Today I went to the IT market to look for a good scanner for using at home. I decided that if I can find a good one I will buy the same model as I'm using at my workplace (Acer Prisa 620ST). When I's passing by a shop I saw another model that looks better. That's it, Acer Prisa 640UT.


IN THE BOX

Yeah! There is a fine scanner in the box. In my country it comes with 2-year warranty. There are also a scanner software (2 CD) which I have found that one is a driver CD and another is the ULEAD PhotoExpress 3.0 Special Edition, multilingual illustrated step-by-step installation guides (English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, German, Italian), User manual, power adapter, USB Cable, slide frame, film frame, and strip holder.


INSTALLATION

After put it on the table I assembled the USB cable with my computer, running Windows 2000 Server Edition, turned on the scanner. Important! Do not forget to unlock the switch under the scanner or the light arm inside the scanner cannot move and the optical recognition part may be damaged. My computer started detecting the scanner automatically. When Windows asked for the driver so I inserted the driver CD into the CD-ROM. It automatically installed 2 software to the computer. One is the MiraScan which is a scanner utility and another is ScanButton which will be used for calling the utility from the system tray. That's it!

*** After the installation I tried to scan something. It seems everything worked fine except I couldnot run my Photoshop anymore. I have to reinstall the Photoshop then it can work fine again.


FEATURES

This is a 48 bit scanner. Anyway I couldn't say how different between 36 bit and 48 bit except the greater digits. It can scan up to 600 x 1200 DPI by optical and 19200 x 19200 DPI by software. The new version of MiraScan software is very nice. Definitely you can scan 3 types of picture which are positive image, transparent image and negative image. The shop told me that it cannot scan the negative but I have tried it with my film. It works well. You can choose scan modes and speed, the DPI. You can adjust scaling and apply many filters. And you can also use the preset which come with variety of settings of brightness, saturation, and sharpness. You can view the preview image and adjust its hue, brightness, curve too. You can zoom in and out and see the image information which will be written beside the preview. The software lets you scan many selections at the same time so it will save your time very much when you have to scan hundreds slide like me. With the frame you can scan 6 slides at a time. You can set configuration of each selection separately. The manual contains 5 different languages which are English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.


MY IMPRESSION

After I tried scanning some images, positive, slide and negative film, I am really satisfied with it. The scanner works fine and the images look good. The software is easy to use and fully compatible with Windows 2000. The manual is clearly written. I really like that it can scan multiple images at the same time cause it saves time very much.


CONCLUSION

This model is improved from 620ST and it is more adjustable. It is also cheaper so I recommend you to buy this scanner. 8-)






Recommended: Yes