Flatbed Scanner For Mom

[mccoady]

My mom needs an easy to use flatbed scanner that has the buttons on the scanner. She will mainly scan documents but said she would also like the ability to scan pictures. I've kind of narrowed it down to a Canon 4400f, a Epson V200 and a HP 3010 just because they're all kind of in the same price range for $100 (I'm sure she would spend a little more if necessary). Locally I can't find any of these three to go look at because it seems like Office Depot, Office Max, Best Buy and Circuit City mainly carry All-in-Ones in their stores and the stand alone scanners on their websites so I will be buying online.

Can anyone recommend which of the above scanners might work best for my mom? I don't know which of the three might have the easiest to use software.

[Cobra]

I don't know much about scanners, but I do own a Canon LiDE 35 and it's an outstanding scanner. The only issue I had with it was that it wasn't compatible with the USB ports on my motherboard - but that's VIA's fault for making a rubbish chipset (K8T800 Pro).

I don't know about the Epson or the HP, having never owned either brand. They're both reputable, though, so they should all be good. Canon, however, would always be my choice for imaging. I've never had a bad Canon product.

[winifreid]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HDWZLC/102-2575205-6624113

[painkiller]

Be sure of the model scanner that you get works with the operating system on her machine.

If she is running a fairly new PC with Vista on it, there have been numerous complaints of lack of drivers for these kinds of peripherals.

SO check and make sure that the scanner says it will work on Vista.

[mccoady]

She is using XP Home so I would think everything should be compatible.

[redwudz]

I have a Canon (Don't recall the model) at work. (A cheapy, $50US from Staples a couple of years ago) It's been fine. Runs off the USB, so no power cable to plug in. Most of the low end scanners have a copy, email and other buttons right on the unit, so they are easy to use.

Compared to my old clunker SCSI scanner at home, it works surprisingly well. And weighs about ten pounds less. About my only complaint is if you unplug it, you have to reinstall the driver. So just keep the driver disc handy or copy the driver to the hard drive. But I suspect most USB scanners have the same problem.

[rhegedus]

I have a Canon (Don't recall the model) at work. (A cheapy, $50US from Staples a couple of years ago) It's been fine. Runs off the USB, so no power cable to plug in. Most of the low end scanners have a copy, email and other buttons right on the unit, so they are easy to use.

Same here - Canon N760u. Got it for £50 four years ago.

Simple, reliable and you can just unplug the USB cable and it's gone.

[DarrellS]

Wow, I thought all scanners had to have a power supply. I used a Visioneer 7600 for 7 years but the power adaptor blew up and I gave it away since I'd already wasted money on two adapters at Radio Shack and didn't want to send off to Visioneer and buy another. I got an HP Scanjet 4370 for around $100.00 U.S. that has a built in film scanner (the Visioneer with film scanner was $150).

About my only complaint is if you unplug it, you have to reinstall the driver. So just keep the driver disc handy or copy the driver to the hard drive. But I suspect most USB scanners have the same problem.

That's the problem with XP, if you unplug something or don't use it for a while then Windows decides that you don't need it anymore and uninstalls it. I don't know how often my brother has to jump through those hoops. With Windows 2000, all I have to do is plug the USB cable back in.

[BogieV]

That's something new for me!
Do you people have goasts in your WinXP machines?
First time I hear devices unistall themselves !?

There is one thing that I have noticed though. If you plug your scanner (printer, web cam you name it) in a different USB port the device is again recognized as a new hardware. But... as the driver is already installed it is in a few moments ready to go (given a successive number #2, etc.).

Win does not do things on it's own (except cleaning unused desktop icons that you actually use but by mistake press Yes on the cleaning wizard).

I also recommend Canon scanners Lide - thin, light and do a decent job.

[ahhaa]

couple other thoughts-
one is check out the scanning software itself, you can do that online pre-purchase... some is a pain in the posterior, takes over the computer; some is great to work with. This is esp. important if OCR might be wanted sometime. Most scanners are oriented for photography & do OK on color, but B&W (if she might want to convert the family album) can be limited to 256 greys by some software. Also, be sure to actually try scanning a book or some such on the flatbed, some have annoying ridges that make anything oversize impossible.

[mccoady]

I've eliminated the HP, I think I want the Canon 4400 or the Epson 200. I think my mom wants a little nicer one than the Lide Series, she looked at a Lide70 and thought it was kind of cheap looking (no offense to anyone who owns one). And she wants a nicer one so maybe it will do a better job scanning pictures.

Now has anyone done a comparison between Canon and Epson scanners to see which software is the less cumbersome and easier to use?

[redwudz]

I think the issue with XP 'losing' my scanner when it's unplugged has to to with the Twain driver. Or it may have to do with the device being powered by USB. Who knows, it's curious, but not really a problem. The Twain driver is the only thing I have to reload, the other software is still there.

And as you mention software, about the only program I use from the disc included with the scanner is the optical character recognition program. It's handy occasionally when I need to pull the text out of a page and use it with my word processor. It works well enough that I have no use in buying a full version of that software.

For photos, I usually scan directly into a graphics editor program. Many photo viewing programs like ACDSee and Irfanview have import capabilities. Look under 'File>Acquire'. If you process your photos or images with a program like Photoshop, it can also use the scanner directly. Irfanview is nice as it's freeware and can do batch conversions. It also has a fair amount of adjustments you can do with your scanned image. Not as extensive as Photoshop, but a whole lot cheaper.

Super high resolution as a feature doesn't mean much as most scans are done around 200 dpi. Try 1300 dpi and you may be waiting quite a while for the scan to finish. Maybe when scanning a slide you would use higher.

Here's a link to some basic scanner info: http://www.scantips.com/