Low-cost scanners are defined in this article as units costing under C$275. They include hand-held, sheet-fed and flatbed models from a wide array of manufacturers. This article discusses some of the most popular models.
Best Choice under $100?
Q: Please tell me what you think of the STORM TOTAL SCAN and the MUSTEK 600 II EP. Both are around 100 dollars at the Business Depot. Should I wait, or go for one of them?
A: Should you? In a word, no. Mustek has long been a low-end player in the marketplace, and its products generally aren't that well regarded. But it's a better choice than Storm. Be particularly wary of "bargain-priced" or used products manufactured by Storm, which is now out of business. (However, an unofficial support page at www.tele-net.net/storm has the most recent drivers for now-discontinued Storm products.)
A good way to gather information is via Usenet. As we hadn't tested either of the products you mention here at PC Buyer's Guide, we used AltaVista to search for reports from those who had. Indeed, several users on Usenet reported their experiences with the Total Scan. Several lamented the quality of its drivers and noted that it is (and I quote), "WAY TOO SLOW." I'd be cautious of that one.
Here is a message from "Bob" on Usenet about the Mustek, which also puts it on our "Not recommended list."
"A few comments on a couple of $100 scanners. I purchased a Mustek IIIEP+ at Office Depot ($80 after $20 rebate). I found it annoyingly slow, requiring a 15 or so second "warm-up" time before every scan (even prescans). It took about 2 minutes to scan an approximately 5"x5" color picture at 300 dpi. The default gamma correction of 1.0 gave horrible results (extremely dark). Setting the gamma correction to 1.6 gave pretty good results. Quite vibrant colors (maybe excessively so). Dismayed by the Mustek's slow scanning speeds, I decided to purchase a Visioneer Paperport 3100 at Best Buy ($100 after $50 rebate). I'm much more pleased with the Visioneer. It scans about twice as fast. The same 5"x5", 300 dpi color scan took only about a minute. Colors are not particularly vibrant though. That's my primary criticism of it. One strange trait of this scanner though is that its performance is destroyed when the modem is in operation (internal modem). Its scanning times are increased almost 3x. Also, the Twain driver does not allowone to multitask during scanning (in NT). The mouse is frozen in the"Cancel" button's area. With both scanners though CPU utilization (PPro150) was 100% so doing background work is difficult, although I find this even with my Umax1200S at my office. A final note, the Visioneer PaperPort 3100 is about the smallest letter size flatbed scanner that I've found, which is a definate plus. Desk space is becoming quite a commodity with a 17"monitor, a laser printer, a scanner, a color inkjet (soon), and a slew of CDRs...Comparing these two scanners, the Mustek is going to be returned. I'm going to stick with the Visioneer unless someone offers a compelling reason to try yet another scanner (opposing opinions welcome).Just my $0.02..."
Ironically, "Bob" chose another unit on our NOT RECOMMENDED list: the Visioneer [PaperPort] 3100B. In general, we've not been impressed by any of the PaperPort models since the original black and white / grayscale versions. The worst of the PaperPorts, in our tests, was the PaperPort Strobe model.
Now, while we should add that you certainly can't believe everything you read on the Internet (where it seems the most vocal users tend to favor more complicated, high-performance solutions over lesser products that "just work"), we are inclined to agree that reliable device drivers and good color fidelity are key issues. Moreover, PaperPort users, in the wake of the sale of the transfer all Visioneer software to ScanSoft, are generally up in arms these days, at locations such as the Paperport Preservation Society. Caveat Emptor.
RECOMMENDED models
We have other articles detailing our recommended models in the Low-end Scanners category. To summarize, we recommend a scanner that connects to your computer via Universal Serial Bus (USB) model if your computer and OS (e.g., a recent PC running Windows 98 or an iMac, etc.) supports it. Good choices in USB include the Agfa 1212U or UMAX Astra 1220U (currently a bargain at less than US$60), or, if you're willing to spend a little more, the Epson Perfection 636U (about C$320) or the HP ScanJet 5200C (about $375). We were also impressed with the (now discontinued) Microtek E3 (SCSI) and X6 (USB) scanner models, the latter of which, in particular, yields excellent scans for the money -- about C$136. It's also very easy to use.
Wrote one Usenet member:
Of the under $200 crowd, we'd probably pick the Microtek as a reasonable flatbed model (its ScanWizard software is excellent), but rate the Agfa 1212U a little higher in terms of sheer image quality. We aren't as fond of the Umax scanners, but they are reasonably popular and, as noted above, remarkably inexpensive. But please, don't get a parallel-port scanner. They are trouble. Inexpensive models, such as the Umax Astra 610, also have other issues that put it on our not recommended list of flatbed scanners.
Still, some users are happy with these units. Here are some comments from one owner.
In the event that your computer can't handle USB, we recommend SCSI scanners over parallel-port models. Both the Umax Astra and Microtek E-series models (as well as other models from Agfa, HP, Epson and others) are available with a SCSI interface, which, of course, requires that your computer have a SCSI card installed. Most SCSI scanners include such a card. It should also be said that, on a "hassle factor" scale of 1 to 10 where USB, as a nearly perfect hassle-free interface, rates a 9.5, SCSI is only about a 4.5, while parallel scores a dismal 2.
It's also worth mentioning that transparency adapters, such as the $179 option for the Umax 1220U or the negative adapter that was included in the price of the above-mentioned Microtek X6, tend to produce disappointing results. We've tested transparency adapters for the Epson 636, HP ScanJet, Umax and several other models and have not been impressed. If you need to scan slides, get a slide scanner or have a Photo CD made at your local photo-finishing outlet.
ScanJet 4p and 5p resolution control
Here’s a tip for getting the best possible quality from the ScanJet 4P or 5P.
PC Magazine found that by substituting Deskscan II, ScanJet 4P or 5P users can improve upon the quality of images captured by the Picturescan software supplied with the units. Happily, you can freely download the needed files from HP's site.
For Windows 95 or NT 4.0 (4p or 5p): http://hpcc920.external.hp.com/cposupport/scanners/software/sj211en.exe....
Caution: You may never need PictureScan again (but you can leave it on the system). You may want to order a hardcopy DeskScan manual from HP. For further info, point your browser at URL http://www.dejanews.com and enter a search string of [scanjet 4p] or [scanjet 5p]
For further reading:
Envisions.com has a number of useful pages of scanner info
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