Image Access WideTEK CIS scanner Contex large format scanners

REVIEW:

Contex SD4490 large format scanner

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Speed

We measured the time it took to scan an A0 (E-size) sheet at 200 and 400 dpi from the clicking of the "scan" button to the SD4490's Nextimage software becoming available again after the scan.

We timed scans using normal mode, not Turbo, as it is our opinion that normal mode is the mode you would want to use if you were scanning technical drawings.

Our test PC was a 3.4GHz Pentium 4 with 1Gb RAM. This is the same PC that has been used for the speed measurements of all the scanners below with the exception of the Contex HD4230i, which was tested on a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 with 1Gb RAM.

  Image Access WideTEK 36 Contex SD4490 (1) Colortrac SmartLF Ci 40e (2) Graphtec CSX300 (3) Colortrac Cx 40e Contex HD4230i Graphtec CS600 (3)(4)
Black and white
200 dpi 7 sec 7 sec 13 sec 9 sec 13 sec 9 sec 33 sec
400 dpi 17 sec 12 sec 29 sec 17 sec 24 sec 10 sec 38 sec
Greyscale
200 dpi 7 sec 7 sec 10 sec 10 sec 13 sec 12 sec 32 sec
400 dpi 17 sec 20 sec 22 sec 21 sec 24 sec 27 sec 33 sec
24-bit Colour
200 dpi 7 sec 19 sec 19 sec 23 sec 36 sec 35 sec 40 sec
400 dpi 17 sec 63 sec 46 sec 68 sec 80 sec 105 sec 60 sec


(1) The specs of the PC used to time the scans are below Contex's recommended specs of a 1.66GHz Dual Core Processor, 2GB RAM, a 7200rpm SATA hard drive with 5GB free space and a high speed USB 2.0 interface.
(2) Timed using ScanWorks software which scans in greyscale even when you do a black and white scan. This confers a productivity benefit onto the scanner by allowing scan settings to be modified after scanning without a need to rescan.
(3) Timed using High Quality mode.
(4) Now replaced by the Graphtec CS610 and updated Scanning Master software which may scan faster.

Overall, the Contex SD4490 is the fastest large format scanner we have timed to date with the exception of the Image Access WideTEK. In black and white and greyscale it challenges the WideTEK on speed, although the WideTEK is still much faster in colour, at least on the tested PC configuration.

Points to note are:

  • The scanner we tested, the SD4490, is the top of the range scanner in the SD series. The only difference between it and other SD scanners is scan speed.

    The SD4410 and SD4450 have the same published black and white / greyscale scanning speed as the SD4490 and so are likely to match the speeds measured here when scanning in black and white and greyscale. The SD4430 has a slower published black and white / greyscale scanning speed.

    The SD4490 has the fastest published colour scanning speed of all the models in the SD scanner range, so other SD scanners are likely to scan slower than the speed measured here when scanning in colour.

  • Remember that raw scanner speed itself is only part of the speed equation. The length of time it takes to scan a drawing is also dependent on the type of drawings you are scanning and the capabilities of the scanning software you use.

Editor's note: Contex have asked us to point out that the PC we tested speed on is below their recommended specs of a 1.66GHz Dual Core Processor, 2GB RAM, a 7200rpm SATA hard drive with 5GB free space and a high speed USB 2.0 interface.

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