Positioned between the Editors' Choice Kodak i3250 and the highly capable Kodak i3500, the Kodak i3300 Scanner ($4,495) is one of Kodak Alaris' i3000 series of heavy-duty, high-volume document scanners. Like several of its siblings, the i3300 quickly and accurately scans one-and two-sided documents up to tabloid-size (11-by-17 inches) and beyond. Compared with some other document scanners we've tested, it's a bit slow when scanning to searchable PDF, but not enough so to detract from its suitability for midsize-to-large document-management systems. That makes it a highly sensible choice—and our new top pick—as a wide-format high-volume document scanner for large workgroups and medium-size offices.
Big and Capable
Unlike the Kodak i3250, the i3300 ($4,495.00 at Amazon) doesn't come with a flatbed scanner, but you can add either a legal-size ($495) or tabloid-size ($1,400) one as an accessory, via USB cable to the same PC connected to the i3300. As with the Kodak i3400, which also lacks a flatbed scanner, what makes the two add-ons accessories rather than standalone scanners is that you can't use them unless you also have the i3300 (or another supported scanner) installed on the computer.
At 9.4 by 17 by 14.6 inches (HWD) with its trays closed and weighing 35 pounds, the i3300 is the same size and weight as the Kodak i3400 and i3500. It's slightly shorter and four pounds lighter than the Kodak i3250 and i3450 ($7,035.85 at Amazon) . All of them are about the same size as a small all-in-one printer. Another top pick, the Panasonic KV-S5076H, stands about four inches taller, three inches longer, and seven pounds heavier than the i3300.
Similar Products
The i3300 has a daily duty cycle of 17,500 pages, which is 2,500 pages higher than the Kodak i3250 ($3,670.00 at Amazon) , 2,500 pages lower than the Kodak i3400, and 7,500 pages lower than the Kodak i3500. The Panasonic KV-S5076H ($4,499.99 at Amazon) , on the other hand, is good for a whopping 35,000 pages per day.
Like most of the other i3000 series models, the i3300 has an automatic document feeder that holds up to 250 sheets of 20-pound paper; the Kodak i3500 holds up to 300 sheets. Many of the i3000 series models have two paper paths, one that curls the page upward and sends it to the top of the device (its output bed), and another straight-through path that sends scanned documents out through a slot on the back of the chassis onto your desktop. The straight-through path allows you to scan thicker, card-stock-like originals, as well as longer pages (in Long Document mode) up to 160 inches long.
Features abound on the i3300, including ultrasonic feed detection, which Kodak Alaris calls Intelligent Document Protection, that actually listens for the beginning sounds of an original starting to misfeed in in the paper path. At first signs of misfeed or a page about to be mutilated, the scanning mechanism shuts down.
For connectivity, the i3300's only option is USB 3.0 (which is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0). It supports nine resolutions between 100 dots per inch (dpi) and 600dpi, and you can save your scans to the following file formats: TIFF, JPEG, RTF, BMP, and image and searchable PDF. Much of this functionality—such as setting resolution and file formats—is handled through the bundled software, as are most other features (discussed in the next section).
Located on the right-front corner of the chassis, the i3300's control panel features an 18-characters-per-row, three-row monochrome LCD for displaying workflow profiles (defined from the accompanying software). It also has five buttons: Up and Down (for scrolling through profiles), Start (or Scan, to initiate scans), and Simplex (one-sided) and Duplex (two-sided) modes.
Easy Setup and Software
As big and formidable as the i3300 seems, it's surprisingly easy to install and put to work. Except for a few pieces of tape, packing material is minimal, and getting it up and running requires only a power brick and a USB cable (both of which are included). Installing the software, however, requires making a few choices, such as whether to use the scanner with Kodak Alaris' feature-rich Capture Pro Limited Edition program, or its easier-to-use Smart Touch interface utility. If your office or workgroup has an established document-management system, you can use that, too.
In addition, I ran into a small problem while installing the software. Though it said it was going to, the installation program would not install the Smart Touch scanning utility; after trying to get it to work twice, I had to find the program's setup files on the included disc and manually launch them—a remedy that, I suspect, not only are many users not comfortable with, but also one that some users may not even know about. But then, your IT staff will most likely install the i3300, and they shouldn't have a problem figuring this little snafu out.
