Cheapest Scanner anywhere! (Canon Canoscan FB630U)

Member Name: Slim Lee

Product:	Canon Canoscan FB630U
Date:	20/12/00 (639 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap... Cheap.... Cheap

Disadvantages: What more do you wan't it's cheap!

I'd been looking around for a reasonably priced scanner for a few weeks. Then one evening, while checking some new emails I discovered one from www.buy.com whom I had never used before.

My first thought was "Oh great ... yet more spam I have to delete" but for some reason I read it anyway. At the time I had read a few complimentary opinions on them so I guess it must have stuck in my mind! The email offered a £20 discount to new users on their first order over £40. That got my attention.

So I went and had a look around the site, mostly at software titles on offer. Almost just before I gave up I stumbled onto the scanner section and found this peach of a deal.

They were offering a CanoScan FB630UI Scanner for £46.94 (including VAT) as a special offer BUT they will accept the £20 first time user voucher against it! As the order came in at under £30 after the voucher I had to pay a small delivery charge but I still couldn't believe it. I have got a scanner for under £30 !!!

The cynic in me really couldn't believe it, so I trawled through all of the reviews on DooYoo for this product. To my astonishment it came highly recommend.

Granted, it isn't the top of the range of course (for under £50 I really didn't expect too much).


CanoScan FB630U features:

• 600 x 1200 DPI Resolution;
• Powered by the USB connection (so no power adapter needed!);
• Very slim and compact so space isn't an issue;
• It only weighs 1.5 Kg so it's portable;
• It's quiet
• 36 Bit scanning depth;
• Supplied with software for PC and iMac users;
• Plug & Play compatible;


It's not the quickest scanner you will ever use. Oh no, probably one of the slowest i've used in the last year, but hey for under £50 what do you expect? Just set it going and go make yourself a coffee.

It comes with plen
ty of software, including "Scangear Tools", "Ulead Photo Express 2.0SE" and electronic manuals. The hard copy manual is nice and thick too, but I seriously doubt you will need to read it. It's quite a simple to set-up and use piece of kit. Hey I managed to get it working inside half an hour so it must be pretty simple to do (you only need to see my efforts at DIY to know this!).

The resolution on offer here is great for a home office that doesn't require heavy use of a scanner. I only use it now and again so I can cope with the relatively long time it takes to scan the pictures and load onto the PC. For the money I don't think you could get a better entry level scanner. If you are expecting to use it more than a few times a day then I would point you away from this one as the scanning time will grate on your nerves if you're in a hurry!

The only difference that I can make out between the FB630U and the one I am reviewing (the FB630 UI) is the colour of the scannig lid. The FB630 UI has a rather garish turquoise green lid (nice?!). It does make it quite easy to spot with the light off though, not that stumbling around in a dark room looking for a scanner is going to happen very often. So I can't really see the point with this particular model change.

What else? Well, it's very slimline as the picture above shows you, and it will fit on a desk quite neatly. It's very small and light and thus very portable. In dimensions it is very similar in size to a notebook PC.

The big drawback with this scanner is the time it takes to scan at the highest resolution (600DPI). If you are going to scan almost all of your pictures on this resolution then you should expect a fairly hefty wait to get them inot your PC photo album. Again it's a fairly obvious point that shouldn't come as too big a surprise with this cheap a scanner. Picture quality is good once it's finally done, but the softw
are can be a bit awkward to use at times, so it may be worth looking at another picture management software program to do this. Again, it's all down to how much use you expect to get out of a scanner.

I ordered it through the buy.com site around midnight on the 15th of December (Friday) and it arrived this morning (Tuesday 19th). That's less than two working days! If only all online stores were this quick...

I was kept informed every step of the way via email. One to confirm my membership, one to confirm the order and a final one to confirm the scanner had been shipped. The site also uses a secure connection for the transaction.

I got the voucher via my membership of MyPoints. If you are a member you also get 190 points added to your account with your first purchase from buy.com (which isn't bad as an extra bonus). If you are not a member of MyPoints and cannot get the voucher through them don't despair.

If you want to purchase this scanner don't despair. Another scheme they have running at the moment is for current buy.com members to refer new customers. If you have a friend refer you to them then you will receive a voucher for £10 off your first order over £20. It's not as good as the other voucher but still not to be sniffed at. In case you were wondering the friend who refers you doesn't receive anything from this referral.

I've seen a few of these type of offers kicking about still, of around £10 to £20 off for new users. Even without this though the scanner is good value at the full price of £46.94 (inc VAT).

Overall a big thumbs up for the CanoScan FB630UI and also to www.buy.com !!

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