The Alaris S2050 Scanner ($895), a new member in Kodak's S2000 series of desktop document scanners, provides solid speed and a host of workflow and image-processing features. It includes a revamped software suite combining a time-honored scan utility with a new scanning and document-management program that uses indexing to help you easily locate scanned documents. It offers a good mix of features and performance, although there are similarly featured scanners that offer better value.

Design and Features

Measuring 7.2 by 12.3 by 8 inches (HWD) when closed, the S2050 is a typical size for a desktop document scanner of its caliber. It weighs 7.2 pounds, matching the size and weight of the Alaris S2070 Scanner . Its 80-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) is typical of a midrange desktop scanner.

Saying that the S2050 is the low-end model of the series is like saying that a certain car is this year's lowest-priced BMW. You will pay a bit of a premium for it over similarly equipped scanners, and although not all Kodak Alaris scanners earn our Editors' Choice, I do anticipate above-average quality from them, and on that, the S2050 delivers. That said, its specifications are more modest than the other S2000-series scanners.

The two wired scanners in the group, the S2050 and the S2070, connect via USB, while the S2060w and the S2080w add both Ethernet and Wi-Fi. The S2050 supports a recommended daily volume of 5,000 pages, the S2060w and the S2070, 7,000 pages, and the S2080w, 8,000 pages. Likewise, the S2050 has the lowest-rated speed of the group. (More on how fast it is can be found below.)

The controls, built into the S2050's front right edge, include a small (1.5-inch) color LCD that shows the currently selected scanner profile, and lets you toggle between scanner profiles using up- and down-arrow keys. When paired with the Info Input Express Limited Edition software that I discuss below, that program's current scan profile is identified on the screen by name and icon. (The default profiles are Color PDF, Black and White PDF, Auto Color Searchable PDF, Color JPEG, Black and White Multipage TIFF, and Scan to Email, although they can be changed, and new ones added.) In addition to the arrow keys, buttons include power, scan (which looks like the play button on a TV remote), and stop (identified with an X). Although you can launch a scan from a scan utility, the Windows taskbar, or from programs that have Scan commands, you can also launch scans directly from the scanner by using these buttons.

The S2050 in the Workplace

The S2000 series is largely aimed at vertical markets such as healthcare, government, banking, insurance, education, and transportation. It can scan a wide variety of records, as well as ID cards and other hard cards, and—when paired with the Alaris Passport Utility—passports.

Like most midrange desktop document scanners, the S2050 doesn't have a built-in flatbed, but you can add one as an external accessory, with both legal-size ($495) and A3/tabloid-size ($1,400) versions available. In addition, for scanning passports and other small or fragile documents, for instance, the company offers its Passport Utility ($495), which is attached to the bottom of the scanner in the photo below.

The scanners use embedded image processing, rather than relying on computers to handle the task. The S2050 includes a single-core processor, while the S2070's is dual-core. These models also have a good set of workflow, convenience, security, and quality-improvement features. Perfect Page technology automatically brings to bear more than 30 functions to sharpen and clean images. The scanner also has features for minimizing jams, catching misfeeds, and protecting documents from folding or ripping.

Setup and Software

Setup is an easy enough process, consisting of extending the feeder and output trays, plugging the scanner in and turning it on, connecting it to your computer's USB port using the included cable, and either downloading the software from the Kodak Alaris site via the instructions in the quick-start guide or installing it from the included disk. In back of the scanner are a thumb-drive-style USB 2.0 port as well as a USB 3.0 port (which also fits USB 2.0 scanner plugs). Even though the scanner supports up to USB 3.1, the included cable is a standard USB 2.0 cable. However, based on my testing, you needn't rush out and buy a USB 3.0 scanner cable, as it doesn't provide any real speed advantage.

