A slim trim scanner (Canon Canoscan FB630U)

Member Name: EazyDude

Product:	Canon Canoscan FB630U
Date:	23/07/01 (166 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Size, Cost, No extra PSU

Disadvantages: Speed

I had always wanted a scanner, but had always thought of them too expensive. This was a snap at the price I got it at, especially as I had some coupons for an internet store. It brought the price down to about £25. Definitely a bargain.

To be honest, I don't do a lot of scanning to be able to tell you the the nitty gritty of scan qualities, but the drivers for the scanner are pretty sufficient. They give you a preview of the page on the scanner also giving you a wide range of options to scan in at. For example, what colour depth and resolution (upto 1200dpi interpolated). The speed of scanning is almost directly proportionate to the resolution and colour depth you choose to scan at. I wouldn't recommend scanning many pages/images at beyond 600dpi in Colour, purely from a speed point of view. I'm having to do in excess of 1000 images at moment, and boy is it painstaking. Each image is fairly satisfactory when scanned, though touching them up with a colour balance and contrast does spruce the images up a bit.

The USBity, if there is such a word, is a real beauty. Anyone who has not used USB before, may I thoroughly recommend it to them. Previously I remember (boy do I feel old) scanners used to plug into the parallel port (your printer port). This meant if you either forgot to plug in your scanner, or turn it on before you booted your machine up... you would have to reboot. What a pain. Now with USB those days have gone. You can plug in the scanner, and any other device, at any point in time you like, without rebooting. This also means that you don't have to daisy chain your printer (plug your printer into your scanner, because your scanner is plugged into where your printer should go!). You get even luckier with this scanner in that it gets its power from the same cable, which was not usual.

One of the biggest pluses is the size. It is no bigger than a medium sized laptop and so it fits alongside your laptop in your briefcas
e, should you so wish.

The pros
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- Flatbed
- Cheap
- USB
- No more power supplies
- Reasonably fast (seen faster and slower)
- Portable
- Fits in your briefcase or drawer when finished

The cons
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- Could do with a Z-shaped lid for larger books, those with bigger spines.
- Not perfect images colour-wise
- Not for heavy duty scanning
- Not many cons, for the price

Summary: