russrollins's Full Review: Epson Perfection 1200U Flatbed Scanner
When I worked in retail several years ago (96-97) for Egghead, rarely did I recommend purchasing any Epson products. I felt them to be overpriced and lacking quality performance. However, Epson has changed the name of the game in the scanner arena.
Almost a year ago I was looking to purchase a scanner for doing some webpage work. I read several reviews on cnet and zdnet, and concluded that the epson was the way to go, albeit the hefty price tag (which really isn't that much more than competition, given the performance). My brother in law offered us his Umax for very cheap, and we bought it. Big mistake. It was slow, had unreliable drivers and the performance was distasteful, even when working in Photoshop(5.5). My dad on the other hand was looking to restore some slides and put them onto a cd, he bought the Epson 1200.
So, I visit my parents on the weekend and I see the scanner. Great, it looks slick, and my pop is grinning. He pops in a slide (he purchased the negative and slide adapter which is an additional $80-100). I couldn't believe how fast the thing warmed up and prescanned from the time he pressed the scan button on the scanner, it was about 4 seconds. I spent an hour with him playing around on it using the scan console and was impressed with the available manual settings as well as the decent automatic settings. Nevertheless, I was miffed that I did have to leave and go home to a Umax. But, for the most part, my webpage project was done.
Here I am a year later and my wife has this great idea that she wants to put all of her family's pictures on CD (including her grandparents). So, we opt to buy a scanner, because the Umax died (big surprise). Again I went straight for the Epson, this time the model 1240u. And I bought it with the optional negative/slide add-on (the best price I found was at amazon for the two combined). Three days later it arrives.
Setup was a piece of cake. Plugged it in, installed the drivers, and viola! All done. I opted not to install the other included photo software because I use Photoshop (and ImageReady) for everything.
We have scanned negatives and all sorts/sizes of pictures. The speed of the scan is great and it doesn't feel like you're waiting waiting waiting.
So, if you have the money to spend, (if you don't, save for it) I recommend the Epson 1240u for great home and professional use.
True 1,200 by 2,400 dpi resolution, 9,600 dpi interpolated 36-bit color depth Fast scanning speed of 6 milliseconds per line Convenient USB interface ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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