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(More customer reviews)The scanner utility applet has a long-term counter, which in my case is 27,653 sheets, or twice that many pages (all duplex). So I guess I can write a review. My overall impression is quite favorable. I feel I have already gotten my money's worth.
This scanner is fast. It is satisfying to watch the sheets slide through at just a couple of seconds per sheet. At first I spent some time playing with scan settings, but later I just began scanning everything at 400 dpi, 24-bit color, with brightness=140, contrast=128, chroma=170. I noticed that BW scanning shows improved quality if scanned in color. The images with my standard settings are about 1 to 2 megs per image, with JPEG at default 75 percent quality. A big issue with scanners is moire. Above 400 dpi it increases significantly. At 400 dpi I can live with it. The user's manual shows a 'reduce moire' checkbox in the scanner software, but recent releases have dispensed with this. I assume Panasonic feels they have incorporated the best anti-moire they can build in, and users don't need to select anything now. There are always compromises with moire; if you are particularly sensitive to it you might consider Canon 9000F/Silverfast combo, although this option would of course be much slower. The Panasonic KV-S1025C also sometimes exhibits slight banding as well as moire. However, if the level of detail is satisfactory, and it is, I can swallow some artifacts. I may have overemphasized the moire problem, but I want to make clear: this is not a moire-free zone.
On a high speed scanner, internal cleanliness is of extreme importance. The utility light starts blinking at 2000 sheets past last roller cleaning, and this is about right. In addition, I open the thing up at every 50 sheets, inspect and do a path cleaning, getting rid of paper dust and flakes which may obstruct the scan windows. I then polish the scan windows with a soft cloth, because a haze can build up on them. While scanning, I watch the output like a hawk, page by page, looking for telltale chroma stripes which indicate presence of a window flake. If observed, the scanning must stop at once and the required cleaning carried out.
Recently I observed a chroma stripe in auxiliary output which no amount of window polishing would clear. Feeling cornered, I removed four screws and a cable tie, slid out and rotated the cover for the auxiliary (duplex) scanner module. I was amazed to find no fluorescent. It is all done with mirrors, the primary light reflected several times through the auxiliary side. After carefully cleaning the auxiliary mirrors, I reassembled and breathed a sigh of relief when scanner still worked and stripe had disappeared.
I look at this scanner as a workhorse. It is great for text and line art because the output is excellent and the scanning is fast. For screened images, especially color, it is somewhat less than excellent, yet the output, for me, is acceptable. Comparing this scanner with flatbeds, the speed is the deciding factor, and I have no regrets with the Panasonic. I did deduct one star, because there is room for improvement in screened image quality and end-user maintainability.
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