Fast Scan, Easy to Use
Written: Jan 05 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast, USB connection, Inexpensive, Win2000 Compatible
Cons: Unusual, but potentially very useful underside of the cover
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| shanewho's Full Review: AcerScan Prisa 640U Flatbed Scanner |
I had been looking for a scanner to buy for several months before I decided to purchase this one.
There were a few things I was looking for:
1) Speed – once you start to use a scanner, you realize that speed is very important.
2) Quality – I was not looking for a professional quality scanner, but I wanted a good one so I would not have anything to complain.
3) Simple – I just wanted a scanner that scanned and nothing fancy.
4) Value – Yeah, I did not want to pay over $100 for a scanner.
5) Compatibility – I wanted to use it with Windows 2000.
I have been using scanners for over four years and have gone through three of them. This Acer 640U is the best and yet cheapest one by far (I only paid $40 after rebate for it, though I think the rebate is over now). My first one was a parallel port Umax, which worked well, but slow. My second one was a Visioneer 7600 USB, which was good and faster, but it was still taking too long to scan most pictures and documents. By the way, those two scanners still work. I gave them to a couple of friends.
Back to the Acer 640U.
Speed
It is fast. No kidding. I don’t think it’s as fast as some of the $200+ Epson scanners I have seen, but this thing is unbelievable for its price. Acer says a preview of an entire document takes 6 seconds. Well, my own watch says 7 seconds, but that is fast regardless. The actual scan depends on the area to be scanned, but it is extremely speedy. Oh, the warm up period is pretty short too.
Quality
Like I said, I do not need professional quality scan, but I really do not have any complaints. The scan quality is very good and pretty much like the original. There may be cases that you need to tweak the settings a bit, but I rarely ever have to do that and that is expected of any scanners anyway.
Simple
It cannot be much simpler than this. Preview -> Select the area to be scanned -> It goes into the program that initiated the scanning process. That’s it.
For those who may need it, the setup instruction is very clear and the manual is more extensive than most recent products in my memory.
Value
For the $40 I paid for, it is indeed a great value. It also comes with quite a lot of software, though I personally do not use those programs. To me, the scanner itself is well worth the price without any additional software.
Compatibility
The driver that came with my Acer 640U was for Windows 98. However, I already checked with Acer and a Windows 2000 driver was available for download, which was what I needed. I have not had any compatibility problem whatsoever with the Windows 2000 driver, and the driver has been very stable as well. The USB connection also allows me to plug and unplug the scanner without having to reboot the machine.
For the negative, the only thing I don't like about this scanner is the underside of the cover is black. Most scanners have the underside of their cover white. This does not impact the scanned image, but if you scan beyond the area of the picture/document, the edge of the image is black as a result of the black under cover. It's a rather unusual design, but a minor detail that doesn't really impact anything. On the other hand, this helps the user to decide where to crop an image more easily than otherwise. Maybe it is a good design after all and I am simply not used to it yet.
I still think scanners in general still require a bit of learning for people who have never used one. However, this is a great scanner for non-professional users. It’s fast, easy to set up, easy to use, and cost much less than other comparable scanners.
I highly recommend this scanner for those who are looking for a good, fast, and still inexpensive scanner.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
shanewho
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Member: Shane
Location: Illinois
Reviews written: 27
Trusted by: 4 members
About Me:
A computer/gadget enthusiast, Shane is a frequent traveler who has lived in three different countries.
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