Canon’s imageFormula DR-S250N ($895) is a medium-volume workgroup document scanner that’s both fast and accurate. It’s an updated version of the Canon imageFormula DR-S150, with higher scan speeds and a larger peak daily duty cycle. It also replaces the DR-S150’s LCD screen with a bright OLED screen, though in doing so, the control panel becomes much smaller and mostly text-based. The DR-S250N isn’t quite full-featured or innovative enough to earn an Editors' Choice award for small-office and workgroup document scanners. Still, its fast speeds, driverless operation with networked devices, and document-conversion abilities could make it a top choice for many office environments.

Design: A Familiar Size and Shape

Like other medium-volume desktop document scanners, the DR-S250N is relatively compact in size when closed, but increases in length by two or three times when fully opened. The DR-S250N measures 9.5 by 11.5 by 10.5 inches (HWD) closed and weighs 7.5 pounds. That’s a near match to the DR-S150. It’s a bit bulkier (but also a bit lighter) than our top recommendation in this category, the Brother ADS-4900W, which measures 9.2 by 11.6 by 7.0 inches and weighs 7.8 pounds. Both the DR-S250N and DR-S150 have 60-sheet automatic document feeders (ADF), while the slightly smaller Brother ADS-4900W hosts a larger 100-sheet ADF.

The DR-S250N is rated at 50 one-sided pages per minute (ppm) and 100 two-sided images per minute (ipm), where each page side is an image. That’s a small but noticeable improvement over the DR-S150’s rated 45ppm and 90ipm (duplex) speeds. The DR-S250N also raises the peak daily duty cycle compared with the DR-150, from 4,000 sheets to 6,000 sheets. While those improvements are welcome, they still fall short of the Brother ADS-4900W, which has rated scan speeds of 60 ppm/120ipm and a peak daily duty cycle of 9,000 sheets.

(Credit: Canon)

Like the DR-S150, the DR-S250N doesn’t have a dedicated USB port for saving your scans to a thumb drive. Not every workgroup document scanner has that port, as the assumption may be that you’ll always want to save the scans to your network or a web-based destination. If you think you might need onboard storage for either convenience or security-related reasons, the Brother ADS-4900W does have that USB port, as do many other models.

In its promotional materials, Canon points out that the new OLED screen enhances usability over the previous LCD screen by offering wider viewing angles, improved brightness, and better contrast. That’s certainly true, though the screen on the DR-S250N is very small compared with similar models. Canon doesn’t provide the specs on the OLED screen’s size, though I measured it at about 1.3 inches high and 1.1 inches wide. While it may be the best-looking 1.3-by-1.1-inch screen you’ll ever see, that’s still quite small. If you have to put on reading glasses for smaller text (no matter how bright or well-defined), you may want to steer away from this model.

(Credit: Canon)

Because the OLED screen is not touch-enabled, the DR-250N control panel includes an array of navigation buttons. You'll find up and down keys to select a particular job or menu setting, a key to return to the last position on the menus, and a key to return to the home menu. Start, Stop, and OK buttons round out the controls. It’s essentially what control-panel interfaces used looked like before color touch screens became the new standard. Is it a throwback in time? Yes, though once you become used to the menu structure, it’s just as clear and manageable as the icon-based interfaces that are popular today.

Like the DR-S150, the DR-S250N lets you create and store as many as 99 job profiles. A job profile can include the color mode, page size, scanning sides, output destination, and file-naming rules. You could route one type of scan directly to a password-protected printer. Another might go to a department head’s email address, while also being saved to that department’s network folder. You can assign a job number, scan quality, and file format to each job. And all job profiles are available on the scanner itself, with the menus distinguishing between those that were created and saved on the scanner and those that were created and saved on a connected computer. Overall, it’s a comprehensive workflow system that could be very useful for large organizations.

Quick and Simple Connections

Canon offers a wide variety of ways to connect your devices with the DR-S250N. Along with a USB 3.2 port for tethering directly to a single PC, you'll find a gigabit Ethernet port for access across a local network, though the DR-S250N doesn’t support Wi-Fi connectivity.

It does have robust network functionality, though, even without installing anything. The scanner’s built-in CaptureOnTouch Lite Web allows other devices to control the scanner’s functions through a simple browser-based interface. For mobile phones or tablets, that browser-based interface is especially easy to tap into. You can display a QR code on the DR-S250N’s high-contrast OLED screen and use that to launch the control interface without having to install a dedicated app. Similarly, you could directly access the scanner from your internet-connected PC using the scanner’s web address without having to install any drivers or software. The available functions are limited, but no more so than you might find with similar-purposed mobile apps.

