I'm buying a scanner, give me some opinions...........Thanks

[JohnnyTT]

Actually my friend is getting one. He wants to spend $500 or less. Please give me some of your opinions on good and bad.

Thanks,

 

[Redwingsguy]

wow $500 for a scanner?? hmm i think i need to get one too, i have everything else cept a scanner

 

[Rob9874]

WOW, I'd say $500 is overkill. I bought my Canon for $99, and it works perfectly. Beware about getting caught up in specs. Companies want their customers to get caught up in how well the scanner looks on paper. When in reality, about 50% of what you're buying would be for professional use. My scanner is capable of MUCH higher resolution that what I use it for. For posting on the web, I set my scanner at 150 dpi, and pictures are bright, clear, and small in file size. You'd be surprised how well a 150-300 dpi scan looks. Most $100 scanners can scan at 1200 dpi or more.

Rob

 

[JohnnyTT]

He might want to scan and print photos..........maybe scan and blow them up, then print. A scanner that can do it all really well.

 

[esung]

Is there a reason for the $500 budget? Is he doing something professionally? requires a large format scanning? or high quality/desity scanning? light mask(for negatives/slides/trasparency)? or scanning slides(high dpi, 2400x2400)?

It boils down to the requirement of the scanner.. most scanner around or under $100 is good enough for most people. I agree with Rob9874 that most of the spec is overkill. your monitor has a resolution about 75-100dpi, so displaying picture at much higher dpi will only make the picture larger (size as well). The only thing I think aboutyou should be wary is the *true* optical resolution of the scanner instead of the *max* resolution, which is interpolated resolution. but even with the cheap scanner, 600-1200 dpi is fairly common. So you shouldn't worry about that too much.

Edit: didn't see the reply in time.. and it depends on the scanning
medium (photo, magazine, slide?) and how big he is planning to blow up to?
I'd say those scanner with 1200 dpi (optical) will do the job, provide that you want to bleed your printer's ink to death (1440dpi...)

 

[Rob9874]

I've scanned photos at 600 dpi, and printed on photo paper, and could see very little difference from the original. Blowing up scans is a different story, but again, I think 1200 dpi would do the trick. You have to remember that the original source you're scanning probably won't have the detail that would require more than 1200 dpi.

Check out CNET's Top 5 Scanners. They rate Espon as best, and I've heard Epson's are great. Number 5 is the Canon I have, and notice how the review talks about how they stripped the scanner of "superfluous" features. Of course, I like a balance of ease of use and quality scans. If he wants top of the line, I'd suggest one of the Epsons.

Rob

 

[dcdomain]

Here's my ranking from personal experience:

Epson
HP (distant second)
Umax (economy scanners here... not bad)
Canon (most I've used have been POS, they seem to concentrate on the exterior formwork of the scanner (thinness, portability) rather than the quality.

Any Epson you get should be more than enough for the job. There's a model around $200, forget the number, but that should be more than ideal. I got the 610u as a floor model for around $30 at CompUSA, a steal!

 

[jamarno]

Unless you need photographic quality, look for speed above all else, and that usually means Epson (but Epsons give very good picture quality as well). And if you need to scan non-flat images, like thick books, a CCD/fluorescent (excuse me, "cold cathode&quot😉 scanner will be better than a CIS slimline design.

 

[pm]

I bought an HP 3300c last night from Best Buy. It has terrible Win2k support and I wasn't impressed with the quality under Win98SE. Returned it.

I bought a Canon to replace it and the Win2k drivers for this scanner work fine. The quality and speed of the Canon are better than the HP.

 

[Eug]

Well, I dunno. All I can say is avoid the Agfa 1212U like the plague. I have tried several different installs of Windows 2000, and I cannot get the damn thing to work. (Works great in Win 98 though). This is a known issue and they have a work around. Unfortunately, that doesn't work either, and their last driver update was summer 2000.

I'm going to go out and buy an Epson I think.

I do like the Agfa semi-professional scanners, and have ordered one for work, but they are $$$$.

 

[dcdomain]

Oh I forgot to add, the Epson's have great driver support across different platforms. Umax on the other hand lied to me about their Win2K support, so they've lost me as a customer...

 

[Imported]

I'm going to be getting the Epson 1240U soon, looks like a great scanner to me. 🙂

 

[eyez]

I've got the Epson 1240 Photo. Good speed, and excellant color. Very good sharpness. Previously had an Agfa, POS tube burned out in 8 months, cost more to replace than a new one. Also had a microtek. Not bad. Seems durable (still working fine). Color saturation is real weird though. Basically slightly green. Have to retouch everything. Sharpness and speed a couple of notches below Epson.