CanoScan1250U2 (Canon Canoscan N1240U)

Member Name: plodder

Product:	Canon Canoscan N1240U
Date:	01/11/02 (906 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent pictures, ease of use, speed

Disadvantages: slowish to warm up

I wanted to be able to scan smallish photographs which I could blow up and print so wanted agood scanner. Not knowing much I took a reccomendation from a computer test (PCadvisor I think) and have been very pleased.

The scanner offers a USB2.0 interface (400M), but I only use a USB1.1 cable (provided)and port on my PC (~10M) and that is fast enough for most work unless you do lots of photos or very large ones at high resolution. The intructions also mnetion possible incompatibility with some USB 2.0 cards (Adaptec unless latest drivers are used) and that Microsoft support for USB 2.0 is not quite ready. So maybe using USB1.1 is safer for now, but I can always use USB2.0 if I need the speed later.

The optical resolution is 1200x2400dpi and will preview your scan in about 8seconds. However, before scanning it takes about 30 seconds for thescanner light to adjust. It will do a normal sized photo as a useful resolution of 300dpi in around 30 seconds and results are fantastic. Pictures are sharp and colour reproduction is excellent.

Installation was a doddle form the CD provided and the scanning software is easy and intuitive. You can define teh portion of an image you want to scan and customise brightness/contrast/resolution etc. Also induded is ArcsoftPhotostudio to edit and enhance photos, and Photobase to build photo albums. Again, good and very easy to use. The software will also take outputs from digital cmareas as well as teh scanner.

There is also optical character recognition software inluded (Omnipage Pro) which I have not use. not much more to say except to repeat it is easy to use and produces great results. It is 257x460x61mm and weighs 2.4kg which seems average for a quality scanner.

Summary: