Canon imageFORMULA DR-C130 review

In an age of multifunction printers which provide all of the basic needs of a small office, sometimes the needs of the space-restricted business person on the move seem to be more neglected. You may have been handed some documents or graphics you require for a presentation or that have to be e-mailed at short notice and you don't have the ability to cart even a medium-sized MFP around with you.

At times like this, what would be ideal would be a compact scanner that would do the workload fast and yet be light and highly portable. So this is where Canon's new range of imageFORMULA scanners come into their own and I managed to lay my hands on the DR-C130.

It only weighs 1.8Kg and in its fully shut-up state measures just 298 x 160 x 160mm - i.e. perfect for popping in a suitcase or back seat of a car. Once in position it unfurls so that the front panel becomes the feeder tray and the hidden panel underneath drops down to be the output tray - very neat indeed.

After that you simply drop in the pages you want to scan, choose between single scan and multiple scan, install the software and away you go. Attach to the PC via USB lead and then it's up to you what you want to do with the data. Canon's impressive CaptureOn Touch programme not only lets you scan documents to e-mails and PDF files but also lets you access Cloud services like Google Docs, Evernote and Share Point.

In addition, CapturePerfect, BizCard, OmniPage, PaperPort, eCopy PDF Pro Office and Kofax VRS are all part of the included bundled software. Scanning at 600dpi resolution, the DR-C130 comes with duplex scanning as standard and the front feeder capacity of 50 sheets of A4 width and up to 3000mm length.

Canon claim print speeds up to 30ppm for both black and white and colour documents and in practice I achieved around 28ppm which is still pretty impressive. Even with a stack of bills of different sizes, I was pleasantly surprised at not having any paper jams - although there's a quick-release mechanism at the front to keep things moving if in trouble.

While Canon's official release price for the DR-C130 was £605, there are already offers of around £415 circling on the Web and as such is strongly worth considering as a lightweight, swift and versatile accessory to any small office or travelling business person.


Score: 4/5