Canon recently released a trio of document scanners under the imageFORMULA banner, built for speed and compactness. Having already reviewed the budget Canon DR-C125 model and the flagship DR-M160, it's now time to turn the spotlight on the mid-range Canon DR-M140.
See: more scanner reviews.
Unlike its more vertical brothers, the Canon DR-M140 is designed to be laid flat and easily slipped into a desk draw when not immediately needed. If you're very limited for desk space, even with the front tray opened you're only looking at a depth of 288mm (181mm when closed) and a height of a mere 93mm.
Weighing 2.6kg, it's also suited as a portable scanner. Although the flip-down extension support looks pretty flimsy, the unit as a whole feels robust.
As with the other models, the Canon DR-M140 offers two optional feeding methods - either the U-turn for standard paper or the straight through path for thicker media types.
The operating panel is kept relatively simple, with a Double Feed Release button (to keep scanning moving after brief hold-ups) alongside basic stop, start and job assignment buttons.
Canon DR-M140: Performance
Up to 50 A4 sheets is the maximum feeder capacity, although jobs of around 30-35 feel more comfortable where the scanning action flows smoothly and jam-free.
Claimed colour scanning speeds of 40ppm/80ipm at 300dpi are not far off the mark (we measured around 36ppm), with settings of 200dpi reaching highs of 52ppm for A4 documents.
We tested the DR-M140's detection powers with mixed document sizes and we only found rare examples of double feeds and misfeeds.
Scanned photos stayed generally vibrant with marginally lighter tones but good detail, while duplex statements and invoices retained the clarity of the originals.
Most operations on this scanner will be PC driven via the enclosed software. Together with both ISIS and TWAIN drivers, Canon's CaptureOn Touch package will undoubtedly be the most useful, allowing up to nine job types to be preset and either saved to file or e-mailed as PDF or a variety of image formats.
Also on the disk are CapturePerfect 3.1 (for advanced image processing), Kofax VRS and eCopy PDF Pro Office (in case you don't want to go down the Adobe road).
Our only major niggle is with the price, which seems much too close to the Canon DR-M160 to make choosing the less powerful sibling the obvious choice.
