The Canon G7020 is both a paper monster and an ink monster, and if you want to learn more about inkjet printers, such as the G7020, go ahead and read our article on laser vs inkjet printers.

What it is

To describe it succinctly, the G7020 is a cartridgeless multifunction inkjet printer, and by that we mean this monster uses bulk ink. Obviously, this translates into low operating costs, i.e. low cost per copy, and that’s a good thing if you’re not ready to spend a lot of money on this stuff.

Another cool thing about the Canon G7020 is that it’s very affordable for a wireless supertank/megatank printer; on top of printing, you also get a copier, a scanner, a fax machine (who uses that anymore?), and ADF with mobile printing.

Before you ask, ADF means automatic document feeder, and it’s a nice feature to have printers, photocopiers, fax machines or scanners wherein a stack of paper put into the machine and is then automatically fed through it, allowing the user to print, scan or copy without having to manually place each page into the machine.

Basically, this beast feeds itself paper, and that’s awesome, especially in a busy/office-like environment.

Should you buy it?

Now, if you don’t have enough money to get a fancy (and crazy expensive) color laser printer, the G7020 can make for a solid alternative, delivering low running costs and high productivity. So, if you’re trying to dig the internet for the best printer for home/office and your budget is less than five hundred bucks, just go for it.

Why size matters

The Canon G7020 is a stylish multipurpose printer which is an excellent alternative to people who regard small AIO printers as not having enough power for medium to large print volume, yet opting for bulky and expensive office printers is too much. However, the Canon G7020 has it where it counts, in the size department respectively, as it features a huge ink reservoir that has enough juice for all your printing needs, that if you’re not Guttenberg.

Solid Build Quality Meets Compact Design

This Canon printer is the definition of the phrase “design matters”. So, if you care at least a bit about interior design, choosing a printer that matches your working environment is important, and here Canon did a great job with the G7020.

Basically, the printer looks as professional as an iMac, featuring a full-black casing that will blend easily with your interior, hence there’s no issue with redecorating your desk to match your new Canon machine.

Also, build quality is solid, full plastic obviously, but high quality; the machine measures 9.1 inches high by 15.9 inches wide by 14.5 inches deep and weighs a respectable 21 pounds.

You know that we love heavy gear, because heavy is good, heavy is reliable, etc. However, keep in mind that if your desktop is limited in terms of real-estate, you might want to find a separate place for this printer, or buy another desk, why not?

The G7020 sports a tiny 1.8’’ monochrome display, which looks vintage, as in like a vintage Casio calculator. On top of that, you’ll get a control panel with various buttons (including numerical) that allow you to configure how the machine operates and what not.

The ADF gizmo is located on top, and since you have an automatic document feeder, it’s pretty obvious that the machine features automatic duplexing for your efficiency. On the back, you’ll find an extendable input tray for higher input capacity.

The huge ink reservoir is placed on the front (a smart touch by the way) for easy access.

A Mega-Beefy MegaTank

Canon is betting big on bulk ink printers, and this particular model features the company’s MegaTank technology for high productivity/low cost/low maintenance. This printer is perfectly capable of scanning, making copies, sending faxes and anything in between, including making configuration changes on the fly, and as for paper handling, the ADF can hold 350 plain paper sheets. On top of that, you can stick 20 snapshot-size sheets of premium photo paper inside the main drawer via a small insert.

Tech Stuff

The Canon G7020 comes rated at 5000 prints per month; more precisely, this is its official duty cycle. Even if this is not exactly what you may call a work horse, it’s still pretty good for a $300ish printer.

Speaking of tech stuff, the printer features the company’s FINE inkjet technology with 1792 nozzle configuration for detailed printing, and supports up to 4800 x 1200 dpi print resolution, which makes it ideal for both printing detailed color images or documents that require sharp and crisp black text.

Obviously, you can print graphics and docs, as well as illustrations and photos, including borderless printing 4 inches by 6 inches for creative projects or your private albums. The copier machine can handle up to 99 copies, which is pretty good, and you’ll get a plethora of copying features, such as auto exposure, borderless copy manual duplex copy and collation copy.

The scanner thing is equally impressive, as it features 1200 x 2400 dpi resolutions for clear documents on screen on the flatbed scanner, and supports up to 8.5 inches by 11.7 inches, not to mention cool features such as scan to PC, auto scan mode, multi-page PDF auto, wireless scanning, scan to Canon PRINT app, and document removal reminder.

