A Fabulous Bargain with Outstanding Capability
Written: Feb 28 '04 (Updated Jan 31 '06)
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Pros: Excellent twain interface, quick and easy installation, large scan area.
Cons: OCR software not great, a little slow scanning. Forget email to contact them.
The Bottom Line: A must have for graphics professionals, librarians or anyone needing large image scanning. Affordable and excellent results
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| rreublin's Full Review: Mustek Plug-n-Scan A3 EP Flatbed Scanner |
As the owner of a non profit organization with a web site that specializes in the history of American music from the days of Tin Pan Alley, we've scanned and displayed images of large sized sheet music and related documents on our website for seven years. (http://www.parlorsongs.com). All those years our scanning activity has been a painful and very time-consuming project. This far we’ve scanned over 2,000 sheet music covers and each one takes 10-15 minutes just to acquire due to the need for scanning in sections, rotating, matching and stitching images. The results are often frustrating with misaligned images and color shift differences that require a lot of effort to fix. Up till now, we’ve used a legacy HP P4 scanner that could scan long documents but had a bed that was only 8.5” by 14. It’s been a workhorse, and is built like a tank. It was purchased years ago, before scanning was popular and cost us a phenomenal $750. Large bed scanners were only a dream to us as up till now, the least expensive were in the $2,000 range and higher.
Mustek have rescued us from our agony with the release of an affordable large bed scanner that can scan documents as large as 11.68” by 17.6”. Since most of our music falls in the 11 x 14 range, this scanner is ideal for our application. A visitor to our site wrote to us to tell us that Mustek was offering an A3 bed scanner for the unbelievable price of $179.95. Given our prior search for large bed scanners, we imagined a toy scanner made of cardboard and saran wrap, but boy were we wrong. The Mustek A3 scanner is an incredible bargain and seems to be solid and reliable in construction.
You have to order the scanner from their website for a limited time at the sale price. Go to http://www.mustekdirect.com/soho_scanners.html to check for sales and this item at Mustek direct. The usual price is $249, still a bargain for a large bed scanner. The scanner is available at many other sellers’ sites, but I’d recommend buying direct from Mustek to ensure a good link to them for service and support in case it is needed. Ordering is easy but can only be done on line, they don’t seem to have a phone number to call, an annoying trend by web based companies who seem to avoid customer contact at any price. Ordering was swift and the item arrived in seven days. Cost for shipping via UPS was $15. Hold on to your wallet if you are in a hurry, Mustek charges $75 for express delivery.
The scanner arrived in a large box. The scanner’s box was double packed inside a larger box with lots of “peanuts.” The scanner’s box is attractive and glossy and the unit is safely cradled inside formed foam inserts. Clearly Mustek takes care to ensure that the scanner arrives in one piece. There is a software suite that must be installed before connecting the scanner. The suite includes a lite version of imaging software plus an OCR (“lite”) and Fax, E-mail and copier software. The software also installs a “watch” program that senses when the scanner cover is opened and calls up the control panel. The scanner is completely software driven; there are no on off or other switches so the software drivers and panel must be installed before connecting the scanner. The scanner is compatible with all Windows systems from 98 up, a boon to this old 98 user.
If you already have twain compliant imaging programs I’d recommend passing on the installation of their image software, a lite version. The twain interfaces for this scanner is impressive and will be enough for most users. The control panel for the unit is useful and allows for quick copying, scanning, OCR, E-mail (must be configured for your E-mail client) and Fax. You can set preferences and look and the panel is very intuitive to use. The software automatically installs a direct scan software item that loads when Windows starts and brings up the scanner panel whenever you open the scanner cover. Quite honestly, I found this annoying and ran “msconfig” and disabled it as a startup item and just put shortcuts on the desktop. The software and drivers installed smoothly with no conflicts, hang-ups or crashes, an impressive event with Windows 98.
Once you’ve installed the software, installation of the scanner is a breeze. Just plug in the AC adapter and connect the USB cord and bingo! You are in business. The scanner does have a plastic body and is pretty light. However, it seems robust and solid and not at all toy-like as some very cheap scanners are today. The bed is a heavy plastic (I wish glass, glass is easier to clean) but seems adequate. It’s a little hard to keep clean and so keep some Windex and paper towels handy, it picks up all sorts of grime from pages and your hands. The interior frame is metal and the scan head and runner are solid. My one concern is the head driver. It is a pulley arrangement, which is common, but the drive belt seems to be a very frail and thin string. I’m hoping it is some sort of space age fiber stronger than steel as it does appear to be one potential weak link in the system. My HP had the same arrangement but a heaver string and lasted through thousands of scans so I’m probably just being paranoid. The drive does squeak at the far end of the run, and that makes me nervous but time will tell.
The scanner is relatively quiet (except for that belt squeak) and smoothly scans documents or images with no stutters or problems so far. It travels a little slower than my old HP but has much further to go and more image area to scan so that is not a surprise. In any case, scanning large images is now a treat. One pass and I’m done. But there is really more to this unit than the scan. The twain interface is where this unit really shines.
Eschewing the panel and just using the “acquire” menu for my graphics programs brings up a twain interface that is truly awesome. The interface allows you to set color (24 or 48 bit), grayscale or line art as well as newspaper, magazine or fine art sources. The source options also include reflective media, negative and even X-ray sources. The scan area can be specified in a full range from A3 (11.68” x 16.7) to standard letter size. DPI can be set from 50 to 9600 (software interpolated), more than you’ll probably ever need. Dialogs show image size and measurements and you can scale output size from 17% to 600%. That would be enough for most twain users but Mustek has added some enhancements that make the twain interface almost an image processing suite as well. Two tabs for image enhancement allow changes in contrast, brightness, softness, sharpness, blur and emboss as well as the ability to flip or invert the image, all before you scan the image in!
Those capabilities are particularly useful when scanning for OCR, or large items placed sidewise. They also help with other programs such as my music recognition software. Using the enhancement capabilities has allowed me to get improved recognition from my software and saves tons of time in creating my MIDI and sheet music reproductions.
Speaking of OCR, the OCR software has been my only disappointment with this unit. It comes in a lite version that has little ability to adjust and my output has been unintelligible gibberish. I suppose that is by design to get you to buy the full version. If OCR is your need, you’ll have to get a better software option than the one that comes with the unit. The OCR performance is forgivable as this unit is such a bargain, one should not expect everything for the price.
I could go on for a long time about the features and abilities of this little puppy, but I’ve probably already bored you. The bottom line is that this is a must have for graphic artists, librarians, website designers or anyone who has a need for scanning something more than a small photo or letter size sheet. There is nothing even close to this unit in price or capability so check it out. This gem allows you to be a graphics pro on a beggar’s budget and will significantly improve your productivity and probably even improve your attitude about scanning. I’ll try to update this review in a few months to give you an idea of longevity and possible service issues.
UPDATE 2/05. A year later this scanner is still going strong. Though I've not counted, the number of scans has been in the many hundreds and I've had absolutely no problems. The software works very well in XP (I started out on Win98) and on a dual core processor. I still rate this as an excellent buy. Since last year, the A3 now has an optional slide scanner..a feature I wish they had when I purchased mine. I've tried to write to them but like almost every business on the net these days, they've been unresponsive.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 179.95
Interface: USB
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Epinions.com ID:
rreublin
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Member: Richard Reublin
Location: Germantown, TN
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
Just an average retired guy working on geezer status. Beach bum, aviation historian.
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