The Epson Perfection V39 II is an upgraded model of the Epson Perfection V39 flatbed scanner that we reviewed again in 2015. Each fashions are for residence customers and inventive varieties who want occasional high-quality picture and doc scanning. The brand new V39 II is a detailed match with its predecessor so far as the bodily system is worried. The updates are totally on the software program facet, with new streamlined job processes linked to the scanner’s 4 onboard buttons, and a few new adjustment settings that may enable you to fine-tune your scans. It’s not a significant improve, and the V39 II nonetheless faces robust competitors from different budget-priced picture scanners. Regardless of that competitors, its mixture of options and capabilities earns the V39 II our Editors’ Selection award for greatest price range flatbed picture scanner. It replaces the Epson Perfection V39 for that prime spot.
Dwelling Scanners: A Aggressive Area of interest
The robust competitors contains the Canon CanoScan LiDE 300, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 400, and the Visioneer 7800 Tag That Picture Scanner. Just like the V39 II, they’re cheap flatbed scanners focused to the wants of residence customers and creatives. All of those fashions have the same dimension and weight, and all of them scan images and paperwork at roughly the identical speeds.
The CanoScan LiDE 400 has the identical 4,800dpi optical decision because the V39 II, whereas the CanoScan LiDE 300 and Visioneer 7800 have decrease optical resolutions (2,400dpi and 1,200dpi, respectively). The Visioneer 7800 contains very strong picture administration software program, although you’ll need to pay an extra charge for that software program after the primary 12 months. And just like the V39 II, the LiDE 300 and LiDE 400 embrace help for OCR, although neither carried out as effectively on our OCR assessments because the V39 II did. The Visioneer 7800 doesn’t help OCR.
We must also point out a brand new challenger from Epson right here. The Epson Perfection V19 II is a barely scaled-down and less-expensive model of the V39 II. Obtainable solely from on-line retailers, the V19 II supplies the identical {hardware} and specs because the V39 II, although it has fewer software program options. In contrast to the V39 II, for instance, it doesn’t scan on to cloud companies (equivalent to Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive) or sew scanned photos collectively (for images or paperwork too massive to suit on the unit’s glass platen).
At 1.5 by 9.9 by 14.4 inches (HWD) and weighing simply 3.1 kilos, the V39 II is sufficiently small to position on most desks or tabletops. And if there isn’t sufficient room, the unit has an built-in kickstand that can allow you to prop it up right into a extra vertical place. That may make it tougher to scan some images or paperwork, however it’s an possibility for tight areas. The Perfection V19 II and the CanoScan LiDE 400 even have an built-in kickstand, whereas the CanoScan LiDE 300 and the Visioneer 7800 don’t.
The V39 II connects to your laptop through a equipped USB 2.0 cable that gives each energy and information switch, similar to the opposite fashions. None of those has Wi-Fi or Ethernet help. And none of them has an ADF for a number of pages. If you could scan stacks of paperwork or scan from a distinct location than the place your PC is, this class of scanners just isn’t for you.
The scanner glass on the V39 II can accommodate images or paperwork as massive as 8.5 by 11.7 inches. That’s large enough to deal with letter-size (8.5-by-11-inch) or A4-size (8.3-by-11.7-inch) paperwork. That most doc dimension additionally matches the opposite fashions.
You may take away the V39 II scanner cowl, which makes it simpler to scan books or unusually thick paperwork. If you could scan one thing bigger in dimension (like a poster, for instance), the supplied Epson ScanSmart software program enables you to seamlessly sew a number of scans collectively. The CanoScan LiDE 300 and the CanoScan LiDE 400 additionally help picture stitching for large-scale scans.
The ultimate notable bodily characteristic on the V39 II is an array of 4 buttons. These buttons are the one outward distinction between the unique V39 and the brand new V39 II, and that slight distinction is simple to overlook. The V39 buttons are labeled Begin, PDF, Copy, and Ship; whereas the V39 II buttons are labeled Begin, PDF, Copy, and E mail. The V19 II has a button configuration that’s equivalent to the V39 II. In contrast, the Visioneer 7800 has just one button to energy the scanner on and off. The CanoScan LiDE 300 and the CanoScan LiDE 400 have 5 buttons for Begin, End, Auto Scan, Copy, and Ship.
Scanning With the Epson V39 II: Automation, if You Need It
Organising the V39 II is simple and simple. You’ll must unpack the unit and take away the tape that secures the scanner for transport. Earlier than you connect the USB 2.0 cable to attach the V39 II to your laptop, you’ll must first obtain and set up the software program and drivers through a equipped hyperlink. As you put in the software program, it would let you already know when to attach the scanner to your laptop. It is going to additionally step you thru a take a look at scan. You then’ll be able to go.
