Although aimed more at business users, the Plustek PL806 ADF (automatic document feed) scanner is equally adept in a home environment and can handle large volumes at high speeds.

The adjustable ADF tray holds up to 50 sheets of regular-weight paper or about 25 photos and can port results to an image application, direct to file or straight to your printer using the instant copy function.

We were impressed by the speed of the device. Regardless of the source, results appeared in less than 10 seconds in all cases. This roughly doubles if you use the OCR (optical character recognition) feature, but it's still an extremely fast device.

When handling printed text and line drawings, the 806 produces near perfect results in very little time, making it perfect for high volume scanning in an office environment.

Although you can scan photos through either the flatbed unit or the ADF tray, there is no film scanner attachment. As expected, results here aren’t quite as impressive.

It’s still extremely fast, but colours on most of the images we tested were a little muted and those looking for vibrant representations of colourful pictures will probably feel a little let down. You are, however, supplied with an image correction tool to make adjustments.

A wide range of other applications to configure the device and manage multiple scans are also included, making it well supported and very easy to use.

The maximum hardware resolution is 600dpi, which further underlines its primary purpose as a document scanner, but in this light it performs admirably and is both fast and efficient at generating results.

If you need a high productivity scanner that’s extremely quick and requires a minimum of supervision, the Plustek PL806 is an excellent and reasonably priced option, especially considering the performance on offer.

But casual users or those looking for more of a photo-orientated product would be better off looking elsewhere.