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**Ribbit** · 9 January 2003, 09:53

Epson. Just pick out the one that comes in your price range.

**Fat Tone** · 9 January 2003, 09:55

Hi George

Welcome back

I recently got the HP scanjet 4400c very cheaply (~£58 delivered iirc) from Dabs, who regularly have it on a special offer.

It has a good spec, is USB & parallel & comes with a reasonable brace of s/w.

The only downside is the footprint, which is pretty large.

Also iirc, PC Pro rated it reasonably well ~6 months ago.

HTH

T.

**Kooldino** · 9 January 2003, 10:02

I've had the best luck with Canon scanners, personally. Simple drivers that WORK, no bugs...gets the job done fast, built well, reasonably priced.

**GNEP** · 9 January 2003, 10:02

Thanks Tony. Large footprint is probably not so useful though as it will have to be stowed away somewhere when not in use.

Ribbit - any particular reason why Epson?

Regards

George

**fleabus2** · 9 January 2003, 10:26

Gnep:

When I was about to build a new computer last fall and was checking compliance with WinXP for the gear I wanted to keep for the new system, I found out that the HP 812C printer that was not really old nor ever used much would only have partial support in WinXP and the advice was “Want full XP support? Buy one of our new printers”. I’ve encountered this attitude before from Diamond (Stealth/DirectX) and never bought from them again. Ditto for HP.
I also have an Epson 1640 scanner. Though it eventually had WinXP support it was very late in coming. First rate hardware and a good rep but the third party software they give you I found wanting. Never could be sure if the patches/fixes etc really were for my exact model.
For my new system, I went with Canon.

Printer: S750 BJ (USB1.1)
Scanner: D1250U2F CanoScan (USB2)

I Looked over their driver download pages and they didn’t seem to play the “Deliberately don’t update recent product to a new O/S so they’ll need to buy new gear” game. Lots of older stuff WinXP supported.
I can’t really recommend Canon scanners as my scanner use/expertise is limited. Printers and scanners do stay useful for a long time though and you might want to avoid getting stuck like I did.
My Canon stuff works very well and I’m happy with it. The scanner I use is USB2 High Speed Certified and runs off the USB2 port on my Asus P4T533-C (s478/i850e) motherboard (P4 2.8b/1 GB PC1066 etc). It is faster than the Epson 1640 was but that doesn’t get you much when you have to send the job to a pokey ol’ printer. Made some sense to go USB2 for me since my USB1.1 periphs are multiplying (printer, mouse, keyboard, joystick and gamepad on two powered 4-port hubs).
I believe they have newer scanners with “N” in the model names, and may be better at photo work than the general purpose one I use. Reviews should be easy to track down for any model that interests you.

404

http://canon.ca/english/index-products.asp?lng=en&prodid=285&sgid=21&gid=2&ovr=1

This is a Canadian site but you can use it to navigate to you region.

Happy trails,

**Ribbit** · 9 January 2003, 11:07

Originally posted by GNEP
Ribbit - any particular reason why Epson?

Like Fleabus2 said, they make good hardware. They're always rated highly whenever I see them reviewed, and I've always got great scans from them myself. (No, I don't work for Epson.) Yes, the third-party (non-Adobe) software they give you (that I've seen) sucks, but if you're buying a scanner for that... I'm a Linux guy anyway, so I only care about the hardware.

Anyway, Epson give you a driver and a copy of Photoshop LE. What else do you want?

While I'm here, I should relate that a friend of mine recently got a scanner that was on special at PC World (I forget the brand) - he said it produced horrible scans (I didn't see any for myself). He's also had something else in the past - I think it was a Mustek - that produced very grainy scans. That first scanner he took back and replaced with an HP, which does give very nice output (I've seen it for myself).

I think the moral of the story is that with scanners, there's a lot of cheap and nasty crap out there. If you stick with the big three (Epson, HP, Canon) you should be fine.

