by Gill Boyd and Al Massey
Preface.
That’s not the sky falling, Chicken Little, it’s scanner prices. In the recent past if you wanted to acquire a color scanner you had to first visit a friendly loan officer. Cost was prohibitive for most of us. However, prices are now falling more rapidly than the Asian stock market. Quality is going up and prices are coming down. This month we are taking a look at three color scanners that fill different needs and are easy on the pocketbook. In addition, all three are Parallel Port models so you don’t h ave to fuss with configuring a SCSI adapter.
In selecting a scanner to suit your particular needs and price range we offer the following tips. First, consider the maximum optical resolution and maximum color depth at which it can scan; then consider what you are going to do with the finished scans. Are you going to be putting them up on a web site, printing them on a typical color inkjet or outsourcing them on a high-resolution prepress printer?
Typically, resolution is measured in DPI or dots per inch such as 300x600. The higher the number the finer the scan. DO NOT confuse a scanner’s optical resolution with the astronomically high figures you often see quoted as “interpolated resolution.” Int erpolated or enhanced maximum resolution as it is sometimes called are created through software and it is not uncommon to see figures as high as 1200 dpi for sheet-fed scanners and 4,800x9,600 for flatbeds. While this software tool can be useful for impr oving scans of line art and enlarged images it requires more RAM in order to manipulate the image and improvements are sometimes hard to spot without the use of a magnifying glass.
Color depth is most commonly measured as True Color or 24 bit and 30 bit color; of course the higher the number the higher the quality scan. Beware: the higher the resolution and color depth you use, the bigger the resulting file size. i
If space is at a premium on your already crowded desktop the Strobe is your answer to scanning nirvana. This little baby nestles easily between your keyboard and monitor and weighs just a fraction over a pound. Don’t be confused by the Strobe’s small foo tprint; there is a lot of value packed in that small package.
Providing 300x600 dpi and 24-bit color, the Strobe easily scans documents, photos, business cards and forms. Simply insert a piece of paper into the scanner and the Strobe “automagically” starts scanning, no mouse to click or button to push. The included PaperPort software then displays the document image on-screen and allows you to manipulate it in any number of ways, then file it, print it, run it through an OCR (optical character recognition) engine or drag it into other applications. We give A++ to the PaperPort software it is simply, hands down, the best scanning software we have ever used.
This model is connected to the parallel port and comes with a pass-through cable allowing you to hook up your printer or other parallel port device so you can connect more than one device to the same port. We had a bit of a problem here because the Strob e didn’t want to play nice with our printer on the same port. However, after downloading a patch (strobpar.exe) from the Visioneer support site at http://www.visioneer.com/customer/ the problem went away. While you are at the support site go ahead and download the diagnostic utility portdiag.exe to help you diagnose any problems you might be having with your serial or parallel ports.
We found the Strobe to be a useful tool and the overall quality of the scans to be quite good. However, the quality of color photos was not as good as that we have come to expect from flatbed scanners. We also found the absence of a detachable head for s canning bound documents a bit of a drag. On the plus side the Strobe doesn’t suffer from the “curled-edge”) syndrome common to most sheetfed scanners. It has two settings allowing you to set it for pass-through mode for photos and card stock so they don’ t have to curl around the scan head like most sheetfed scanners.
In addition to the PaperPort software the Strobe comes bundled with SE (Special Edition) versions of Quicken ExpensAble for creating expense reports complete with scanned copies of your recipts; Xerox TextBridge OCR that turns scanned documents into edit able, formatted text; Corex CardScan, a contact database program for scanned business cards and several others. All in all a great software bundle.
In evaluating products we always check out the vendor’s technical support. Unless tech support is very, very bad or very, very good we usually don’t mention it. In this case we found Visioneer’s support staff lacking in several key areas. After we had pr oblems with the initial installation that was finally tracked to a faulty parallel cable shipped with the Strobe we received little or no help from tech support. Only after we complained to our contact with Visioneer (something the average user would not be able to do) did we receive any satisfaction. We hasten to add that the Strobe is now performing as advertised but Visioneer needs to get a handle on their technical support.