The fax feature is somehow obsolete now, but it’s nice to have it anyway, and it comes with all sorts of goodies, including caller rejection, dial search, duplex printing, and memory transmission, with a 3 second transmission speed and a memory capacity of 50 pages.

The printer is rated at 13 ppm/pages per minute before you ask, which is not great, not terrible. Without boring you too much with specs, you must learn that this printer has relatively low speed, especially for color and duplex printing.

Output quality

Overall quality is quite good, but not fantastic as expected from a relatively affordable printer. Graphics and gradients are well printed, text is sharp and clear, and when it comes to color printing, there’s no competition with laser printers, obviously. However, for photo printing, the G7020 does a great job for what it is, delivering nice details and being quite dependable for creative projects and the like.

We would say that output quality is about average for a family-oriented inkjet.

Refillable Ink

This Canon printer uses refillable ink wells, and since it was designed this way, the refilling process is easy and clean. The wells open from the top, with lids that click into place for secure closure, they’re easy to open and you can refill them on the fly, in the middle of the job, if required. In this regard, the G7020 is awesome, and due to its huge reservoir, you need not worry about running out of ink.

The black ink well is large enough for up to 6k pages, and the CYK color ink wells can last for up to 7,700 pages (depending on density, obviously).

Since we’re talking refillable ink wells, this printer will save you a lot of money compared to cartridges. Another cool thing is that you’ll get a full set of CYK ink and 3 black bottles, which means you have enough ammo to print thousands of pages before having to spend money in refills. Printing costs are less than a penny per page, i.e. 0.3 cents for monochrome and 0.9 for color prints.

Frankly, I don’t think it can get lower than that.

Connectivity and Mobile App

The Canon G7020 offers quite a lot of connectivity options, in order to improve your printing experience. Standard connectivity includes USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi direct and Wi-Fi, but if you hook up the printer with your smartphone via the dedicated app, you’ll get mobile printing through Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Wireless PictBridge, Canon PRINT app, and Mopria.

The printing software delivered with the machine includes Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Editor and PosterArtist Lite, which are pretty good for editing pics before printing. Also, the Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY app enables you to perform setup and operations from your tabet or smartphone, or even remote management of your printer queue.

You can even print docs and photos from social media via the app, or from shared documents sites, like Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive.

Bottom line, the Canon PIXMA G7020 is an efficient and highly innovative multi-purpose printer, with solid features and can print from just about any online service, which makes it capable of handling just about anyone’s needs.

So, if you’re looking for the best photo printer on a budget, this is it. Cut and dried. For all intents and purposes, the review should end here, as in this is the tl;dr version for people on a hurry. As in, if you’re on a tight budget, and by tight we mean you’re not ready to spend more than 100 bucks on an inkjet printer, it doesn’t get much better than the Canon Pixma MG3620. At least in this world it doesn’t.

Also, while we’re at it, check out our highly informative article about laser vs inkjet printers, and see what’s what before you buy. If you want to learn more, keep reading, alright?

What it is

Canon is well known for two things: digital cameras and printers, and the Pixma MG3620 makes for a fast scanning, high image quality and fast color copying machine. To put it another way, if you’re looking for the quintessential multi-purpose printer with all the necessary features at an affordable price, you will not go wrong with this baby.

Basically, this is a barebones home/office multifunction machine, a jack of all trades, master of none. The Pixma MG3620 is designed for users who are not ready to spend money for fancy features they don’t really need. What does it mean?

Well, for example, this device doesn’t sport an eye-candy LCD control panel for running stand-alone operations. After all’s said and done, if you’re good at finding good deals, you can buy this machine for something like $80, so don’t expect miracles.

Also, you won’t get cool features like ADF (automatic document feeder) for scanning/copying multipage documents. If you’re into that kind of stuff, look elsewhere and prepare to spend more. However, you’ll get better than average speeds and even a duplexer for making 2-sided prints.

So, after all’s said and done, the Pixma MG3620 is not a bad deal at all, provided you know what you get, as in “caveat emptor”. We’ve saved the best for last though: despite its affordable price, this machine delivers high-quality prints, and that’s exactly what makes it awesome.

