we could find, but we had no paper jams: we thus wouldn't expect them to be a regular occurence, but when they happen it's obvious how to open up the DR-6030C's central mechanism for removal. This is shaped like an 'L' lying on its back, allowing it to pivot up and out through 90 degrees to give brilliantly easy access to the whole paper path.

With a maximum resolution of 600dpi it's obvious that this scanner is optimised for documents, forms and other office work, but its image quality is surprisingly good. Scans are crisp even at the highest resolutions, and colours are faithful enough. Our only criticism is a slight loss of detail between subtly different, very light shades, but this simply isn't an issue for the intended use.