Canon Can! (Canon Canoscan N650U)

Member Name: coldpenguin

Product:	Canon Canoscan N650U
Date:	15/09/01 (525 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No external power required, Easy to use, Cheap (ish)

Disadvantages: Needs a 500mA usb port, Slower due to low power, Resolution is not the best in the industry, but for it's price...

I bought my Canoscan n650u at a computer fair in london, the price was £45 at the time but has gone up recently. But even at the more expensive prices this is a good middle-of-the range scanner. For the first time user, or maybe someone who isn't all that good with computers, this scanner shuold be OK. The scanner plugs into the USB port which should make it easy to install, but unlike normal USB devices, it does require the computer to be rebooted before you can use it. Installing the drivers should be easy too. I say should, my scanner was in fact broken when I bought it, BUT canon sent out an engineer and replaced the broken parts. Well, part. When I first opened the scanner, I thought it was a joke. The scanner is around 3 inches larger than US Letter size (roughly A4+3 inches) and very light. When you look inside, there is nothing there! Literally there is a worm thread (a spiral like object) and a pcb. It looked like there was nothing there. It seems that because of this minimalist attitude, the scanner is quite fragile.

So unless you plan to use the scanner as a table-top football field, then this scanner will be OK.

It comes with a USB cable, a couple of driver CDs and a good manual. However, the professionals might miss an auto-sheet feed, and a transparency converter. It does not come with a power supply unit however, it doesn't need one. This is great for me, I already have to use 9 sockets for my computer associated equipment.

A word of warning. The scanner requires 500mA from the USB port. If you use an expansion card USB port (according to the manual) it may not work, and the manual suggests that you use a powered external hub. This does mean that you need another power supply, but I am sure that there are others like me, that now have 3 items which require 500mA and so will happily fork out for such an item, to allow the use of a great scanner.

Summary: