A perfect fit between entry-level and high-volume combo scanners
I focus on printer and scanner technology and reviews. I have been writing about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet. I have authored or co-authored 20 books—including titles in the popular Bible, Secrets, and For Dummies series—on digital design and desktop publishing software applications. My published expertise in those areas includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, as well as prepress imaging technology. (Over my long career, though, I have covered many aspects of IT.)
HP's ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 is a speedy combination sheetfed/flatbed document scanner that's ideal for busy small and home offices.
A medium-volume document scanner that's a combination of a sheetfed and a flatbed, HP's $599 ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 replaces the model 3500 f1 that we reviewed way back in early 2016. Scanning hardware and software have both matured a lot since then, and the new ScanJet Pro is faster, leaner, and more reliable, and it converts pages to editable text in a fraction of the time of its predecessor. The 3600 f1 also boasts an automatic document feeder (ADF) that holds almost twice as many pages as our current entry-level Editors' Choice winner, the Xerox Duplex Combo Scanner. We'd like it even more at a somewhat lower price, but the ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 is a more-than-capable document manager for busy small offices and workgroups, earning our Editors' Choice award honors for midrange document scanners.
The 3600 f1 is one of four new HP scanners, led by the $1,499 ScanJet Enterprise Flow N6600 fnw1 and descending to the ScanJet Pro 2500 f1 scheduled for review soon. While they vary widely in speed, capacity, and volume ratings, the four machines look very much alike. They don't, however, look much like their predecessors, as the shot of the 3500 f1 and 3600 f1 below illustrates.
The ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 measures 5.2 by 19.4 by 12.8 inches (HWD) and weighs just under 12 pounds. Most of the recent competing sheetfed/flatbed combos are similarly sized; the Epson DS-1630 Flatbed Color Document Scanner is slightly smaller and lighter, and the Xerox Duplex Combo is close in size to today's HP but weighs about half as much.
Some higher-end combination scanners, including the HP N6600 and the Raven Pro Max, come with touch screens for setting up and initiating scans. (The Raven lets you edit scans and assign them multiple destinations directly from the control panel.) This ScanJet, by contrast, has a much more modest control panel with several buttons and status LEDs.
From left to right, your options are Cancel, Shortcut Select (for selecting workflow profiles), Scan to PDF, Scan to JPEG, Scan to Email, Scan to Cloud, Scan to USB, Simplex/Duplex Toggle (for one- or two-sided scanning), Scan (Start), and Power. While this control panel may be limited, the Epson DS-1630's and Xerox Duplex Combo's are even lesser-endowed.
The file formats and destinations correspond with profiles that you setup and manage via HP's Scan Pro software, which we'll get to in a minute. The 3600 f1 supports Windows versions 7 through 11 and Windows Server, macOS versions 10.14 Mojave and above, and Linux. You can scan from the ADF at resolutions of up to 600dpi and from the flatbed at up to 1,200dpi. Color bit depth is 24-bit external and 48-bit internal, and the maximum document size is 8.5 inches by just over 10 feet. There are USB and power cables in the box.
The ScanJet Pro 3600 f1's automatic document feeder holds up to 60 pages, and the unit's daily duty cycle is 3,000 scans. Those specs put this HP in the middle of the arena, below the higher-volume ScanJet N6600 and Raven Pro Max (100-page ADFs with 10,000 and 6,000 respective scans daily) and the entry-level Xerox and Epson (35- and 50-page ADFs respectively, each 1,500 scans daily).
The 3600 f1 has two USB ports, one for scanning to flash drives and one for connecting to a single computer. The scanner isn't networkable, so other PCs on your network can't access it, and excludes connections to most handheld mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
By plugging a thumb drive or other USB storage device into the back of the scanner, you can use the ScanJet autonomously without a computer. As mentioned, the scanner relies on the bundled HP Scan Pro software and a set of workflow profiles (HP calls them shortcuts) that contain all setup and configuration data such as scan resolution, file format, and destination. You can edit shortcuts or create your own in Scan Pro; it's all straightforward and simple to set up and use.
In addition to Scan Pro, you get industry-standard WIA, ISIS, and Twain drivers for connecting the ScanJet to the scores of applications (such as Adobe Acrobat, Corel Draw, and Microsoft Word and Excel) that support scanning into them directly.
HP rates the ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 at 30 one-sided pages per minute (ppm) and 60 two-sided images per minute (ipm, where each page side is counted as an image). The Xerox and Epson scanners are both rated at 25ppm/50ipm, while most higher-end models including the Raven Pro Max (60ppm/120ipm) and Fujitsu fi-8270 (70ppm/140ipm) are at least twice as fast.
For real-world results, I tested the HP over a USB 3.0 connection from our Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 and HP Scan Pro. The first test entailed clocking the 3600 f1 as it scanned our 25-page one-sided and two-sided (50 sides) Microsoft Word text documents and converted and saved them as image PDFs. The device scanned the single-sided document at 33.7ppm and the duplex pages at 63.8ipm, slightly exceeding its rated speeds. As mentioned, the more costly Raven, HP, and Fujitsu workhorses beat this midrange machine hands down, while the lower-end Epson and Xerox combos trailed by 5ppm to 9ppm.
Next, I timed the ScanJet and the HP Scan Pro software as it captured our two-sided 25-page text document and saved it to the more useful searchable PDF format. The stark difference between this scanner's text conversion time (48 seconds) and its 2016 predecessor's (5 minutes and 44 seconds) shows just how much optical character recognition (OCR) has matured over the past half-decade. The Epson DS-1630, reviewed in early 2017, took just under five minutes, while the more recent Xerox Combo did the job in 58 seconds. In the past three or four years, only a few portable scanners have taken more than a minute.
As for OCR accuracy, the 3600 f1 proved error-free down to 6-point type in both our sans-serif (Arial) and serif (Times New Roman) font tests. That's frankly about as good as it gets; converting text smaller than 6 points is, well, pointless, as it's counter-productive to create documents with text that tiny in the first place. For the record, the higher-end sheetfed/flatbed combos managed accuracy down to 5 points in Arial and to 6 points in Times New Roman, while the less expensive Epson and Xerox combos settled for 6 points in Arial and 8 points in Times New Roman.
Achieving scan accuracy at 8 points error-free isn't half bad, either; you won't run into many documents with text that small. To be fair, I should add that the Epson and Xerox were reviewed in 2017 and 2019 respectively; it's a good bet that their bundled OCR software has been updated several times since.
Another area where scanners and scanning software have matured is in capturing colorful photos and multicolor documents. We don't typically run speed tests on flatbed scanners, but I put several photos of varying sizes as well as colorful drawings, business graphics, and full-color brochures on the glass to evaluate the HP's scanning accuracy and detail rather than speed.
The flatbed's 1,200dpi resolution and 48-bit color depth reproduced nearly everything I threw at it with impressive detail and brilliant color accuracy. It's always nice when you don't have to make many color corrections or rescans. Between the HP's precise sensors and the exactitude of the interface software, I've no complaints about the flatbed's performance.
As we said, an MSRP of $599 feels a little high for this HP, though we wouldn't be surprised if a price cut or at least a sale happens soon. That said, the ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 is a superb midrange scanner with a wealth of features; an easy-to-use, robust interface; and decent document archiving. For its extra cost, it gives you an ADF with almost twice the capacity of the Editors' Choice-winning Xerox Duplex Combo's, along with higher scanning speeds and double the daily duty cycle. If your home-based or small office demands more than entry-level speed and volume, the ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 is our new favorite midrange combination sheetfed/flatbed scanner.
HP's ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 is a speedy combination sheetfed/flatbed document scanner that's ideal for busy small and home offices.
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I focus on printer and scanner technology and reviews. I have been writing about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet. I have authored or co-authored 20 books—including titles in the popular Bible, Secrets, and For Dummies series—on digital design and desktop publishing software applications. My published expertise in those areas includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, as well as prepress imaging technology. (Over my long career, though, I have covered many aspects of IT.)
In addition to writing hundreds of articles for PCMag, over the years I have also written for many other computer and business publications, among them Computer Shopper, Digital Trends, MacUser, PC World, The Wirecutter, and Windows Magazine. I also served as the Printers and Scanners Expert at About.com (now Lifewire).
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