Design

In terms of design, this Pixma MG3620 looks elegant in all-white/all-black (there are 2 colorways available) and it will feel at home basically anywhere: home and office alike. To the left of the lid, which takes up most of the real-estate of the top of the machine you’ll find a control panel with physical buttons.

The controls allow you to switch between plain letter-size paper and 4 x 6-inch photo paper, but not other sizes. Obviously, since this is an entry-level printer, you only get one paper tray, hence when it’s time, you’ll have to switch to photo paper if you’re looking to print photos. However, this is a minor inconvenience.

Since there’s no fancy touchscreen display, you’ll get buttons for color and black-and-white copies, and, strangely enough for gen-z’ers aka “zoomers”, you’ll have to actually press the “copy” button multiple times to make extra-copies. We know, that sounds very low tech and all that, but life is hard.

All jokes aside, you can also make copies to photo paper, but keep in mind that you can only use 4 x 6-inch photo paper. Moreover, there’s no way to do complex copy jobs, since there’s no copying software to speak of. So, when we told you “barebones” in the preamble, we meant that literally.

Speed

As expected from its more than reasonable price tag, this printer is pretty far from being a speed demon. To be more precise, the wireless Pixma MG3620 can churn out 6.4 pages per minute, which is not bad compared to other devices in its price range.

A five-page document takes approximately 47 seconds according to our tests, and if you’re using the Quiet Mode, text printing will get slowed down a little bit, so be advised. For example, a single page of text will be printed in something like 16 seconds, yet on Quiet Mode it takes 23-24 seconds.

Considering these metrics, we can safely state that the Pixma MG3620 is an excellent printer for students, but if speed is the name of the game, there are better options on the market. We must mention that the Pixma MG3620 excels at printing graphics on plain paper.

Copy and Scan Speed

If you’re looking at making color copies, you won’t be disappointed, as the Pixma MG3620 is one of the fastest models we’ve ever tested, spitting out a copy in 27 seconds. Considering the price asked, this is nothing short of flabbergasting.

Scanning is another department where the Pixma MG3620 really shines, being able of capturing a 600-dpi image of a photo in 39.4 seconds, which is outstanding for an under $100 machine. Scanning a black-and-white PDF at 300 dpi is also impressive at 9 seconds, so there you have it.

If these specific metrics are important to you, the Pixma MG3620 is a must-have.

Print Quality

The MG3620 uses dye and pigment (black cartridge and color cartridge) inks, i.e. both dye and cartridge in the same time, with the general principle being (in Canon’s view at least) that dye inks offer more vibrant color, while pigment ink delivers sharper, heavier text.

According to our testing, this stands true, as the Pixma MG3620 prints sharp and heavy text on standard paper; however, if you use high-quality inkjet paper, you will be surprised (in a good way) by the results, as this printer will deliver book-worthy text with extremely sharp edges comparable with a laser printer’s output when printing from a text document.

If you’re using the duplexer, be advised: text will look a tad fuzzy, even if you go for high-quality inkjet paper. The dye-based color inks are only used by the machine when you go for 2-sided prints, as the printer mixes them together to produce a composite black, and also prints lighter deliberately to prevent the ink from going-through (and showing) on the other side of the paper.

Overall graphics quality is good, with dark shade and rich colors, while the text is amply sharp. The same goes for printing glossy photos; photo scans also look great, with accurate/rich colors and sharp details. No complaints here, as you can imagine, and we must mention that the Pixma MG3620 allows you to make copies of larger photos onto 4 x 6-inch photo paper, yet if you want to copy an 8 x 10 photo, you’ll end up with the edges cut off.

Costs/efficiency

According to our calculations, the cost per page runs somewhere around 10 cents for a black/white page, and 24 cents for a color page, which brings the average cost at 17 cents per page. This may sound like a lot, we don’t know, but that’s math and it’s hard to argue with facts.

The relatively high costs are due to the fact that the Pixma MG3620 works with one tri-color cartridge and one black cartridge, but it all depends on where you buy your cartridges from. As in, if you’re getting a really good deal, and/or you’re using high yield cartridges, you can cut down on costs.

