Performance
The DR-C130 was able to complete our tests despite our documents having been badly crumpled by a previous scanner which left many with bent leading edges. The sheets had caused mis-feeds and jams in two other scanners and we had been planning to use new documents for this test, but the DR-C130 picked, transported and deposited the battle-worn paper flawlessly from the outset, suggesting that its feed mechanism may be particularly reliable.
Our next surprise was the less positive discovery that at most settings the DR-C130 doesn't scan at the engine's maximum speed. Only after manually selecting a greyscale scan at the lowest 150dpi resolution did paper pass through the mechanism quickly and without any hesitations; in this mode we scanned 10 sheets of paper in 26 seconds. Allowing for the five-second pause at the beginning of each scan job, that's very close to the rated 30 pages per minute, but upping the resolution to a modest 200dpi and scanning in colour was enough to slow this down to 37 seconds; far off the claimed throughput.
Duplex (double-sided) scanning of the same document took only a second longer, with the scanner extracting the 16 printed sides from our 10-page test in 38 seconds. CaptureOnTouch took just six seconds to save this as a searchable PDF file, so even if the physical scan was slower than claimed, the 44-second overall job time was still impressively fast. Photo scans were extremely quick, with 10 postcard sized prints completed in just 48 seconds at 600dpi.
We were generally very happy with scan quality from the DR-C130, even on photos. Text recognition was quick and accurate although as with other scanners, pages low on text content weren't always re-orientated correctly when necessary. The deskew function appeared to work, although with the accuracy of the paper feed it was barely necessary. Scanning at 150dpi we experienced some moir patterns in office graphics printed from a mono laser, but enabling the moir reduction fixed the problem at the cost of slightly slower scans.
Conclusion
This is a high-quality scanner that comes with comprehensive and intuitive software. Our experience also suggests that its paper feed is particularly reliable, even if you'll be scanning low-quality, tired originals. However, at most settings it couldn't outperform Canon's own ImageFormula DR-C125, which is similarly specified, 40 cheaper and takes up less room on the desk. Unless you need to scan more than 30 sheets at a time or more than 1,500 pages in a day, we'd choose this cheaper, more compact sibling.
Verdict
With a nippy 30ppm cycle, and reliable sheet feeding capacity, this is a worthy scanner, but only if you're scanning over 1,500 pages per day. Otherwise, you should go for the Canon ImageFormula DR-C125.
Scan capability: 600dpi, 24-bit colour, duplex Speed: 30ppm simplex/60ipm duplex Paper handling: 50-sheet ADF Interfaces: USB Supported operating systems: Windows XP/Vista/7 only Power consumption: Off 0W, Standby 1W, Active 10W Size: 298x160x160mm Weight: 1.8kg [Benchmarks] Scan speed (A4 document): 23.5ppm (150dpi colour, simplex) Scan speed (6x4" photo): 12.5ppm (600dpi colour, simplex)
