Brother ImageCenter ADS-3600W - Review 2022

A sheet-feed, network document scanner, the Blood brother ImageCenter ADS-3600W ($799.99) offers first-class value, with a solid feature gear up and strong performance. It'due south not as elegant, nor is its software every bit network-friendly, every bit the Editors' Choice Catechism imageFormula ScanFront 400. The ScanFront 400, however, sells for more than twice as much and is limited to Ethernet connectivity, while the ADS-3600W connects via USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and NFC in addition to Ethernet. It's an piece of cake pick as Editors' Choice for midrange to heavy-duty network scanning in small and midsize offices and workgroups.

Design and Features

At 10 pounds and 9.8 by 12.1 by 10.2 inches (HWD) with its trays closed, the ADS-3600W is similar in size to the ScanFront 400 (ix.i by 12 by 11.1 inches, x pounds). Information technology'southward somewhat smaller and lighter, though, than several non-networkable competitors, including the HP ScanJet Enterprise Menstruum 7000 s3 Sheet-Feed Scanner (7.5 by 12.2 past 7.8 inches, 8.4 pounds) and the Canon ImageFormula DR-M160II (9.ane past 11 by 9.8 inches, 7.1 pounds), both Editors' Pick winners. (To be off-white, the ScanJet does support Wi-Fi via an improver.) Every bit with nigh certificate scanners, when you extend the automatic document feeder (ADF) tray upwardly from the rear and the output tray outward from the front, the ADS-3600W's height and depth increment significantly, to about twice as high and triple in length. Even and then, it should fit on most desktops comfortably.

Compared with competing models, the ADS-3600W'due south l-sheet ADF and five,000-scan daily duty wheel rating are on the short side. The ScanFront 400'southward ADF holds 60 sheets and it is rated at half-dozen,000 scans per mean solar day, and the Scanjet 7000 has an 80-sheet ADF and a 7,500-scan-per-solar day duty cycle. As mentioned, the ADS-3600W's connectivity options abound. They include Ethernet, USB 3.0 (cable included), and Wi-Fi, as well as the two popular peer-to-peer protocols, Wi-Fi Direct and NFC, for scanning to mobile devices. You lot tin can also scan to near popular deject sites via a built-in Web Connect feature. Yous can configure and execute these and several other features, such as scanning to due east-mail or a network folder, from a 3.7-inch color touch on LCD, that, along with separate Home, Back, Cancel, Ability, and NFC buttons, comprises the control console.

From the LCD, yous can admission apps for virtually workflow scenarios, including scanning to e-mail, FTP, SFTP, and Microsoft SharePoint, and y'all can download others. You tin also develop and add together your own with Brother's open up-source Brother Solutions Interface (BSI). Scanning to wink memory and other USB drives is supported via a port on the right side of the chassis. Security features include authentication from an NFC card reader, network user protocols, corporate email lookup via Active Directory, and Secure Office Lock for restricting access to specific functions (as well equally restrict public access). You tin can configure these and most other features from a secure socket layer (SSL, HTTPS) Spider web-based interface, also as the touch LCD.

Setup and Software

Bated from an exceedingly irksome driver and software installation (20 to 25 minutes, compared with just a few minutes for most scanners), setup was straightforward and uneventful. The but associates consisted of affixing the ADF tray to the back of the chassis. In improver to Blood brother's drivers and utilities, the software bundle contains 2 third-party programs, Nuance PaperPort SE (document management) and Abbyy FineReader Professional person (optical graphic symbol recognition, or OCR), but they don't come on the included CD; instead, they are downloads offered during the software installation routine.

