Great home machine
Written: Jun 24 '01
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Pros: Small, fast, inexpensive
Cons: Resolution is only okay
The Bottom Line: Great for beginning scanners or those who do a lot of text and graphics. Users who want high quality or plan on scanning lots of photos should look to upgrade.
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| xymox_1's Full Review: Canon CanoScan N650U Flatbed Scanner |
Remember the days of the big bulky scanners that took over your whole desk? Well this scanner is hoping to make those days distant memories.
One of the biggest selling points of this scanner is it's size - it's only around an inch and a half high and not much larger than a sheet of legal paper, so those with space concerns should be pleased. The reason it is small is actually the one word of caution I would mention about this machine - it scans with something called a CIS or "Contact Image Sensor" and LIDE technology (LED Indirect Exposure) which integrates the parts needed for scanning into a smaller area and therefore you have a less bulky machine that requires less power. Most regular size scanners use a CCD or "Charge Coupled Device" to scan their images. CCD scanners generally have greater depth of field (are better at scanning 3D images - anything that is not flat, such as a book or watch), better shading because more light is emitted from the scan head, and a longer scanner life. CIS scanners are still a relatively new and developing technology, though Canon has made some great improvements to them. For the average home user, none of these factors should be an issue. If you intend to do a lot of scanning over the next several years, or are looking for semi-professional quality images, you may wish to look at a CCD scanner.
That said, the scanner is still a great bargain for less than $100. The optical scanning resolution is 600x1200 and can max out at 9600x9600. These numbers indicate the detail level the scanner can achieve. It also has a max bit depth of 24 color, which corellates to the number of colors it can recognize and render. This being a low-end scanner, the resolution numbers are about half of what you would expect to see in a model a step up (1200x2400 resolution and 48bit color depth). If you are scanning text, clip-art, graphics or anything not of photo quality, the resolution should not be too much of a concern. If you are looking for a scanner to digitize your collection of family photos however, you may want to look at a higher-end model.
Other features of the scanner include a lid that can be moved to accomodate books and other thick objects without bending out of shape and letting too much external light in.
The scanner uses a USB connection to your computer, and will work on a mac and a pc. The USB also doubles as the power cable so you will not have to worry about finding a place to plug it in. It has one button on the outside that starts the scanning, or you can use your PC to begin the process. More buttons would be helpful, but this one is atleast programmeable. It also comes with your standard bundling of software - OmniPage OCR, a photo-editing program and a few other basic utilities. In terms of speed, it is pretty standard for a USB machine - it takes just under a minute for a color scan and around 30 seconds for a black and white one. It's a little noisy when doing the faster scanning, but not so much so that it will wake up your entire house.
The picture quality of the scans is fairly good - colors are bright and the tones are close to the original. It is very easy to understand the controls - simply pick what you want to scan, tweak the settings if you are feeling adventurous and off you go! The OCR program that comes bundled is one of the better ones, and for typewritten documents you will get about a 98 or 99% accuracy rate.
All in all, the scanner is a decent machine, certainly worth $100 to a home user. But like I mentioned before, if you are serious about scanning, you should move up to another model with better resolution.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
Interface: USB
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Epinions.com ID:
xymox_1
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Location: Boston, MA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 9 members
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