News

DataMaster Lab’s online comparison service DataMaster Online(DMO) has provided subscribers in the digital imaging industry with sales-enablement information since 2009.  

DMO helps subscribers make more sales, faster – and to retain margin!

 
 

In addition to the 6000 copiers and printers and presses already in our database, there are now hundreds of scanners too, from compact personal devices right up to the huge million-a-month mailroom machines.  Kodak, Fujitsu, Canon, Epson, HP Inc., Brother, Xerox/Visioneer and Panasonic – all the brands’ scan products are in DMO.

Subscribers to DataMaster Online can use all the comparison tools – the Smart, the Winner – all these now work for scanners too.  You can download them in pdf or excel format.

 

We have tested a lot of machines, and as usual, we have discovered strengths – and weaknesses – that even the manufacturers did not know about.  Many of these will come as a surprise to product managers and sales teams too. 

 

For example, the time it takes a scanner to compress and OCR an image of one of our test originals (64 sides of color text and graphics) can take just 5 seconds for one brand – but fully 1 minute and 45 seconds for another!  The same original, same computer (a new, standard PC) …. 
 

And yet, when we brought this to the attention of the manufacturers, they had no idea.

This end-to-end productivity we call “overall efficiency.”

We have been testing the scanners on photocopiers since 2009 – and we can apply exactly the same tests to scanners.  Subscribers to DataMaster Online can compare the results from scanners and photocopiers side by side.

 

Check out the DataMaster Online suite of scan quality tests.  In the office world, and looking beyond speed, two things are really important: scan quality for OCR, and file sizes.  We are very thorough, and our scientific approach has paid off:  we have found huge variations across the market on these areas too.  A couple of brands’ office machines are simply not able to discern texts from complex or saturated backgrounds – however much one changes settings, even in the driver.  OCR will not work on these images.  
 

DataMaster Online scan quality results show up to 5 stars for the quality of the image, and we show the relative file sizes too.  You can compare quality / file size ratios.  

This helps calculate how much disk space (locally, or on the cloud) – and, crucially, can help you avoid scanning to files that are just too small to be useful.  

 

The software which manages the scanner usually resides on a PC, typically connected by a USB cable.  We are seeing more and more machines which can process and transmit scans all by themselves, but most still need a PC.  Job set up is done on the PC.  Some PC apps are so complicated that users need a week of training just to run a scan.  These apps are incredibly powerful, but their features are perhaps way over the heads of the average user.  Most brands’ scan apps are really easy to use.
 

DataMaster Online’s scanner radar chart shows usability.  It also lets you see at a glance how different machines handle originals, their overall efficiency, scan quality, file sizes, features and connectivity.

 

Ask us for a free trial by clicking here!