Advanced Features

There’s not much to talk about in this regard, other than the wide array of mobile device printing options, which include Google Cloud Print, Apple AirPrint for Mac OS X and Mopria for Android Devices. The Canon MG3620 will connect via Wi-Fi obviously, and, if you’re a Windows user, you can also access a 705MB collection of cards, calendars and other templates called My Image Garden.

Bottom line

This basic printer is an excellent choice for people low on cash looking for a no-nonsense machine. The MG3620 produces more than decent photo prints, prints razor-sharp text and excellent photo scans. If you can live without fancy features, like LCD screens and multipage copies, just go for it.

Seriously speaking, the Canon Pixma Pro 200 is one of the best photo printers under $1000, and by that, we mean way less than $1000. Basically, at current prices, the Pro 200 is the deal of the century, as it takes photo printing to the next level and can produce professional-quality photo prints for both amateurs and professionals alike.

And that’s due to its 4,800 x 2,400dpi maximum resolution, which is excellent for an A3 printer. However, the way it works and how the prints are produced will simply knock your socks off, and we’re not mincing words here.

Provided you own a desk large enough to accommodate this beast of a printer, because yeah, this is a big boy, like most high-quality inkjet printers, you will not be disappointed. So, let’s get to it, shall we?

Specs

• Inks/type: 8x dye
• Printer head width: 13in
• Max print size: A3+/13x39in
• Max print resolution: 4800x2400dpi
• Input trays: 1x upright rear, 1x manual feeder
• Scanner: None
• Display screen: 3-inch color LCD
• Interfaces: Hi-speed USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi
• Dimensions (WxDxH): 639x379x200mm
• Weight: 14.1kg

What do you get

To begin with, the Canon Pixma Pro 200 is huge in terms of real-estate, and we really mean a behemoth of a printer. Due to its sheer size, this beast is perfectly capable of printing borderless photos at sizes up to A3+, as it makes for the logical (and better) successor of the Pixma Pro 100.

However, despite its gargantuan size, the Pro 200 is not very heavy, standing at 14 kilos or 30 pounds. However, it’s the printers’ dimensions that will make it stand out from the crowd: 639 x 379 x 200mm (WDH), which expand at 639 x 837 x 416mm with the paper tray open.

Again, if you’re serious about buying it, factor in the price of a desk large enough to accommodate it. The rear paper feed can hold up to one hundred sheets once it’s opened, so there you have it. This is an industrial-strength photo printer by any metrics.

Why is the Pro 200 larger than life, you asked? Well, there are not so many printers capable of printing on A3+ paper, that’s why. On top of that, this beast uses 8 cartridges at a time: the industry standard 4 CMYK colors, plus grey, light grey, photo magenta and photo cyan (dye based inks).

Build Quality

The printer looks great and feels really robust, with extremely good build quality. Everything feels solid and well made, so everything’s on the up and up in this regard, no surprises here.

Connectivity

In this regard, the Pro 200 really shines, as it offers all the connections you’ll ever need. And before you ask, this is to be expected for a professional printer, which most probably will be shared with other folks in a studio setting or office. The printer can be connected to a PC/laptop/smartphone via USB and Wi-Fi, and obviously comes with an old school Ethernet port, to attach it to your LAN thing.

If you’re a photo geek, you might abhor the fact that you won’t get a built-in scanner, and that may be strange considering its size. There’s also no automatic duplex. But, if you come to think about it, the Canon Pixma Pro 200 is built for one mission, and one mission only: to deliver glorious photos prints, as in this is not an office toy for corporatist types.

If you’re shopping for a multifunctional printer, this is not the droid you are looking for, move along.

Ease of use

Connecting and setting up the Canon Pixma Pro 200 is incredibly easy, even if this is your firsts time operating a photo printer. This is actually one of the main characteristics of Canon printers, ease of use respectively, and the best way to do it is via the setup website.

You’ll have to choose your exact model from a list, and then you’ll be guided through the process with as little (or as much) hand holding as you require. The printer also comes with a CD included in the retail box, but hey, nobody is reading the freaking instruction manual these days, right? Not to mention that modern laptops no longer have CD-ROM drives.

The printer comes with a tiny 3 inches wide color display, and a control pad, a joypad kind of thing, with an OK button in the middle. Some may expect a touchscreen at this price, but hey, the physical buttons are pretty cool if you ask me. Also, since there are no copier/scanner functions to control, and no memory card slots to print from, all you have to do is to keep an eye on the screen to check out on the screen cartridges, that’s all it actually does.

