Scanners

[YODA74]

Anyone here Have any good Practical opinions on scanners.

One that you may be using .....Under windows XP Pro

Has to be backwards compadible USB1 - and 2.0
Around 149.00 bucks
would like it to be able to scan negatives to, Its just for personal use I have looked at a lot of them but I thought that i would get some personal experiances of what people here use I don't usually believe on line reviews.
Wify wants to go get one tonight and i'm not to hip on them

so all personal suggestion would be greatly appreciated.;)

[Rick]

Good USB ?????????

Scsi yes

USB I don't think so
I have not found a single USB scanner in that price range worth the effort

double or even triple that amount and you can find some nice hardware

I am having good luck so far with the Office Jet I picked up for the wife..Or should I say she is having good luck with it.
They run about double your amount

[Whyzman]

Yoda,

My input would be to also keep an eye on the software accompanying the scanner. I think my Scanjet came with an ADOBE product...

I'm partial to HPs!

[ErnieK]

Most definately a SCSI if possible. BUT! as Whyzman said watch the software. You can have the best scanner in the world , but if the software is rubbish then you might as well buy the cheapest scanner going.
My scanner is a SCSI Snapscan 310 (about 3yrs old) with really good software "Fotolook". I did buy a USB a few months (another Agfa) but the software was ueless and did not give me control (a common problem with newer scanners in the mid-price range), and I felt that the USB scanning was slower, used it for about a week then chucked up in the loft out of the road and went back to old one.

[Budfred]

I have used a small pile of scanners over the years and most of them have been on the low price side. Unless you are planning to develop a library of really high resolution photo images of multimegabyte sizes, a mid-range scanner will probably do just fine. I have almost never found a good reason to use resolutions above about 300 DPI at 48 bit depth. Most of the time, this is even more than I need. If you want really fast, quiet, and high resolution, spend big bucks and get it, but otherwise good deals can be had.

I am currently using a MicroTek that is standard USB with 48 bit depth. It came with a photo scanner that will do negatives and I paid less than $100 for it. It is slow and somewhat noisey (sitting next to it anyway). I don't remember the model number and I am at work, but I know it was not the top rated one at the time that I bought it. PCWorld seems to consistently rate MicroTek in the top 3 for business and home for a couple of years now, often the top.

My 2 cents....
Budfred

[david eaton]

Well, I have just replaced an OLD parallel port scanner with a HP scanjet5400c. USB connection, and good software. Optical resolution 2400 DPI both ways, and while I agree with Budfred that more than 300 DPI is usually unneeded, if you want to scan small negatives, then the extra resolution is very useful. There is also a sheet feeder available for it. Didn't bother with that as what I REALLY want is a scanner that can turn the pages!! :D

Cost here in the UK less than £100 so it's probably about the same number of $$.


David

[Mark Miller]

Check out the epson photo expression 1650 I have been using it for 6 months and it is very fast and accurate. Usb 1 for sure but not so sure if usb 2. Anyway I like it alot. One note we use it mostly for photos, don't know if this fits your needs
Mark