The i1190 Scanner ($795) from Kodak Alaris is a capable document scanner that's a good choice for businesses with existing document management solutions. Unlike many similar scanners, which display one-touch scan profiles by number, the i1190 ( at Amazon) also lists the profile's name, making it easier to switch between profiles.
Design and Features
At 9.7 by 13 by 6.3 inches (HWD), the 7-pound i1190 is easy enough to fit on most desks. The scanner's automatic document feeder (ADF) holds up to 75 sheets, supports duplex scanning, and can scan both business cards and thickplastic cards in addition to paper documents. The i1190 has a maximum daily duty cycle of 5,000 pages, more than three times that of the Canon imageFormula DR-C225 ($497.28 at Amazon) , our Editors' Choice light-duty document scanner for a small office.
In form and features, the i1190 is very similar to the Kodak i2420 Scanner ($999.99 at Amazon) , but the i1190 uses a different scanning technology, CMOS-based contact image sensors (CIS), rather than the CCD sensors found in the i2420 and most sheet-fed scanners. A benefit of CIS is reduced power consumption and cost of ownership; the i1190 uses no more than 21 watts when scanning, while the i2420 can use up to 32 watts.
To the right of the i1190's sheet feeder is a four-line, color LCD with four controls: a Power button, along with up, down, and right arrows. The up and down arrows are used to navigate through a series of nine preset, customizable scan profiles. Many document scanners offer a similar scheme, but unlike most, the i1190 also displays the names of the profiles. By default, they are Color PDF, Black and White PDF, Black and White RTF, Color JPG, Black and White Single-page TIFF, Black and White Multi-Page TIFF, Email Black and White PDF, Custom Color PDF, and Custom Color File(s).
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You can configure and even rename the profiles from within the Smart Touch utility, which you can launch by right-clicking an icon in your Windows taskbar. The right-arrow button is a one-touch control to launch a scan when you have entered your desired profile. The i1190's display is larger than the one found on the i2420, which identifies the profiles only by number. In testing, I launched scans from both the one-touch button and the Smart Touch utility; the advantage of doing so from the utility is that you can see all 9 scan profiles and names at once.
Software
Software for the i1190, at least for Windows users, is limited to drivers (TWAIN, ISIS, WIA), and scanning and image-capture utilities (Smart Touch and Kodak Capture Pro). It lacks Nuance PaperPort 14 and OmniPage 18, two highly rated programs for document management and optical character recognition (OCR), respectively, found in the Kodak i2420, an Editors' Choice scanner that is otherwise very similar to the i1190. Many companies seeking a scanner of this caliber will already have a preferred document-management system in place, and will not need these bundled programs. In a rare reversal of the all-too-common situation in which Mac users are offered a paltry selection of software, they get more than Windows users with the i1190. Programs include the Newsoft Presto! PageManager document-management program as well as Newsoft Presto Presto! BizCard Xpress, in addition to a Twain driver, with the i1190, although the Kodak Smart Touch scan utility is Windows-only.
Launched along with the i1190 is the Kodak i1190e, which is essentially the same scanner except that for a little more money it embeds some image-processing functions, traditionally handled by software, in its hardware. Kodak Alaris has been moving towards thin-client solutions that require less software on a PC in favor of web-based and browser-based scanning solutions, and embedding some image-processing capabilities in the scanner itself is in line with that goal.
Performance
In scanning our standard 25-sheet test document to image PDF format, I timed the i1190—rated at 40 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex (one-sided) scanning and 80 images per minute (ipm) for duplex scanning—at 34.9ppm and 67ipm for simplex and duplex scanning, respectively. These are very close to the speeds (34ppm for simplex and 69ipm for duplex) at which we clocked the Kodak i2420, which has the same rated speeds. The Canon imageFormula DR-C240 ($596.00 at Amazon) , rated at 45ppm and 90ipm, turned in speeds of 40ppm and 79ipm. These official timings include the time between when you launch the scan and when the paper starts moving, and the time spent saving the document after the scanning is done. The i1190's raw scanning speed—the time spent in scanning the document—effectively matched its rated scan speeds for both simplex and duplex.
In scanning and saving the same 25-page, 50-image document to searchable PDF (sPDF) format, the i1190 averaged 1 minute 34 seconds, which essentially ties it with the Kodak i2420 (1:31). It's a good time for a document scanner, although well off the pace of the Canon DR-C240, which scanned and saved the same document to sPDF in a mere 47 seconds. If speed in scanning to searchable PDF, which for many businesses is the preferred format for document archiving, is paramount, the Canon DR-C240 is a better choice than either the i1190 or the i2420. The Epson WorkForce DS-760 ($1,244.69 at Amazon) was also faster than the Kodak scanners, averaging 1:15.
OCR
Using the OCR function built into the Smart Touch utility, the i1190 fared well in scanning to RTF format. It read text without error as small as 6 points with Arial and 8 points with Times New Roman. Its performance was less consistent with some of the nonstandard fonts in our suite, but that's not unusual.
Conclusion
Priced at about $50 less than the Kodak i2420, the Kodak i1190 Scanner performs nearly identically to that Editors' Choice model, which has a similar feature set. The extra software included with the i2420 makes it better for businesses that lack document-management software but still need a high-caliber desktop scanner, and for this versatility it retains its Editors' Choice, but by a hair. Companies that don't need these programs can get the advantage of named scan profiles with the i1190. Overall, the Kodak i1190 is a very capable machine that should be easy to integrate into a company's document management workflow.
The Kodak i1190 Scanner is a capable desktop scanner for medium-duty use that displays the names of one-touch scan profiles, rather than just their numbers.
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