Print quality

To make it real easy for our readers, the Pro 200 is everything about print quality, and every photo printed on this baby will come out perfect. There’s no other word to describe it, really. It is that good. Dark colors/blacks look rich and deep, skin tones look natural, and colors are bright. Fine details are great too, and that stands true whether you’re printing on cheap 6x4in photo paper, or on Canon’s own A3+ paper.

Everything is printed exceptionally well, ranging from misty landscapes requiring subtle color transitions to bright colorful prints. Basically, if you’re looking for a photo printer that can deliver stellar quality photos at any size, look no further, you’ve just found your soul-mate so to speak.

Speed and running costs

In terms of performance and “bang for the buck”, the Pro 200 can be best described as “luxury doesn’t come cheap”. As in, the printer is not cheap to buy in the first place, and also relatively pricey to run as well.

If you’re obsessed with math and the like, an A3+ print will cost you in approximately $3, if you buy the inks from Canon. Yeah, this is kind of pricey, but high quality is never cheap. By the way, this number is based on the cost of each cartridge, $25.40 respectively, purchased directly from Canon.

We must also mention that the printer is kind of slow, even for an ink jet, outputting mono A4 pages at 2.5ppm, while mixed color documents are printed at 1.6 ppm. This is nothing to write home about, but then again, photo quality is outstanding. And photo printing is relatively fast, i.e. the printer can squirt out six 6×4 photos in under 9 minutes, which is not bad. An A3 photo takes 3 minutes, and 2 8×10 images take almost 5 minutes.

Final word

So far, so good, so what? Should I buy it? The answer is yes, if you’re looking for phenomenal photo prints, both small and large. If photo quality is important for your business, or for you personally, the Pro 200 will not disappoint. If you want something more versatile and cheaper to buy/run, there are other photo printers out there.

What is it?

To begin with the basics, the Pro 100 is quite a piece of work, i.e. it can output high-quality prints up to 13’’x19’’, and that makes it ideal for amateur photographers looking to become pros. Also, the Pro 100 replaces the “ancient” Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II, and it’s designed to produce exceptional image quality at bargain prices.

Advantages

One of the main technological downgrades of the affordable Pro 100 is that it uses 8 inks (black; gray; light gray; yellow; magenta; photo magenta; cyan; and photo cyan) rather than 12, compared to its “superior” Canon Pixma Pro-1 (the high-end model in the series), as well as 6,144 nozzles vs 12,288 for the latter.

That’s exactly half, before you ask, and even if the Pro 100 doesn’t sound as impressive as its more “developed” cousin, it actually has a smaller minimum droplet size than the Pro-1, which means it is capable of reproducing finer detail.

To be more precise, the Pro 100 features 3pl droplet size, compared to Pro-1’s 4pl, and when it comes to resolution, which is another important metric, both photo printers are capable of squirting out 4800 x 2400 dpi.

So, there you have it: the best printer is not necessarily the most expensive one, right? To make things even better, the Pro 100 comes with the obvious advantage of Wi-Fi connectivity over the significantly more expensive Pro-1, hence you can print via Ethernet connection, USB 2.0 or wirelessly, directly from your smartphone using the dedicated mobile app (Android and Apple).

Another differentiator between the two is that the Pro-1 uses Canon’s Lucia pigment inks, which are better in theory than the “inferior” stuff (dye-based cartridges) employed in the P-100, but as long as you stick with original Canon papers and ChromaLife100+ ink, there’s no significant difference between the two in real-life scenarios, so there you have it.

The trick is that the ink for the Pro 100 is more expensive; to be more precise, $1.31 per ml vs $1 per ml in the Pro-1. If you want to learn more about these issues, read this article about laser vs inkjet printers.

Build and handling

Build quality is top-notch, as the Canon Pixma Pro 100 looks and feels like a quality product, with first-class fit and finish, robust controls and solid paper input/output trays.

However, we must mention that the Pro 100 is a total unit, as in it’s pretty big (689 x 385 x 215mm or 27.13 x 15.16 x 8.46 inches) and heavy at almost 20 kilos/43lbs, which is actually nice if you come to think about it (heavy is good, heavy is reliable, right?), though it will eat-up serious desk real estate and most probably destroy you if it falls on your leg.

