January 15, 2014 – Hackensack (NJ) – Buyers Laboratory LLC, the world’s leading independent tester of document imaging products, announced its coveted Winter 2014 “Pick” awards in the scanner category today, bestowing honors upon two scanners from Epson and one scanner from Panasonic. Announced twice a year, the “Pick” awards acknowledge the products that gave the best performances in BLI’s extensive suite of laboratory tests in the previous six months.

The Winter 2014 scanner “Pick” winners are:

Peak Performers
When pitted against competitive scanners tested to date, the 40-ppm (80 ipm) Epson WorkForce DS-60000 and the 26-ppm (52 ipm) WorkForce DS-510 consistently surpassed the competition, helping them achieve BLI “Pick” honors in their respective categories. The WorkForce DS-60000 demonstrated better than average OCR accuracy for most documents tested and created smaller than average multi-page file sizes in color mode. Thanks to its robust, 200-sheet document feeder, the scanner also processes long documents up to 100" and handles a wider than average range of paper weights. Based on its exceptional performance and lower than average estimated total cost of ownership, the highly recommended Epson WorkForce DS-60000 is a standout choice for A3 scanning environments looking for an affordable flatbed-equipped capture solution.

“The versatility, functionality and excellent price point of the WorkForce DS-60000 place it among the best of the best when compared against competitive A3-size flatbed-equipped scanners tested to date,” said BLI Senior Test Technician Joe Ellerman. “And its optional network interface allows users to upgrade the functionality, should their office needs change, which adds further value to the outstanding overall package.”

“Epson offers a dynamic portfolio of document imaging solutions to meet the needs of businesses in nearly any market,” said Mark Pickard, Epson America, Inc.’s senior product manager for document scanners. “To be recognized by such a prestigious industry influencer further underscores Epson’s commitment to helping businesses increase efficiency through tools that deliver a wide range of features and top-notch image quality.”

Faster than average speeds and a higher than average efficiency rate (the percentage of the rated speed at which it operates) when measuring the WorkForce DS-510’s hardware throughput contributed to its award-winning status. In addition, the unit maintains its hardware speeds even when increasing the resolution or changing image processing settings. Based on its exceptional performance and lower than average TCO, BLI highly recommends the Epson WorkForce DS-510 for workgroups and departments looking for an affordable and robust scanner able to process up to 3,000 sheets a day.

“In a highly contested category, the Epson WorkForce DS-510 was able to go above and beyond typical workgroup scanners by offering superior functionality and an intuitive design all for an affordable total cost of ownership,” said Lisa Reider, BLI’s senior product editor for scanners.

Consistent Craftsmanship
Panasonic’s consistently exceptional scanner design is evident yet again in the better than average performance exhibited by the 45-ppm KV-S1046C-H during BLI’s testing. The unit includes many of the same features that earned its predecessor a BLI “Pick” last year, along with several new enhancements not found with most competitive A4 workgroup scanners in its speed range tested to date. A couple of those features can be found in the latest version of Panasonic Image Capture Plus. For example, the solution’s Auto Rescan feature helps users expedite the capture process by automatically displaying up to nine variations of the same document via the unit’s live preview screen, allowing users to see the affects different settings have on the document without having to rescan with each setting.

“The intuitive design and better than average functionality seen with the KV-S1046C-H are results we’ve come to expect from Panasonic scanners,” said BLI’s Ellerman. “But these additional advancements over its predecessor in just one year show Panasonic’s commitment to continually improve its products for the benefit of its customers and the future of document capture.”

About Buyers Laboratory LLC

Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) is the world's leading independent provider of analytical information and services to the digital imaging and document management industry. For over 50 years, buyers have relied on BLI to help them differentiate products’ strengths and weaknesses and make the best purchasing decisions, while industry sales, marketing and product professionals have turned to BLI for insightful competitive intelligence and valued guidance on product development, competitive positioning and sales channel and marketing support. Using BLI’s web-based bliQ and Solutions Center services, 40,000 professionals worldwide create extensive side-by-side comparisons of hardware and software solutions for over 15,000 products globally, including comprehensive specifications and the performance results and ratings from BLI’s unparalleled Lab, Solutions and Environmental Test Reports, the result of months of hands-on evaluation in its US and UK labs. The services, also available via mobile devices, include a comprehensive library of BLI’s test reports, an image gallery, hard to find manufacturers’ literature and valuable tools for configuring products, calculating total cost of ownership (TCO) and annual power usage. BLI also offers consulting and private, for-hire testing services that help manufacturers develop and market better products and consumables.

For more information on Buyers Laboratory LLC, please call 201-488-0404, visit www.buyerslab.com, or email info@buyerslab.com.