(Credit: Canon)

To access a more comprehensive set of functions and features, you’ll need to install the provided software on a computer that’s connected to the DR-S250N via a USB cable or wired LAN connection. The installed software includes the CaptureOnTouch V5 Pro application, as well as a Canon imageFormula Driver Setting Tool, system configuration utility, and user manual. While installing the CaptureOnTouch V5 Pro application, you’ll have the option of selecting various output modules. Currently, those modules include Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Microsoft SharePoint, as well as the more generic Printer, Mail, and FTP.

The output modules will appear on the CaptureOnTouch V5 Pro home screen, where they can simplify the scanning process with preselected settings for file type, naming rules, and destination. As you would expect, you can modify any of the modules to suit your particular needs. For example, you might have three different Dropbox modules labeled for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, that differ only in their file type.

(Credit: Canon)

The available file types are PDF (*.pdf), JPG (*.jpg), TIFF (*.tif), PNG (*.png), DOCX (*.docx), PPTX (*.pptx), XLSX (*.xlsx), and BMP (*.bmp). That’s a wide range of file formats for a desktop document scanner, which could be a real plus for organizations that frequently have to convert documents from one file type to another.

One nice touch: A side panel lets you quickly create a shortcut from scratch, though you can move that side panel out of the way when it’s not needed. To get the panel back, just click the small “<” icon on the otherwise-sparse top menu bar.

Overall, the CaptureOnTouch V5 Pro software is easy to use, with recognizable icons and concise labels. It’s simple enough for anyone to master, while also allowing the kind of under-the-hood settings that may be needed to meet highly specific corporate or departmental requirements.

Testing the Canon DR-S250N: Rapid Response

As previously mentioned, the DR-S250N has scan speeds that are rated at 50ppm (simplex) and 100ipm (duplex). That’s a big step up from the 40ppm/80ipm rated speeds that we’ve seen with many other medium-volume document scanners, including the Brother ADS-3100, the Brother ADS-4300N, the Fujitsu Image Scanner fi-800R, the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600, and the Ricoh fi-8040. However, it’s still a notch below the Brother ADS-4900W, which is rated at an even more impressive 60ppm/120ipm.

In our stopwatch tests, the DR-S250N performed slightly better than its rated speeds. This model was able to scan our 25-page single-sided document at 51.1ppm and our 25-page (50-image) duplex document at 101.5ipm. I used CaptureOnTouch V5 Pro to initiate the scans over a USB connection to our Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro.

(Credit: Canon)

Fast scan speeds are great, especially when working with large documents, but just how accurate are these faster scans? The DR-S250N was able to convert printed pages to error-free editable text all the way down to 6 points on our Arial (sans-serif) and Times New Roman (serif) font tests. That’s fairly typical these days for high-quality desktop document scanners. And you’re unlikely to encounter text smaller than 10 points in most real-world business documents. If you do need OCR accuracy beyond that, you might consider the Epson DS-530 II. It proved accurate down to 4 points with Arial and 5 points with Times New Roman.

I had no difficulties when scanning a variety of documents with the DR-S250N. There were no jammed pages or misaligned scans. The input tray was especially easy to load with documents of varying size and thickness, and you can quickly adjust the output tray to various positions, so that it doesn’t have to extend any further than necessary.

Verdict: A Formidable Mix of Features

The Canon imageFormula DR-S250N offers fast scanning without sacrificing OCR accuracy. And while it doesn’t have Wi-Fi connectivity, it does have other state-of-the-art technologies. The unit’s bright OLED screen can display a high-contrast QR code that makes it easy to connect this model to your phone or tablet. And the built-in CaptureOnTouch Lite Web can provide direct access to almost any browser-based device that’s on the same network.

As good as it is, the DR-S250N doesn't replace the Brother ADS-4900W as our Editors' Choice pick for network-connected office scanners. As previously indicated, the Brother ADS-4900W has faster scan speeds, a larger ADF, and a more substantial peak daily duty cycle. And as of this writing, it’s also less expensive than the DR-S250N.

The DR-S250N does have an unusual mix of features that may be enough to tip the balance for many potential buyers. Its support for a wide range of file formats, as well as its ability to create detailed workflow profiles, would make it an especially good pick for large offices and workgroups. And its QR-code launch and browser-based connectivity could be a real asset for ad hoc time-critical scans.