All jokes aside, this big boy has an appetite for destruction (drinks ink like there’s no tomorrow, just like all A3 machines), and if you manage to lift this hog of a printer on your desk without requiring a trip to the osteopath, you’ll soon discover that it uses tiny 13 ml cartridges, compared to the Pro-1’s high-capacity 36ml tanks, and that’s why the cost per ml is increased.

They also run out fast, due to reduced capacity, but that’s not necessarily bad news, as the P 100 only requires 8 cartridges, so a complete set will drain something like $136 from your wallet, compared to $432 to fully refill a Pro-1 (we’re quoting Canon’s full retail price, but if you shop around, you can get them cheaper).

Performance

According to Canon, the Pro 100 can spit out an A3+ bordered photo in approximately 90 seconds, but that’s optimistic (or may be true with a basic image at standard quality).

According to independent testing, a borderless A3 print using Canon’s glossy Photo Paper Plus takes approximately 6 minutes per print at max quality setting, while an A4 print takes 3 minutes. If you disable the borderless thing, you’ll be able to speed things up dramatically, up to 90 seconds.

It’s worth mentioning that older models like Canon Pixma Pro9000 Mark II had serious speed issues with greyscale printing, but the P 100 is a champ in this regard, due to its dedicated grey and light grey cartridges, which totally eliminate the problem.

To make a long story short, the Pro 100 delivers stunning quality photo prints, both color and greyscale, but be aware that printing on matt media is not as good as on gloss paper, due to the dye-based ink. So long as you keep your Canon happy with luster or glossy media, your prints will display outstanding contrast, clarity and color depth.

Speaking of performance, we must mention this: while the Canon Pixma Pro 1 is literally twice as expensive as the Pro 100, it’s heavier, bigger and slower than the latter, which is quite amazing. When it comes to printing photos, the Pro 100 is second to none in terms of capturing detail in both light and dark areas, and in faces.

The Pro 1 does slightly better with printing images with very dark backgrounds, but that doesn’t really cover for the huge difference in price. Bottom line, the Pro 100 offers a lot of bang for the proverbial buck asked, and comes really close to its considerably pricier sibling, being 30 percent lighter and half the price.

Unboxing

When talking about the package itself, Raven Pro Document Scanner comes in a nice looking white box, with the basic information and simple graphics. All the equipment is safely and tightly stored; therefore, there should be no worries about anything breaking during transport. Inside the box, you’ll find the scanner itself, the power cable, Ethernet cable, mountable tray, and a stamp that presents a nice bonus.

Raven Pro Document Scanners’ top part comes with a glossy finish and is made out of quality plastics, and, together with the rest of the build, seems like a pretty well-crafted machine. The lower part of the scanner is made of mat plastic and although it seems that it the plastic is not as high quality as the top part, it still looks pretty nice and as a whole, it provides a positive feeling and overall really good looks.

Specifications

Format: A4 (210cm x 297cm)
Sensor Type: CIS
Maximal Resolution: 600dpi
Speed: 60 sheets per minute, 120 images per minute
ADF size: 100 sheets
Feed Roller lifecycle: 150000 sheets
Connectivity: Ethernet and 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi
Included software: Raven PC Software
Interface: TWAIN
Weight: 4.17kg
Size: 31.5cm x 17.8cm x 20.8cm

Usage

The overall user experience with Raven Pro Document Scanner is very positive. This device is easy to use and it comes with an intuitive interface and a very responsive 8” LCD touchscreen that maybe has poor viewing angles, but does a great job of managing this scanner, offering fast performance and solid image quality.

More importantly, this is a standalone device, so you only need a power outlet to connect this device to, and everything else is optional. You can store your scans on a USB stick or connect the scanner to your network and keep your documents on the cloud. Whatever your choice, it is easy to manage through the touchscreen interface that is well organized in categories, allowing even kids or elderly people to easily use it.

Raven Pro Document Scanner’s own TWAIN interface offers multiple options and lets you set the Resolution, Destination where you want to save your scans, Color (black and white, color or grayscale), as well as the Sides, or better say, paper orientation and the way you want the scanner to operate, and whether you want it to make one-sided or two-sided scans.