$249 (at press time there was a $50 rebate in effect) and I have seen it on the street for $149 after rebate.
A serial port model is available for approximately $50 less. You’ll need Win95, a CD reader and it does not support NT.
For more info go to http://www.visioneer.com.
UMAX Astra 600P
Simplicity seems to be the word of the day for the UMAX Astra 600P. The hardest part of setting this little hummer up was getting it out of the box. Total elapsed time from the removal of bubble-wrap to scanning documents was only eleven minutes. Try tha t with your VCR.
If you are looking for an easy, inexpensive way to put a little sizzle in your life and spruce up your documents the Astra 610P is for you. While simple enough for a novice to use in the home or small office the Astra 610P packs enough wallop for the mor e serious graphic designer as well. It is ideally suited for a small office wanting to add graphics and photos to a company newsletter or web site.
Possessing 30 bit color, 300x600 dpi (4800x4800 dpi enhanced), a parallel interface with pass through connection for your printer and enough bundled software to get you up to speed quickly, the Astra 610P represents a great buy for first time users. Tech nical support was efficient and thorough responding to inquiries both on their web site and at the 800 number.
Allowing for scans of up to letter size documents (there is also a legal size available) this flat-bed gem comes with Adobe PhotoDeluxe and Presto!PageManagers from Newsoft. PhotoDeluxe is a step-by-step image editor with guided activities to create scre ensavers, cards, calendars and more while Presto!Pagemanager, “the Scanning OS,” with built in OCR (Optional Character Recognition) offers easy control of scanning operations. Users can drag and drop scanned documents then send a fax, e-mail, print or pl ace the document into other applications. Coupled with the UMAX Copy Utility which allows documents to be scanned directly to a printer, turning the scanner into a copy machine, and a very affordable street price the Astra 610P will be hard to pass up.
The estimated street price is $149.99 and it works with Windows 3.x, Win95 and NT. For tech support and more info go to http://www.umax.com or 1-800-562-0311.
IBM
After fiddling around with all manner of electronic gismos and devices for way too long, now we have become accustomed to tweaking, loading device drivers and checking IRQ settings in a vain attempt to get them working properly. WOW! What a pleasure to f inally find a product that worked as advertised right out of the box. If anything, this Color Flatbed scanner from IBM was even faster and more delightful to set up than the UMAX. All it took was plugging in the proper cables in the proper places and switching it on. Could this be what Plug-in-Play means? Like the UMAX and Visioneer the IBM also provides parallel pass-through connectivity that allows you to set your printer on the same port.
Producing 30-bit color at 600x1200 dpi (9600x9600 dpi interpolated) and capable of scanning legal-size documents in a single pass, the IBM Flatbed is a step up from the other two models reviewed, but priced at $299 is still easy on the bank book. Even th ough we had to invent a few problems in order to check technical support we found IBM to be exceptional in responding to our request.
Besides ease of use and setup, higher resolution and elegant style you have come to expect from IBM, the Color Flatbed has features you would customarily find only in higher end products. While it provides you with the flexibility to scan black and white or color subjects up to 8.5” x 14” in size it doesn’t limit you to perfectly flat images. The scanner’s cover is removable so you can scan books and other thick subjects, making it an ideal selection for the small office/home office market or corporate professional as well as a home user that needs a bit more punch in their scans.
The IBM Color Flatbed Scanner is available with industry-leading software bundles, including Xerox Pagis SE with TextBridge OCR, for document handling and character recognition; and Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2.0, for image editing. A scanner cable and scanner d river CD are included.
With an estimated street price of $249, this scanner supports Windows 3.x, Win95 and NT, although the bundled software only supports Win95 and NT. For more info go to http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/options/.
Gill Boyd is a HAL-PC member and VP-Programs who can be contacted at gboyd@hal-pc.org.
Al Massey is a HAL-PC member and Reviews Editor who can be contacted at almas@hal-pc.org.
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