In any case, I installed Smart Touch, and the install program successfully loaded Capture Pro Limited Edition, a stripped-down version of Kodak Alaris' highly capable scanning and imaging utility. Capture Pro Limited Edition is so feature-rich, in fact, that you might find yourself somewhat overwhelmed. The good news is that Smart Touch, while easy to use and fairly easy to configure, is also plenty capable enough to scan, correct (when necessary), and save your scans to useable file formats. Besides, if your organization already has a document-management system, all you really need is a way to get scans imaged, converted to the appropriate searchable text format (if your system doesn't already do that), and dropped into the appropriate folder on your network
That said, the Smart Touch interface consists of nine configurable menu options (i.e. Scan to PDF, Scan to Email, and so on) that reside in the Windows system tray. You can create and edit these options, which are shortcuts to workflow profiles that control resolution, destination, file format, and more. Unlike some other scanner front ends that support many profiles, however, Smart Touch supports only nine. (The Panasonic KV-S5076H, for instance, lets you create up to 100 profiles.) Still, for most offices and workgroups, nine is most likely plenty, and if not, they're very easy to reconfigure as needed.
Fast Scans, Slower Processing
Chances are that most buyers of this type of high-volume scanner will deploy it in an existing or custom document-management system, where, since most processing (converting scanned text to searchable text and indexing, for instance) takes place in the background, how fast it scans and processes them isn't critical—as long as it's fast enough to keep up with your workload. That said, the i3300 itself is fast, but the accompanying software is a little slow at converting scanned text to searchable PDF files. (I tested using Kodak Smart Touch software over USB 3.0 on our standard Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional. Note that the i3300's spec sheet recommends a 3.4GHz or higher Intel Core i7 CPU, which may contribute to the somewhat slow conversion to searchable PDF.)
Kodak Alaris rates the i3300 at 70 pages per minute (ppm) when scanning one-sided pages and 140 images per minute (or ipm, where each page side is considered an image) for two-sided pages. Without the lag time (the time between when the last page lands on the output tray and the software subsequently saves the file to a useable format), it managed 69.5ppm and 138.2ipm, which is very close to its ratings. When scanning and saving to image PDF, however, it slowed down to 50ppm and 93.8ipm. This is 10ppm and more than 20ipm slower than the Kodak i3500; the Kodak i3400 scored the same as the i3300 in Simplex mode and a bit over 10ipm faster in Duplex mode. Panasonic's KV-S5076H managed 57.6ppm and 106ipm in this part of our tests.
Where the i3300 really took a hit, though, was in scanning to searchable PDF. It scanned our two-sided, 25-page (50 images) document in 1 minute 9 seconds, which is 1 second slower than the Kodak i3500, and 39 seconds longer than it took to scan to image PDF. The Kodak i3400 was 8 seconds slower than the i3300. The Panasonic KV-S5076H, on the other hand, scanned, converted the text, and saved the file to searchable PDF in just 37 seconds, or 32 seconds faster than the i3300.
OCR Accuracy
Where the Kodak i3300 outperformed the other industrial-strength scanners discussed here is in converting scanned text to editable text, which in many business settings is much more preferable than brute scanning speed. Correcting errors can be a lot more time consuming than waiting a few more seconds for imaged text to be accurately transformed into searchable text.
That said, when scanning at both 200ppi and 300ppi resolutions, the i3300 converted our Arial and Times New Roman text pages without errors down to 6 points, compared with the Kodak i3400's and i3500's 8 points for both fonts. Unfortunately, we don't have accuracy numbers for the Panasonic KV-S5076H.
A Highly Accurate High-Volume Scanner
Frankly, aside from a somewhat high purchase price and slightly slow conversion to searchable PDF rate, there's little to dislike about the Kodak i3300 Scanner. And, as I said earlier, accuracy is more important than how fast a scanner's software saves a file. Combined with Kodak Alaris' easy-to-use, highly functional Smart Touch software and fast and durable hardware, this is an exceptional bulk-document scanner for medium-to-large offices and workgroups in need of accurate scanning of oversize documents, especially stacks of tabloid-size pages. If you need faster processing and saving to searchable text, however, the Panasonic KV-S5076H might be a better choice, though you'll pay a lot more for it.
In any case, the i3300 is faster, less expensive, and more accurate than several of its Kodak i3000 series siblings, and it lists for about $2,700 less than the Panasonic KV-S5076H. That's enough to nudge it into our Editors' Choice slot as a high-volume document scanner for midsize offices and large workgroups.
The Kodak i3300 is a fast, high-volume document scanner, and it comes with excellent full-featured scanning and processing software at a competitive price.
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Sign up for other newslettersAbout William Harrel
Former Contributing Editor
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