The Canon DR-9080C is the long standing robust top of the range desktop Canon scanner. In the box you will find the scanner, an instruction manual, CapturePerfect software disk (this is Canon's basic scanning application), USB cable and the all important power lead.
The scanner was very simple to set up - it took around 7 minutes, including the software installation. One tiny problem we did have was locating the USB socket on the scanner. It is at the back but under a lip which you can't find without looking under the unit.
As with all our tests we scanned the sample docs with Adobe, creating non-text searchable (for speed) files.
100 A4 Pages...
The DR-9080C was very fast - 1 min 8 secs - which matches the quoted 90 pages per minute!
Just to test the overall reliability of this unit, we loaded it up several times - each time all 100 sheets went through in the timescale above, and not once did it double feed.
The Canon DR-9080C boasts a 500 sheet feeder which may swing you when looking at a scanner in this range, although it did struggle to take anywhere near the 500 sheets when we tested it.
The most the DR-9080C would scan was 378 A4 pages (although if you have a perfect ream then it may just fit!) You could fit more in but as soon as paper was touching the pick roller, an error message occurred saying "no paper found" until enough paper had been removed.
To our surprise the business card test went well - it took all the cards through with ease, again with no jams. The scanner did pause once to let the computer catch up with loading the images as the resolution was set to 600dpi.
The next test was to see how well the 9080 copes with a variety of invoices. Again as with all previous scans the feeding was very reliable, even with a mixture of thin and thick pages. The invoices on thinner paper were quite hard to read at 200dpi - although tweaking the brightness/contrast and/or increasing the resolution should solve this.
Next, we tried scanning some stapled documents. Without the double-feed detection switched on the pages were scanned, but with it on the scanner stopped as expected.
(PLEASE NOTE: remove all staples prior to scanning!!... No manufactures recommend that you scan staples - this will very quickly scratch the lens and will not be covered in your warranty! Although it is time consuming, preparation of documents is key)
As with any scanner of this size and speed, expect it to be quite noisy when operating.
When scanning in colour it is best to increase the resolution, especially if you wish to re-produce the images at a later date. Anything upwards of 400dpi should be fine, although note that an increase in resolution results in an increase in the time it takes to scan each sheet and the outputted file size will be much bigger! The scanner driver does not offer an auto-colour detection option at present. The newer Canon scanners do, and so perhaps this will be added in the future - but for now you'll have to manually extract any documents that should be scanned in colour from the batch.
Conclusion
As expected, the DR-9080C is a large machine, but smaller (and quieter) than similar machines from other manufacturers. It took everything we threw at it and other than the document feeder not holding the quoted 500 sheets, it matched Canon's specification perfectly. The Canon DR-9080 will reliably scan anything from small business cards to A3 sheets with ease and all at a very high speed; it will cater for all office needs and you'll soon wonder how you coped without it!
Please note that all of our reviews are based on one sample scanner and may not therefore be a statistically correct assessment of the model in question. Given the simplistic nature of the tests, in an attempt to keep the reviews comparable with other models, many of the features available to each model were not tested and we strongly recommend visitors to our website to view the official product specifications provided by the manufactures. Whilst all reasonable efforts have been made to ensure all information is accurate we accept no liability for any inaccuracies or omissions and any decisions based on information contained in this review are the sole responsibility of the visitor.
The Canon DR-9080C is the long standing robust top of the range desktop Canon scanner. In the box you will find the scanner, an instruction manual, CapturePerfect software disk (this is Canon's basic scanning application), USB cable and the all important power lead.
