Good scanner?

October 11, 2005 12:08 PM

I am looking for a scanner (flatbed) for my office. Reviews? Advice? What are good brands?

I have searched the AskMe archives for similar questions but nothing really appropriate jumps out at me. What are good resources for good reviews? Since this purchase is for my job, I want to make the best choice possible. We will be scanning a wide variety of pictures: large, small, b&w, color, new, old (archival). Maybe someone can recommend a really good model? This scanner will be connected to an iMac G5.
Thanks in advance!

posted by chelseagirl to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I hesitate to plug them, since their actual review numbers have steadily declined since the epinions days, but shopping.com is a good place to get a sense of what's out there. Their category navigation is pretty good. Unfortunately, they don't provide release dates of electronic products (unless I'm missing it) so it's hard to distinguish between last year's products and this year's. Shopping.com is a great place to find out who is selling a particular kind of scanner for the best price, but aren't much help when it comes to determining exactly which make/model you want.
posted by squirrel at 12:19 PM on October 11, 2005

Canon. In particular the CanoScan 9950F. It's the one I'd buy if I was buying.
posted by kindall at 12:29 PM on October 11, 2005

If I recall correctly, we used Flatbed-Scanner-Review.org for research on purchasing a scanner last year. The reviews tend toward the high end of the market but there is useful information in there. The most important thing you can do is know what your prioprites are. In the end we purchased a Epson 4870 Perfection Photo and it has worked well for us.
posted by Dick Paris at 12:31 PM on October 11, 2005

If you're just looking for something for your desk, go with a known brand (I prefer HP, myself) and forget about the specifications: Buy on price. Flat bed scanners and ubiquitous and require very little beyond a USB and TWAIN driver to interface with any software.

If you're doing slide-scanning, make sure the flatbed either comes with a template or a feeder attachment available. Otherwise, the sky's the limit.

Above all, ignore the hype. If you're scanning for professional printing work, you'll need a decent scanner. For any other purpose (online work, office documents, etc), you don't need anything more then 600 dpi (if that).

A few years back, I picked up an HP color flatbed for 23.00 off of a sale advertised through PriceWatch. It hasn't failed me yet, and I've been scanning in at least 20 4x5s a day (I'm archiving my old photos) since then.
posted by thanotopsis at 12:51 PM on October 11, 2005

Also consider what and how much you are scanning. I scan a lot of documents and having a sheet feeder is nice having a duplex (2 sideded fed) scanning is better which is why I got an HP.

If you plan to do only light scanning just be sure it has the correct attachment e.g., negatives, slides and can handle the load. A majority of scanners do single pages reasonably well and you only need 300 DPI for printing grade to publishers/service bureaus.
posted by jadepearl at 7:07 PM on October 11, 2005

Canon. In particular the CanoScan 9950F. It's the one I'd buy if I was buying.

Or, if that's overkill ($400! holy cow!) the Canon 8400F has very competitive features for a much, much lower price. I've been quite satisfied with mine; it's been durable and produced great scans, and the speed on USB 2.0 is staggering.
posted by musicinmybrain at 8:15 PM on October 11, 2005

$400! holy cow!

$400 is actually amazingly cheap for the apparent quality of results. My experience with scanners goes back to the early 1990s, for which reason I find it difficult to take seriously any scanner that costs less than $2000, but the reviews I read are quite encouraging. Apparently you don't have to drop two grand to get a decent dMax these days.
posted by kindall at 1:38 AM on October 12, 2005