Brother ImageCenter ADS-3600W

In addition to PaperPort and FineReader, bundled software includes Abbyy PDF Transformer Plus, a program for reading and creating PDFs that is similar to Adobe Acrobat DC (though not as characteristic-rich), and Blood brother'southward own ControlCenter iv (Windows) or ControlCenter ii (Mac). ControlCenter is, equally it is for most Brother scanners and multifunction printers, the chief scanning utility, though you tin also browse directly into both Abbyy programs and PaperPort. The first time y'all launch ControlCenter, it offers a choice of 2 interfaces, Home and Advanced. The Habitation interface is rudimentary, containing just a few basic profiles for the most mutual scanning workflows, such as scanning text documents to PDF. Avant-garde mode, on the other hand, comes with a handful of highly configurable profiles, and you can create your ain. Both modes are well designed and easy to figure out. In addition, the ADS-3600W is Kofax VRS certified, simply the Kofax software itself is non included. (Kofax VRS is a utility that evaluates and enhances poor scans to improve accuracy.)

Performance

Like its $ii,000 competitor, the Catechism ScanFront 400, the Brother ADS-3600W is rated at l pages per infinitesimal (ppm) for single-sided (simplex) scans and 100ppm for two-sided (duplex) scans. The ScanJet 7000, on the other paw, is rated at 75ppm simplex and 150ppm duplex. What's important, though, is how fast the scanner and its software creates a usable file (which, in our tests, are image and searchable PDFs), non how fast the pages curlicue through the machine. I tested the ADS-3600W (and the other scanners listed here) with our standard Core i5 testbed PC running Windows 10, in this case over USB three.0. I also ran some tests via Ethernet and got almost identical scores. The results below are from the USB tests.

Without the lag fourth dimension (the time between when the terminal page hits the output tray and the document is subsequently saved to PDF), the ADS-3600W matched its ratings (50ppm simplex, 100ppm duplex) precisely. Unlike most Canon scanners, including the ScanFront 400 and DR-M160II, that process and save scans in the background, while scanning, the Blood brother scanner'southward software processes and saves scans after information technology finishes scanning, which increases the lag time. When saving to epitome PDF, for instance, information technology scanned at the charge per unit of 46.2ppm simplex and 96.8ppm duplex, for a lag time of 3ppm to 4ppm, which isn't bad.

Brother ImageCenter ADS-3600W

When scanning to the more useful searchable PDF format, though, the ADS-3600W'south lag time between scanning and saving our one-sided 25-page test document was 12 seconds (from thirty seconds to 42). The time betwixt scanning and saving our two-sided 25-sail (50 pages) document was 18 seconds (from xxx seconds to 48 seconds). The ScanFront 400 scanned and saved the same fifty-folio certificate to searchable PDF in 34 seconds (with very picayune lag fourth dimension), and the ScanJet 7000, despite its significantly college speed rating, took 44 seconds. While the ADS-3600W did bog down some when saving to searchable PDF, information technology held its ain against these pricier competitors.

OCR Testing

At least as important as speed is accurate conversion from scanned text to editable text. The ADS-3600W's accuracy on our tests was about average. At the default resolution of 200dpi, it converted our Arial font test page without errors downward to 6 points, and the Times New Roman font page at viii points. Increasing the resolution to 300dpi brought the Times New Roman errorless results down to half-dozen points, while the Arial score didn't alter. When scanning the same test pages at its default setting, the ScanFront 400 produced the same results, and the ScanJet 7000 managed 6 points for both fonts. The Canon DR-M160II, on the other hand, scanned both fonts at 5 points without errors, which was the best results we've seen in some time.

Decision

With an $800 list price, the Brother ImageCenter ADS-3600W delivers a more robust gear up of connectivity and other features than its more-expensive competitors, primarily the pricier ScanFront 400 and the ScanJet 7000. (The ScanJet lists for $150 more than the Brother model and you have to buy a $50 adapter to get Wi-Fi-merely networking.) The merely drawback I run into with the ADS-3600W is that it doesn't come up with business card management software, which the ScanJet 7000 does. (The Canon ScanFront 400 and DR-M160II practice non). Given the Brother model'southward low price, though, even if you buy the business card software separately, the ADS-3600W is a terrific value. With its depression price, generous feature set, and its reliability and strong performance in testing, the Brother ADS-3600W earns our Editors' Choice nod for medium- to heavy-duty network scanning in small and medium-size offices and workgroups.