The Alaris S2050's software bundle consists of drivers (Twain, WIA, and ISIS) for launching scans from within programs, and two scanning applications. Kodak Alaris's Info Input Express is a web-based scanning interface, document-indexing, and archiving program. Alaris Capture Pro is an updated version of Kodak Capture Pro, which we have seen on many previous scanners. According to Kodak Alaris, Alaris Capture Pro is best for batch-scanning of long documents, while Info Input Express is best for frequent scans of relatively short documents.

Like other scanning software, Info Input Express allows you to set the parameters of your profiles, such as resolution, color/grayscale/black-and-white, destination, and file type (say, for example, image or searchable PDF). It goes beyond most scan utilities in its document-management abilities. For one thing, it lets you index the documents you scan by assigning keywords, setting up database-indexing fields prior to scanning, and cataloging the scanned documents so you can easily locate them later.

Solid Searchable PDF Scan Speed

In testing the S2050's raw scanning speed—the time spent actually scanning the pages, and excluding any warmup time before the paper starts feeding and processing time before the file is saved—I clocked it at 55.5 pages per minute (ppm) for one-sided scanning, and 111 images per minute (ipm) for two-sided scanning, wherein each side of a page counts as one image. This is a tad higher than Kodak Alaris's rated speeds of 50ppm and 100ipm.

When scanning to image PDF format (200dpi, black-and-white), it turned in speeds of 33.3ppm and 58.8ppm, slower than its rated speeds but at least losing little time in scanning and saving two-sided documents over one-sided pages. These speeds are predictably slower than the faster-rated Alaris S2070, which we timed at 63.5ppm and 117ipm. Two scanners with the same rated speeds as the S2050 turned in slightly faster scores, the HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow 5000 s4 Sheet-Feed Scanner at 43ppm for simplex and 79ipm for duplex scanning, and the Epson WorkForce DS-760 Color Document Scanner, at 42ppm and 83ipm. The Editors' Choice Xerox DocuMate 6440, rated at a higher 60ppm for simplex and 120ppm for duplex scanning, managed 40ppm and 77.9ipm.

See How We Test Scanners

When I scanned the same 25-page, 50-image document to searchable PDF format, which for many businesses is the preferred format for document archiving, it turned in a time of 1 minute, 7 seconds, a respectable time and just 16 seconds longer than it took to scan the same two-sided document to image PDF. That's a tad slower than the Xerox 6440's 1:03, and much slower than the Alaris S2070 (37 seconds) and the HP 5000 s4 ($798.90 at Amazon) (45 seconds), but faster than the Epson DS-760 ($1,199.99 at Amazon) (1:15). Note that all my timings here for the S2050 were made over the included USB 2.0 cable. I also tested the S2050 with USB 3.0, using a cable I acquired and a USB 3.0 connection to our testbed, but the speeds were not appreciably different than with USB 2.0. If you get the S2050, I don't see a compelling reason to invest in a USB 3.0 scanner cable.

In our optical character recognition (OCR) testing, the S2050 fared reasonably well, reading both our Times New Roman and Arial test pages at sizes as small as 8 points without a mistake. It did well with some of our nonstandard test fonts, only occasionally getting stumped.

A Nice Mix of Features and Performance

The Alaris S2050 Scanner lacks some of the speed, processing power, and durability of the Alaris S2070, though it has most of its big brother's features and is a solid performer while coming in at $300 less; choosing between the two is a matter of how much you're willing to spend for the added perks of the more expensive model. It includes Info Input Express scanning and document-management software, as well as a new version of the Capture Pro scan utility that we've seen in other Alaris and Kodak scanners. The S2050 is expandable, with two sizes of flatbed as well as a passport scanning utility available. Choosing between it and the S2070 is going to depend how much you're willing to spend for the added perks of the more expensive model.

Looking outside of this series, the Xerox DocuMate 6440 ($499.00 at Amazon) , our Editors' Choice document scanner for up to heavy-duty scanning in a small office or workgroup, showed comparable speeds in our testing, has similar features but better OCR results, and costs just a little more than half if what the S2050 runs. You just have to be willing to sacrifice expandability and embedded image processing.

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