Review of the IRIScan Desk 6 Business Scanner

The IRIScan Desk 6 Business is an overhead book scanner with a multitude of functions for educating, presenting, and conducting online meetings.

IRISCAN DESK 6 BUSINESS SCANNER SPECS

The is one of the best overhead scanner we have looked at. Today, the Canon subsidiary provides three version 6 models, with the Desk 6 Business being the most powerful and versatile—it has the most memory and features, the largest scanning area, and, of course, the most expensive price ($449). It’s a far more capable machine than the Desk 5 Pro, and if you can afford it, it’s a fantastic overhead scanner for usage in corporate, educational, and enterprise environments.

Three of the best

Unlike IRIScan’s previous series, which only had two models, the Desk 5 and Desk 5 Pro, the sixth generation includes three: the Desk 6, the Desk 6 Pro (which will be reviewed soon), and the Desk 6 Business, which we are testing right now. Each is a little more durable (and a little more expensive) than the type below it. Even the entry-level Desk 6 is set up similarly to the pricier Desk 5 Pro.

The Desk 6 Business scanner is the top of the range, with a 32-megapixel (MP) camera lighted by six LEDs, compared to the Desk 6’s 12MP and 6 Pro’s 21MP cameras with four LEDs each. Both the Pro and Business models support pages up to A3 (tabloid or 11-by-17-inch) in size, and both contain buttons that allow you to scan directly from the scanner, rather than using the IRIScan software on a computer. However, the Desk 6 Business includes a foot pedal for scanning, freeing both hands to turn pages in books or place new content on the scanner.

The Desk 6 Business weighs 2.7 pounds and measures 5.9 by 15.8 by 12 inches (HWD), compared to 5.5 by 4.7 by 11.1 inches and 2.5 pounds for the Pro. There aren’t many overhead scanners to choose from, unlike standard desktop flatbed, sheet-fed, and portable document scanners; the IRIScan’s closest competitor is likely the.

In terms of technology, these gadgets are more akin to cameras than scanners. They just snap a photo instead of moving the scanning sensor over the source material or vice versa. The two 16-megapixel CMOS sensors on the Desk 6 Business can also capture video (with audio) at up to 30 frames per second, allowing you to utilize the device not only for live presentations but also to supplement distance and online learning. In other words, the scanner can not only digitize book and magazine pages but can also assist with presenting and instructing in a variety of situations thanks to a built-in microphone and support for Zoom and other online meetings.

Autofocus, bar code scanning, ID and passport scanning, business card scanning via the company’s Cardiris software and more are all included in the Business model. Instead of relying exclusively on the included software, it includes both a desktop button and a foot pedal for performing scans directly. (In a moment, we’ll take a closer look at the program.)

USB 2.0 is the only connection option for all three Desk 6 scanners. The USB port on the Business model is positioned at the bottom of the scanner/beam unit. A second USB port is available for scanning to thumb drives and other storage devices. The Desk 6 variants are all USB-powered and do not have built-in batteries, though the Business model does include an AC adapter for scanning to USB storage devices rather than a computer. Even if they are not utilizing the software, the others must be connected to a PC in order to use them. None of them provide wifi or mobile connectivity.

The daily duty cycle of the Desk 6 Business scanner is 5,000 pages, which is ten times that of its Desk 5 predecessors. It has a resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi), which is higher than the CZUR ET16 Plus’s 220dpi. As previously stated, the Desk 6 Business can also be used as a digital video camera, capable of recording movies with resolutions of up to 2,408 by 1,536 pixels, which you may use during live presentations or save for later editing and uploading.

The six LED lamps on the scan headlight up not only your content, but also you, the thing you’re presenting, or both. You also get automatic document detection, a self-timer for photographing at predetermined intervals (say, five seconds between turning pages), automatic de-skewing, cropping, and edge filling of damaged documents, and book digitization with artificial intelligence characteristics, according to IRIScan. Finger erasing, front and back cover identification, automatic page-turn detection, as well as de-skewing, cropping, and edge filling are among the features available.

