Please suggest a scanner

mianileng.RemoveThis@yahoo.com wrote:

> Can you help me choose a flat-bed scanner in the US$50-100
> range ? It is *not* primarily for work with photographs,
> but I guess this group will be quite knowledgeable anyway.
> It's for general-purpose work with documents, pictures and
> yes, photos too. OCR function is not important. Neither is
> photo negative scanning.
> If possible, please point out any characteristics that
> make your recommendation better than average in its price
> class.

I am using a Brother All-In-One unit that has Black & White Laser
Printer, Flatbed Scanner, and FAX and can be used as a copy machine or
stand-alone FAX. The printer, scanner and FAX are good, but the big
advantage is that I save a bundle on printing. Laser prints are about 1
cent per page. On the other hand my color Epson Stylus Photo 900 ink
jet prints cost over 10 cents per page. On every ream of paper I save
$50. It adds up quickly. Such units start around $200 for the Brother
DCP-7020 without FAX and $300 for the Brother MFC-7420 with FAX, but
they soon pay for themselves if you have a ink jet printer and do much
better and faster b/w printing. After 4 reams of paper the all-in-one
is free. Also, lasers give much better quality prints on plain paper.

For a plain scanner, in May of this year a well known magazine did some
tests and found the Canon CanoScan 8400F Scanner and the Epson
Perfection 3490 Photo Scanner to be best buys at $100 each. These
models offer the best combination of speed, quality, and low price. The
Canon was slightly higher rated but doesn't support Macs. The Epson
includes a film/slide scanner, is easier to use, and supports Macs.
They also stated, don¹t sweat the software. Both models came with
software for scanning, image editing, and optical character recognition
for scanning text into a word-processing program.

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Marvin wrote:

> mianileng.DeleteThis@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Can you help me choose a flat-bed scanner in the US$50-100
> > range ? It is *not* primarily for work with photographs,
> > but I guess this group will be quite knowledgeable anyway.
> >
> > It's for general-purpose work with documents, pictures and
> > yes, photos too. OCR function is not important. Neither is
> > photo negative scanning.
> >
>
> I goit an Epson Perfection 3490 Photo a few months ago for
> $95, and I'm impressed by what it does for the price. The
> scanning speed seems ot be controlled by the time for data
> tranfer to the computer. It is USB2 enabled, so it is fast
> with a a computer with a USB2 port. For scanning multiple
> pages, the software automatically changes the file number on
> each scan, which saves time.

Thanks. The Epson 3490 seems to be warmly recommended by
everyone. It's not for me, but for use in the office of a
client of mine. For the kind of use they'll put it to, I
guess the image quality would almost be overkill, but
it's still within budget. And it seems to be blazingly
fast. It's to be used with with low-end 64-bit machines
assembled by me, and geared for general office work. They
all have USB 2.

The actual budget is about the equivalent of US$120, but
things are more expensive here, and I adjusted the figure
accordingly when I made my initial post.
 >> Stay informed about: Please suggest a scanner 

mianileng.RemoveThis@yahoo.com wrote:
> Can you help me choose a flat-bed scanner in the US$50-100
> range ? It is *not* primarily for work with photographs,
> but I guess this group will be quite knowledgeable anyway.
>
> It's for general-purpose work with documents, pictures and
> yes, photos too. OCR function is not important. Neither is
> photo negative scanning.
>
> If possible, please point out any characteristics that
> make your recommendation better than average in its price
> class. E.g., a few years ago, I chose a Microtek 3800 for
> a friend because it had an exceptionally fast preview,
> while image quality was about as good as any other in its
> class.
>
> I'd like to know about a current model similar to the
> Microtek 3800. That is, speed comes first, and of course,
> image quality should be at least average. TIA.
>

I goit an Epson Perfection 3490 Photo a few months ago for
$95, and I'm impressed by what it does for the price. The
scanning speed seems ot be controlled by the time for data
tranfer to the computer. It is USB2 enabled, so it is fast
with a a computer with a USB2 port. For scanning multiple
pages, the software automatically changes the file number on
each scan, which saves time.
 >> Stay informed about: Please suggest a scanner