The 2 major software program purposes are Epson ScanSmart and Epson Scan 2. You may additionally discover an Epson Scan Utility 2, which helps you to change between scanners in case you have a couple of put in. Additionally included is an Epson Software program Updater app. And eventually, you may discover a Perfection V19 II and V39 II Information. It reveals up in your Home windows desktop as an utility icon, by means of it’s really a shortcut that calls up a browser hyperlink to the web consumer information.
The Epson ScanSmart app is designed for each newcomers and intermediate customers. It defaults to an Auto Mode that detects the kind (picture or doc) and coloration of the unique, after which mechanically adjusts the settings to swimsuit the scanned materials. It labored effective each time in detecting whether or not I used to be scanning a photograph or doc, nevertheless it wasn’t all the time in a position to decide if a photograph was shot in panorama or portrait mode. The Auto Mode additionally defaults to decrease scanning resolutions than you could choose.
As an alternative, you possibly can change from ScanSmart’s Auto Mode to both a devoted Doc Mode or Picture Mode. The Doc Mode enables you to bump up the scan decision, change to black-and-white scanning, or rotate the scan. The Picture Mode offers you entry to some picture modifying instruments, equivalent to the power to rotate or crop a picture, apply automated coloration enhancement, restore light coloration, or take away crimson eye. The picture modifying options are very restricted, however helpful to have when scanning, as a result of you possibly can preview the outcomes earlier than you save the file.
If you would like much more management over the scanning course of for both paperwork or images, you’ll wish to take a look at the superior settings contained in the Epson Scan 2 app. With its Doc Mode, you’ll have the ability to alter brightness, distinction, and gamma; improve the textual content; or fill in edges to take away the shadow impact. With the Picture Mode, you’ll have the ability to de-screen the picture to take away ripples from moiré patterns, get rid of mud from a scanned picture, or sharpen the outlines of the picture.
As a result of you possibly can provoke a scan from both Epson ScanSmart or Epson Scan 2, you possibly can select simply the way you need every scan to be handled. Nevertheless, when you provoke a scan utilizing one of many 4 onboard buttons, you’ll be mechanically routed to a selected part of the ScanSmart app. Because it’s essentially the most related part to the kind of scan you are performing, newcomers and non-techies might choose to make use of the onboard buttons to provoke a scan, versus initiating a scan from both of the apps.
What occurs whenever you press the buttons? The Begin button brings up the Doc Modifying Mode or the Picture Modifying Mode, relying on whether or not you’re scanning a doc or picture. Urgent the PDF button brings you to the identical sections. The Copy button brings up the Print Settings display screen. And the E mail button brings up the Connect to E-mail Settings display screen.
The next screens will fluctuate relying on the use case and meant vacation spot. With the PDF button, for instance, you’ll have the choice to avoid wasting the file to your laptop, print the file with a related printer, connect the file to an e-mail, or add the file to a web-based service (both Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, or OneDrive).
Whereas the most recent model of the software program will appear acquainted to anybody who has used the unique V39, Epson has restructured and streamlined the software program to make it easier to navigate. The earlier model was structured across the hard-to-define classes of Dwelling Mode, Workplace Mode, and Skilled Mode. The brand new structural classes of Auto Mode, Doc Mode, and Picture Mode are extra intuitive and simpler to know.
The brand new streamlining is focused largely to non-techies who simply need get the job accomplished, with out having to ask for assist. Primary duties now take much less time and require fewer steps to finish. For instance, the V39 II has diminished the scan-to-PDF course of to only two steps (press the button to begin the scan, after which examine the picture and settings on a single ScanSmart display screen earlier than urgent end). With the V39, that very same course of had an additional step. Equally, when copying a scan to a printer or when attaching a scan to an e-mail, the earlier 5 steps have been diminished to only two.
You may additionally discover some extra settings and capabilities throughout the software program that weren’t there beforehand. A brand new Twin Picture Output possibility enables you to scan a doc twice with totally different output settings. A brand new Grey Steadiness Depth setting lets you compensate for uncommon lighting conditions that trigger some colours to be too robust. And a brand new Take away Background possibility enables you to take away distracting background components out of your scanned doc.
Like the unique V39, the V39 II has solely minimal help for OCR. It can save you your scan as a searchable PDF (sPDF) that can embrace entry to the textual content, however the V39 II software program can’t instantly save that textual content as a Phrase file or textual content file. Thankfully, it’s straightforward sufficient to repeat textual content from an sPDF and paste it wherever you need.
