HP Scanjet N6310 scanner

All-in-one multifunction devices are so popular you’d be forgiven for thinking the humble standalone scanner has had its day, but that’s far from the truth. Many busy offices need dedicated printers and scanners, and HP’s Scanjet N6310 is firmly aimed at that segment of the market. It’s a well-featured 2,400x2,400dpi 48-bit device capable of handling anything from business cards up to A4 documents, including bound and stapled ones.

It’s a chunky beast, measuring 502x415x162mm and weighing an impressive 6.7kg, so it takes up a fair bit of space. The styling is business-like, finished in black and off­white, with a USB interface.

The N6310 comes with a 50-sheet capacity automatic document feeder (ADF) and under the scanner cover there is a transparency adapter that can hold three 35mm negatives or two 35mm slides. The controls are on the front panel, which comprises a small LCD screen showing the menu, a three-way navigation button, three function buttons ­ Power, Scan and Copy ­ and separate Cancel and Setup buttons.

All the functions and much more are available on the very good and user-friendly HP Scanning software that comes bundled with the N6310.

It’s pretty quick ­ start-up takes around seven seconds. Scanning a magazine cover at the default 200 dots per inch (dpi) took a mere 18 seconds and at 300dpi it took 52 seconds. Even at the default dpi the colour reproduction was accurate and detailed. Scans can be exported to different document types including letter to pdf, letter to searchable pdf, letter to email, picture to file or JPEG.

The ADF is much slower, but the results are still very good and there’s also a handy duplex feature.
The software includes Readiris Pro (optical character recognition software), Paperport and Presto Bizcard to organise scanned business cards.