Canon CanoScan N670U

Most people will recognise the Cannon brand and will associate it with photography and with good reason, as they produce very good cameras. Over the past few years Cannon has also got into producing other imaging products such as Digital Cameras, Printers and Scanners. All of these products I would say are among the best in the world. This review is going to be about one of their latest scanners, the model name is N670U. This wont mean much to anyone, well except probably those who work for Cannon... or possibly those people who sell Cannon products... but any way it's just another number to the average person! Hopefully this review of the Cannon N670U Scanner will not be too boring or techy...

** Software/Installation **
Well as you would expect with most computer peripherals these days it is extremely easy to install! The scanner itself connects to the computer via a USB port (this is the only way, there is no parallel connection). This is good because it means that the power for the device is provided via the USB connection, so there are less cables trailing about your desk, yay! Well that just about covers the hardware side of the installation! Now onto the software side, which is just as easy?

With your computer on, you have just plugged the USB lead from the scanner into the computer. The device will be automatically detected as a plug a play device and you will be prompted for the drivers for the scanner. Insert the CD provided with the scanner and then select the directory that the drivers for your operating system. All you have to do then is to go through the installation process; there are no major decisions to be made, so all you really have to do is click next! Wow, the scanner is now installed, this should have taken no time at all, well at least it was very quick for me!

** What the Scanner Looks Like **
He he he? this scanner is a treat, like most devices over the last few years such as modems and printers scanner have also been getting make overs to make them look better. This scanner is no exception, it is small and sleek looking and also very thin, in fact it is about 3 cm in height! This scanner also has another neat feature that you can add to it, it has a stand so that you can stand it on its side, while still scanning. This, surprisingly works very well, the only thing you have to do is clip the stand to the scanner, very easy, and attach a bit of Velcro to the scanner and its lid, to keep the lid shut! The scanner also has a very nice blue and grey coloured theme, which is better than the standard colour scheme for computer items!

** Operation **
There are two ways in which this scanner can be used; one way is to use one of the three buttons on the front of the scanner. These buttons are the "Scan" buttons, which performs a scan and outputs the image into the ArcSoft Photobase program (provided with the scanner), the next button is the "Copy" buttons, this scans the image and then outputs the image direct to the printer and the final button is the "Email" button, this buttons will scan the image and insert it into an email as an attachment.

The other way of using the scanner is through the TWAIN system. What TWAIN does is provide a standard interface between a scanner and the application that it is going to be output to. This means that the scanner that you have just installed will work with just about every drawing package out on the market at the moment. This is a very simple system to use, first you have to select the TWAIN source, basically select your scanner, and then select acquire image. This will load the scanning interface from which you can preview the image in the scanner, select the area to scan, select the document type and the quality of the scan that you are going to perform. This is all very easy to use and once you are ready to scan the program will take you back to what ever drawing package you were using and you will have your image ready for editing.

** Scan Quality/Speed **
Although the specification, see below, says that this is quite a fast scanner you don?t always want to believe what the manufacturers say about it. I have been using this scanner for quite a while now and I would say that it is a very fast scanner. Of course some things are going to take longer like high quality scans of photographs, but overall this is a very fast scanner. Along with the speed, the scanner also gives you a very good quality image, okay the image depth might not be the best that you can get, but for me this is just fine. Any more I feel would be overkill and I would probably never need that sort of quality any way!

** Specification **
• Scanner Type: Flatbed
• Scanner Element: CIS (Contact Image Sensor)
• Light Source: 3-colour (RGB) LED
• Optical Resolution: 600 x 1200 dpi
• Scanning Bit Depth: Colour - 16 bit input/8 bit output for each colour (RGB)
•Scanning Bit Depth: Greyscale - 16 bit input/8 bit output
• Scanning Speed: Colour - 16 msec/line (600 dpi)
• Scanning Speed: Greyscale - 5.3 msec/line
•Scanning Speed: B&W - 5.3 msec/line (600 dpi)
• Preview Speed: 15 sec (approx)

** System Requirements - Windows **
• Operating System - Windows 98, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Home Edition
• Computer - IBM PC/AT Compatible, USB Port
• CPU - Pentium 150 MHz or higher
• RAM - 64 MB or more
• Display - High Colour (16 bit) and 800 x 600 or more pixels

** System Requirements - Macintosh **
• MacOS 8.6 - OX X (Classic mode only)
• Computer - Macintosh with USB Port
• RAM 64 MB or more
• Display - 32,000 or more colours

** My Thoughts **
This is a very good scanner and at £70 I thought was very good value for money. It is easy to install and use, I would say once you have unpacked it you should be using within ten minutes. All credit to the people at Cannon for creating a very easy to use, high quality scanner. This is defiantly worth the money, if you are looking for a good scanner for the home, then this I feel has to be IT!