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Plustek SmartOffice PS286 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £321
inc VAT

Its speed and scan quality are OK, but flimsy build quality and buggy software count against the PS286.

Adding an automatic document feeder (ADF) to a scanner is a great way to capture multiple documents with a minimum of fuss, but the models we’ve tested have tended to be expensive. With a reputation for producing affordable products, Plustek has a chance to undercut the competition with its SmartOffice PS286 Plus.

Plustek SmartOffice PS286 closed

Things get off to a fairly good start. The PS286 Plus comes with several spare parts and a software package that includes optical character recognition (OCR), business card and image management applications. Although it’s not strictly aimed at use on the road, it’s also supplied with a hardwearing if gaudy soft carrying bag.

The PS286 Plus has a flip-up input tray with two sets of adjustable paper guides, and a fold down output tray. The latter feels sturdy but the input tray is made from a flimsy feeling silver plastic. We received a couple of unfriendly warnings when installing the drivers, and weren’t able to use the product’s configurable quick launch button without a ‘no supported application found’ error.

Plustek SmartOffice PS286

The TWAIN driver is easy to use, but you must manually select simplex or duplex scanning, colour or mono and so on. We received further driver warning messages during a multi-page duplex job, after which we discovered that a side of one sheet failed to scan and the auto-rotate hadn’t worked. Fujitsu’s ScanSnap scan manager software is far superior. The PS286 Plus feels too flimsy and its software is too poor for us to recommend it.

Details

Rating **

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview N/A
A4 document at 150dpi 10s
A4 document at 300dpi 16s
6x4in photo at 600dpi 17s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi N/A
Single 35mm negative at 2400dpi N/A
Single 35mm negative at max dpi N/A

Specifications

Scanner technology document scanner
Max optical resolution 600dpi
Max interpolated resolution 1,200dpi
Output bit depth 24-bit
Maximum document size A4/Letter
Maximum transparency size N/A
Film formats accepted No
Function buttons 3
Scan head lock none
USB powered no
Supported operating systems Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
Software included BizCard Finder 3, NewSoft Presto! PageManager, Presto! ImageFolio, ABBYY FineReader 6 Sprint Plus

Physical

USB cable included yes
Interface USB
Size 148x263x128mm
Weight 1.7kg
Power consumption standby 2W
Power consumption active 11W

Buying Information

Price £321
Supplier http://www.oyyy.co.uk
Details www.plustek.com

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