Testing the Epson V39 II: Well timed Enter
Epson claims that the V39 II can scan a letter-size coloration doc in roughly 10 seconds when utilizing the 300dpi setting. That point will increase to roughly 20 seconds when the scan decision will increase to 600dpi, in line with Epson.
As you’ll count on, these are best-case eventualities. Along with being affected by the scan decision, scan speeds can fluctuate broadly relying on the kind of content material that you simply’re scanning, equivalent to textual content paperwork, mixed-text-and-graphics paperwork, or pictures. Whether or not you’re scanning in coloration or black-and-white may also have an effect on scan speeds.
I ran my assessments with the Epson ScanSmart and Epson Scan 2 software program over a USB connection to our Intel Core i5 testbed PC working Home windows 10 Professional. All scans had been carried out as coloration scans. I used to be in a position to scan a textual content doc at 300dpi in 11.2 seconds. After I bumped up the decision to 600dpi, that point elevated to twenty-eight.2 seconds. After I scanned an 8.5-by-11-inch coloration picture utilizing ScanSmart’s default non-defined decision, the scan took 16.4 seconds to finish. Scanning that very same coloration picture in Epson Scan 2 utilizing its 300dpi setting elevated the time to 39.0 seconds. And once I bumped up the decision to 600dpi in Epson Scan 2, that very same picture took 54.5 seconds to finish.
These scan occasions could appear gradual, however they’re pretty typical for a budget-priced flatbed scanner. The Canon CanoScan LiDE 300, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 400, and the Visioneer 7800 Tag That Picture Scanner all have roughly the identical prime pace at 300dpi (various from 10.9 to 13.3 seconds). If you happen to want sooner scan speeds, particularly at increased resolutions, the place the time variations actually matter, try to be ready to pay extra for a extra succesful scanner.
Our take a look at outcomes of the OCR functionality had been particularly spectacular. In addition they matched our OCR assessments for the unique V39. With each the V39 and V39 II, our Occasions New Roman and Arial font take a look at pages had been acknowledged in sizes as small as 6 factors and not using a mistake. Six-point OCR accuracy is the sort of accuracy that’s related to costlier business-oriented doc scanners, such because the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX1600 and the Brother ADS-4900. The CanoScan LiDE 300 and the CanoScan LiDE 400 had been in a position to attain related OCR take a look at outcomes, however solely once we bypassed the supplied software program. In any other case, their OCR accuracy with the Arial font was restricted to 10 factors.
Picture scan high quality was glorious all through all kinds of scans. The colours had been correct, although constantly a tad oversaturated. Accordingly, you could wish to alter the saturation down only a bit. The distinction ranges had been constantly spot on. Sharpness and element ranges had been pleasing and well-balanced. And the three Picture Enhancements carried out effectively. They’re Auto Coloration Improve, Restore Pale Colours, and Take away Redeye. You might go away them on with the belief that they’ll interact solely as wanted. However, Epson has all three initially switched off, which might be the higher strategy.
I used to be in a position to efficiently scan a number of images on the similar time, so long as I positioned them on the glass platen with a minimum of a 1-inch hole between the images. As soon as they’re mechanically separated by the scanning software program, you’ll have the ability to apply the superior settings independently to every picture.
The doc scans had been clear and sharp with no coloration fringing. That was the case even when the textual content paperwork included photos or some coloured textual content. Because the OCR take a look at outcomes point out, the textual content characters had been correctly fashioned with solely a minimal variety of stray pixels.
Verdict: A Advantageous Refinement of a Confirmed Scanner
Despite the fact that the enhancements for the Epson Perfection V39 II over the earlier V39 are totally on the software program facet, these modifications might be particularly worthwhile for people who find themselves simply beginning out with scanning. Epson has the unenviable job of getting to construction the software program interface to attraction to each newcomers and skilled customers. Newbies will profit from the brand new simplified steps and directions, whereas skilled customers may have extra settings to boost their scanned images and paperwork.
The V39 II faces robust competitors from the Canon CanoScan LiDE 300, the Canon CanoScan LiDE 400, and the Visioneer 7800 Tag That Picture Scanner, in addition to its new sibling, the Epson Perfection V19 II. They’re all value contemplating, as you may discover a important quantity of variation of their options and capabilities. Nevertheless, the Epson Perfection V39 II’s high-resolution 4,800dpi scan engine, superior OCR accuracy, and streamlined job processes put it out in entrance sufficient to make it our Editors’ Selection choose.