Moreover, there is also an Options button, with four categories that include:

Contacts – for managing and adding new connections.
Settings – that let you turn specific features on or off, such as Auto Orientation or Multi-feed detection, change Time Zone, Brightness levels of the screen and the scans, set the Sleep timer, Compression type, and much more.
Network – for changing your network connection.
Log Out – designed to let you log off the device.

Furthermore, there is the History button, where you can track all your scans, the Help button, with the contact information, and the button where you can set the size of the scan, decide whether you want page previews or not, and the way you want your files to be stored, as separate files or as a combined file.

After you finish scanning, there is also the opportunity to crop, remove, change brightness, and make other small edits to the scans and enhance them before their storing or sending.

Similar to other document scanners, Raven Pro Document Scanner also comes with an Anti-jam technology that should prevent any jamming problems. However, follow the guidelines and don’t try to outsmart the scanner and try to scan a folded document, for example – because no anti-jamming technology will help you in that case and you will probably be forced to unjam the device manually, as it was the case during our testing. Nonetheless, if something like that does occur, don’t panic, gentle paper pulling will sort it out and you will be able to use the scanner as before.

Computer Usage

When talking about using the Raven Pro Document Scanner over the computer, you should know that there are multiple ways to do it. First of all, there is the freshly released, dedicated Raven Desktop app that is in the BETA phase, which means that you should expect minor glitches. However, the overall experience is pretty similar to the Raven Pro Document Scanner standalone use.

This app is easy to set up and offers intuitive interface that makes things go as smoothly as possible. With the Raven Desktop app, you can choose the type of connection that you want to use to communicate with the scanner. You can select the traditional wired connection that requires that you connect the scanner to one of the USB ports (preferably USB3.0, to get the best performance) on your computer (only Mac and Windows are supported) or a more practical, Wireless connection (the computer and the scanner must be on the same network) that won’t take anything from the functionality, but will decrease the level of cabling.

Once you choose the desired type of connection, the app will install the necessary drivers and search for the scanner, and after it finds it, you will be able to use the Raven app that brings almost the same level of options and settings as the scanner’s standalone interface. There is the Home tab, with all the basic settings, such as Size of the scans, Color, Quality, Sides, as well as the ability to give the scan a specific name.

Also, there are Advanced settings that will let you change the Brightness, Contrast, File compression, whether you want to turn OCR on or off, and so on, as well as the Manage settings option, that will help you set up the desired destinations for your scans.

Furthermore, there are also Contacts, History and Settings tabs, and altogether, it’s a straightforward interface adequate for all ages.

Raven Desktop app offers the same level of performance as the standalone device and allows for smaller edits to scans, such as cropping, cutting, their reordering, zooming, as well as direct printing. Unfortunately, the number of available editing features is lower than on the scanner itself; nonetheless, since this is only a BETA version of the app, minor flaws like this will certainly be fixed in the future, along with the ability to save the scans in some other formats other than the default .pdf.

Another way you can use the Raven Pro Document Scanner over the computer is with the help of the TWAIN-compatible scanning applications. For example, you can try NAPS2 app, which requires connecting the scanner and the computer through a USB cable and installing the TWAIN driver in order to work.

Similarly to the Ravens own app, NAPS2 also brings clean and easy-to-use interface, with basic functions and settings and a pretty intuitive interface that allows for ease of use. There is a PDF saving function, with a few changeable options, such as encryption type, metadata information, compatibility, and so on. Along with that, there are Image saving and Email PDF features, as well as the Language change, ability to set and edit profiles, OCR function, file conversion, and more.

Through the NAP2 app, you will be able to make smaller edits on your scans, such as brightness change, cropping, changing Hue/Saturation, or Sharpening your image. Also, there are options to reorder scans, rotate them, move them up or down – in other words, everything needed for productive office work is there.

Performance

If there is an area in which the Raven Pro Document Scanner shows its true value, it is the performance. This is a really fast scanner that is capable of scanning an A4 document, at a 200dpi resolution, in one second.

Of course, with the resolution increase, which could be set to 200dpi, 300dpi, 400dpi, or 600dpi, the speed decreases, and in the case of the 600dpi resolution, two-sided scan goes at up to eight seconds, which is still pretty respectable.