Excellent Software from IRIScan

The IRIScan Desk scanner interface and document processing and management software, like their predecessors, support optical character recognition (OCR) in more than 130 languages, and the Desk 6 scanners owe much of their heavy-lifting prowess to the IRIScan Desk scanner interface and document processing and management software. JPG; picture, text, and searchable PDF; Microsoft Word and Excel; plain text; EPUB for ebooks; MP3; and WAV are among the output types.

The software’s automated edge detection assists in precisely positioning content by straightening it and transforming it to legible text in a matter of seconds. You may use it in conjunction with your webcam to make multi-camera videos, recording footage from both the scanner and the webcam at the same time. The Desk 6 Business is ideal for creating tutorials, e-learning videos, and correspondence courses because everything is recorded in the same video and played back on a single screen.

Despite the fact that the Desk 6 Business is far too powerful for scanning business cards, it comes with the Cardiris business card scanning and archiving software that comes standard with most IRIScan and Canon scanners. IRISPowerscan, which captures MRZ codes and exports metadata to XLS or structured XML files, and Readiris Corporate, which saves films in high-definition AVI, MP4, FLV, and WMV video formats, are two optional add-ons. (However, IRISPowerscan and Readiris Corporate cost more than $1,000 between them, and there’s a lot of overlap in capabilities between them and the bundled IRIScan Desk.)

OCR Accuracy and Scanning Speed

Although desktop buttons and foot pedals are convenient, the Desk 6 Business, its siblings, and competitors are all manual scanners that cannot automatically move from page to page or scan the flip sides of two-sided papers. You must turn the pages yourself, though you can set the gadget to scan every few seconds as you do so, as previously noted. I ran the scanner through IRIScan Desk on our regular Intel Core i5 testbed, which was running Windows 10 Pro.

The scanning speed of the Desk 6 Business is 1 page per second (PPS) or 60 pages per minute (ppm) according to IRIScan, however, keep in mind that this does not include the time it takes to alter the content or turn the pages of a book, magazine, or document. If each page takes a second to turn (as the program saves the scan and prepares the device for the next one), the throughput should be 30ppm.

In my experiments, the Desk 6 Business averaged roughly three seconds per page or 20ppm when converting a 25-page Microsoft Word document to an image PDF and saving the file. This is around 3ppm quicker than the Desk 5 Pro and more than double the speed of the CZUR ET16 Plus.

The IRIScan Desk program operated admirably, quickly transforming text. It scanned our Word document at 15ppm, converted it to searchable PDF, and saved it at roughly twice the speed of the Desk 5 Pro and ET16 Plus.

Scanning accuracy is far more critical than speed because rectifying errors quickly outweighs the time saved by utilizing a scanner and OCR. In our Arial and Times New Roman font testing, the Desk 6 Business was accurate down to 6 points, tying the Desk 5 Pro with Arial and defeating it by 8 points with Times New Roman. The CZUR was also 6-point Arial, but a disappointing 10-point Times New Roman.

Overall, these results are very competitive and more than acceptable for the OCR market today. I also scanned a few stacks of business cards into Cardiris and discovered that, like with other scanners, the software works perfectly as long as you stay away from cards with fancy designs and beautiful typefaces. Plain white or light-colored media with typical serif or sans-serif typefaces scan and populate database fields significantly faster than artistic business cards.

An Overhead Scanner for a Variety of Uses

Without a doubt, the IRIScan Desk 6 Business is two to three times the scanner that preceded it, the Desk 5 Pro. It has a 32MP camera, can print papers up to A3 size, has a desktop button as well as a floor pedal, and has a variety of software tools for automating and speeding up the process. Because of its audio and video capabilities, it’s great for educating, presenting, and holding remote meetings. The scanner, like the $449 price, is at the top of the class. The Desk 6 Business is our latest Editors’ Choice winner among overhead scanners due to the impossibility of finding another that matches its features and volume ratings.

IRIScan Desk 6 Business Scanner

The IRIScan Desk 6 Business is an overhead book scanner with a multitude of functions for educating, presenting, and conducting online meetings.

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