Plustek MobileOffice D430

The Plustek MobileOffice D430 is a portable sheetfed scanner that can simultaneously scan both sides of a two-sided document, and can scan ID and other plastic cards. Users can choose between 9 preset (and customizable) scanning destinations using simple push-button controls. As it lacks an automatic document feeder (ADF), the D430 is best for scanning loose paper, one-page (including two-sided) documents, and embossed plastic cards.

At 2.3 by 11.9 by 3.7 inches (HWD) and 2.1 pounds, the D430 is on the large and heavy side for a portable scanner, but it's still small enough (and light enough,) to be reasonably portable or to serve as a light-duty desktop scanner. It comes with a power adapter and a USB cord for connecting to a computer.

It can scan plastic cards up to 1.2mm thick, including embossed cards, credit cards, driver's licenses, ID cards, and the like. Plustek sees the D430 as primarily for vertical markets such as healthcare and banking, at admissions desks, nursing stations, bank teller stations, and other situations needing a small scanner that can scan plastic cards.

Operation
By sliding a plastic panel in back of the scanner up or down, you can set the paper path, either straight-through (as you'll need when scanning plastic cards) or vertical, so the page will exit from the top. Scanning a page is a straightforward process; you insert a document into the scanner's front slot, and the scanner grabs the paper (or card) and pulls it into position. Then you toggle to the scan function of your choosing and press the scan button.

To the right of the paper slot is a single-character numeric LED, a scan button, and two function buttons that act as up and down controls for choosing between 9 preset (yet configurable) functions. They include converting text documents into searchable PDF or PDF image files; scanning images to MS Paint; scanning and saving images to file (the default is JPEG); scanning images of text documents to editable text for OCR; scanning business cards to a card-reading program; scanning directly to print; scanning to email; scanning to the DI Capture utility; and scanning to an FTP server.

Bundled software includes Twain and WIA drivers?the Twain driver lets you scan from nearly any program with a scan command?Abbyy FineReader 9.0 Sprint OCR program, HotCard Technology's BizCard Finder 3.0, Plustek DI Capture document management program, Plustek DI Express 6, and Plustek's DocAction scan utility.

Performance
Scan speeds for manual-feed scanners are of limited use, as much depends on how fast you can feed the paper into the scanner. I timed scans using FineReader at the default 300 dpi resolution and grayscale mode. For simplex scans, it averaged 13.5 seconds to scan and process a page before it would accept and scan another page, for a clip of 4.4 pages per minute (ppm). With duplex scanning, it averaged 16 seconds per page, or 7.6 images per minute (ipm), with each side of the page counting as an image. Both times are marginally slower than the Plustek MobileOffice D412 , and considerably slower than the Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner ($325 direct), which averaged 6.3 ppm and 12.6 ipm in simplex and duplex scanning, respectively.

In our OCR testing using Abby FineReader ?(the one real "keeper" software program included in the bundle), the D430 did particularly well with Times Roman, reading the text perfectly at all sizes down to 5 points. With Arial, it made a single mistake at both 10 points and 8 points, but read all text cleanly at 6 points. It did a so-so job on business-card scanning; it was mistake free on a few cards, but most had at least two mistakes.

The D430 is a worthy scanner, suitable for its intended role. It's best for scanning loose paper and one- or two-sided single-page documents in addition to ID cards, as it lacks an automatic document feeder (ADF). It is a bit pricey for its capabilities. ?The Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula P-215 Scan-tini Personal Document Scanner also scans in duplex and can handle ID cards, but adds a 20-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) to the mix. If you don't need to scan plastic cards, the Editors' Choice Canon imageFormula P-150 Scan-tini and Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 each provide duplex scanning and an ADF.

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