**Kooldino** · 9 January 2003, 12:04

Yeah, I must say as far as OS support goes, Canon has not yet d1cked me over. When I got it, 98SE was the hottest thing out (it's an old FB620U USB scanner), and it was supported. When Win2K was released, Canon quickly came out with new drivers. And the 2K drivers work fine in XP.

My scanner even fell "face down" from a 5 foot drop and survived without a scratch. In the 3+ years I've had it, I can't recall a single hiccup. Quite possibly the most reliable peice of hardware I own.

Dunno if they have linux drivers tho...may wanna look into that.

**dave m** · 9 January 2003, 13:44

Last year I bought a really small A4 Canon Scanner for work, it's great, the next day from the same supplier I could have ordered the upgraded model, same price, twice the resolution, and the ability to mount and use the scanner in a vertical stand, so virtually no foot print. Needless to say I ground my teeth a lot, but it wasn't their fault, just poor timing. But it might be what you're after. Got it from Global Direct which are now the same company (franchise?) as Simply.co.uk. If you can't find it let me know.

Dave

**Ribbit** · 9 January 2003, 14:05

Originally posted by Kooldino
Dunno if they have linux drivers tho...may wanna look into that.

If you're concerned about Linux support, Epson is definitely a good choice. Epson have been very helpful and open with the OSS community about their scanner specs (and printer specs as well). I've no idea how true that is for HP and Canon - probably best to check SANE (scanners) and gimp-print (printers) - look them up on http://freshmeat.net

Edit: I looked them up for you:
http://www.mostang.com/sane/sane-mfgs.html (SANE-supported scanners)
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_..._Printers.php3 (gimp-print-supported printers)

These lists are probably a little bit out of date, but the idea is to see how well a particular manufacturer tends to be supported.

**MetalCartman** · 9 January 2003, 14:07

I highly recommend Canon scanners, have a N650U (USB1.1)myself. Reliable, fast, very good drivers, high quality scans...in short: everything you want. And the killer feature for me is, that it doesn't need an extra power supply, 'cause it's powered by the USB.

**Kooldino** · 9 January 2003, 14:23

Originally posted by Ribbit
If you're concerned about Linux support, Epson is definitely a good choice. Epson have been very helpful and open with the OSS community about their scanner specs (and printer specs as well). I've no idea how true that is for HP and Canon - probably best to check SANE (scanners) and gimp-print (printers) - look them up on http://freshmeat.net

Edit: I looked them up for you:
http://www.mostang.com/sane/sane-mfgs.html (SANE-supported scanners)
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_..._Printers.php3 (gimp-print-supported printers)

These lists are probably a little bit out of date, but the idea is to see how well a particular manufacturer tends to be supported.

Doh, figures...I have the 620U scanner ("U" meaning USB), and they have...
620S (SCSI version)
620P (Parrallel version)
but no 620U. :-/

**Kooldino** · 9 January 2003, 14:24

Originally posted by MetalCartman
I highly recommend Canon scanners, have a N650U (USB1.1)myself. Reliable, fast, very good drivers, high quality scans...in short: everything you want. And the killer feature for me is, that it doesn't need an extra power supply, 'cause it's powered by the USB.

Yeah, forgot about that. Mine still needs a power cord, but the ones that came out shortly after mine all ran of the bus power. Very cool.

**GNEP** · 10 January 2003, 18:16

Thanks for the help guys. To clear a few things up:

1) I already have all the image editing etc software I need - the only possible exception would be OCR software, but then I might only use that once in 3 years...

2) Hate to say it, but at the moment win2k does everything I need and so Linux support is not important for me.

3) Looks like whatever USB Canon and Epson models I can get in my price range are worth looking at.

Final question - as up to now I have not been much of a USB-user, can anyone tell me if a USB2 scanner will work with USB1 ports (albeit slower)?

Thanks

Gnep

**Ribbit** · 10 January 2003, 18:31

Originally posted by GNEP
Final question - as up to now I have not been much of a USB-user, can anyone tell me if a USB2 scanner will work with USB1 ports (albeit slower)?

No personal experience, but all the USB2 scanners I've seen claim to work with USB1.

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