To make things even better, Raven Pro Document Scanner is capable of storing scanned documents at up to 10 different destinations that include a whole bunch of cloud services such as Raven cloud, with unlimited storage, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, QuickBooks Online, Evernote and Box, as well as the more traditional locations such as USB, Email or Fax. In other words, all major services are supported.

The quality of the scans isn’t of the CCD scanner quality; nonetheless, it brings good color accuracy, a decent level of details, and overall delivers more than a pleasing quality for a document scanner.

Other than that, this scanner can also be successfully used for the digitalization of your old photo collection, allowing for fast batch scanning, and providing more than useful resulting scans. The quality of the scans is pleasing and it takes you only about five seconds for a single 600dpi 4” x 6” photo scan. However, if you want to save the photos in .jpeg, .png, .tiff, or any other photo format, you will be required to install the already mentioned TWAIN driver to the computer, as well as the TWAIN-compatible third party scanning application, such as NAP2, which will expand your options and allow for such a function.

Connectivity

To begin with, the Raven Pro Document Scanner is a device that brings a good versatility; therefore, it should be no surprise that there are multiple connectivity options. There are two USB3.0 ports (one on the back and one on the side of the device) to which you can connect your flash drive, or some other external storage, such as high-performing portable SSD or HDD and USB-B port for connecting the scanner to your computer (if you prefer the traditional way).

Furthermore, there is the Ethernet port, as well as the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi connection, for direct connection to the internet and cloud services and standalone use.

Good

Other than the already mentioned positive aspects of the Raven Pro Document Scanner, such as smooth-performing LCD touchscreen, good connectivity, intuitive and easy to use interface, as well as great versatility and the ability to be used as a standalone device, which is its key feature, this scanner also has many other good sides and features.

Its long list of advantages involves OCR (optical character recognition), a function that makes documents searchable, as well as automatic document rotation, auto multi-feed sheet detection, and automatic de-skewing that will straighten your scans by default. Also, there is an auto-cropping function, auto color detection that will make batch scans following their original color, color for the ones in color, black and white in black and white, and grayscale in grayscale, as well as blank-page detection that is one of the essential functions when scanning a large volume of scans.

However, that isn’t everything; Raven Pro Document Scanner is also fitted with a background cleaning feature that will make your scan’s background smoother and cleaner, and an edge correction feature, responsible for removing your document margins, creating more neat looks.

Bad

As you have already read, Raven Pro Document Scanner is a device that has a lot to offer and comes with a variety of handy features; however, it does have a few drawbacks that don’t play a major role, but still may be important aspects for many. Therefore, let’s get straight to them.

First of all, there is the lack of Zonal OCR that should help you scan only a designated area of the document, for instance, schedule, specifications, array, or something similar, placed only on a part of the sheet.

Then, there is the absence of the bar code recognition, as well as the multi-stream, that may not be a fundamental problem for many, because there is an automatic color detection feature, but the fact that in certain other brand models this feature does exist and this one doesn’t, remains.

Also, Raven Pro Document Scanner is lacking a whole punch removal and the streak corrections. These are not major downsides, but it would certainly be useful to have these options.
Finally, if you are looking to save the scanned documents into some other format than PDF, you will have to install the scanner on your computer and use a scanning application to get the desired format. In other words, there are some minor drawbacks, and all of them have workarounds, and hopefully they will be corrected in some future firmware updates, which would make this already great scanner even better.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the Raven Pro Document Scanner is an excellent document scanner that provides fast scanning, ease of use, and very good quality of the scans. It is compact, practical and highly versatile, which allows for its use not only in offices and small businesses but for digitalization of your old photos or stacks of documents, saving you space and proving an easy way for their backup.

Moreover, it is feature-rich, attractive-looking, and suitable for all ages. Above all, it can be used as a standalone device and allows for simulation scans saving at up to 10 different destinations, which is one of the characteristics that separate it from the competition. Sure, it isn’t perfect, and it has a few drawbacks, but none of them presents something that cannot be overcome or presents a major issue.

At the end of the day, this is a dedicated document scanner that has many other functions as a bonus, or to be exact, it is great in what it should be, and everything else comes as a nice additional touch. Therefore, if you are after a more than solid document scanner that provides fast, good-quality performance and comes with a ton of features, Raven Pro Document Scanner is a device that you should seriously consider.