Ideal for the home and small business user the Perfection 1240U is extremely easy to set up and use. With a true optical resolution of 1200x2400dpi, fast scanning speeds and an... more
A review by Jehaz on Epson Perfection 1240U August 21st, 2001
Author's product rating:
Speed
Very fast
Colour sensitivity
Excellent
Resolution
Excellent
Ease of Installation
Excellent - very quick and easy
Value For Money
Excellent
Advantages:
Best quality and colour - accuracy, Very fast
Disadvantages:
Poor graphics software included
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
The Epson Perfection 1240U sure does have a suggestive name. But its suggestion is not too far from the truth.
The scanner is capable of scanning at up to 2400x1200dpi (dots per inch) at 42 bit colours. This resolution is its maximum optical resolution, whereas many other scanners that claim to achieve this resolution only have an optical resolution of 600x1200 and receive the 2400x1200 through software interpolation. Be wary of these scanners, such include the Umax Astra 5400.
The scanner also is extremely fast due to a double read array, which allows the scanner to read twice as fast. This is unique to Epson and highly worth it. The scanner is also very quiet. And can preview in just five seconds!
The scanner also has an excellent Twain driver, which has three modes – one which will determine the size and type of document automatically, another where you have minimal control to select the size (e.g. photo) and quality (e.g. fine printer), and a final mode where you may specify the resolutions and software controls (such as auto-exposure) manually. You may also fully configure all automatic settings for the basic mode.
The auto-exposure is very good. The colours are sharp and very realistic to life, and the white backgrounds will come out as pure whites.
The scanner comes with a USB connection and cable, which installs easily and adds a little program to your taskbar, which constantly monitors whether you have pressed one of the three buttons on the front of the scanner.
The first button loads up a driver which allows you to pick options such as “scan to email”, “Scan to OCR”, “Scan to Application”, etc. These options may be fully optimised as to which program to load up, and which resolutions to scan in. The second button sends the scan directly to the printer. The third button sends the scan to Adobe photo Deluxe supplied with the scanner. Unfortunately, this software is only suitable for novices and is quite offensive to any serious graphics enthusiast. It’s a pity that this button is dependant on such a poor piece of software. I choose not to install it.
The OCR (optical character recognition) software included is Textbridge professional, which is not quite as good as Omnipage but still excellent.
In summery, buy this scanner if you want the best. For £110 you get the best scanner in an under-£500 price range, with great colour-accuracy, speed, and resolution.
Advantages: Good picture quality, very cheap Disadvantages: Bit old now, not great OCR
This is my scanner, the Epson 1240U, and I have had it for about 2 years now. When I bought it, it was not at the price it is now, in fact I think I spent £120 on it. Even at that price I would say it is not a bad scanner, however, looking at the price now, I would say that if you bought it now, you could class this as a bargain.
With a pretty good actual resolution of 2400x1200 dots per inch, the resolution is pretty good, and it does not take ... ...on this, check out the Epson website).
Installing the scanner is simple. If you have an up-to-date operating system, it will detect the scanner as soon as you plug the USB plug and play socket in, and automatically install the drivers if you so wish. If you don't actually want to use the software provided for making the scan, you will find it also compatible with many applications. I frequently use Adobe Photoshop Elements import feature which automatically ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: colour quality, can scan negatives Disadvantages: Epson expensive
...There are a vast array of A4 flad bed scanners on the market today.
Even some of the basic ones from 600 dpi offer superb results.
I decided to look for one in the 600dpi+ range that not only scans photos and objects but also allows you to scan in negatives (very useful for old photos etc)
The HP products are renounced for reliabilty, quality and reproducibilty and are not always cheap. However when I found the HP scanner of my choice HP5370 it appeared to have the same technical sppecification and features as a similarly priced EPSON1240U Photo, BUT the HP is at least £55 cheaper!! This is strange! If anyone can give a true comparison between these 2 scanners:
HP5370C v's EPSONPerfection1240U Photo
They are both 1200 x 2400 dpi optical
Both are 42bit colour
Both have film./slide adapter to scan negatives too!
Both have...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Small, good driver interface Disadvantages: Low colour-accuracy, only 600x resolution, moire
...This scanner instantly looks appealing because it is so compact.
But do not be fooled into thinking it can perform anywhere near as good as the EpsonPerfection1240U !
Firstly, most conventional scanners use a white light that reflects colours off your photo/documents onto a mirror, which then focuses the light into the lens. The Canoscan however uses a newer and smaller technology of red green and blue LEDs.
Although this technology is smaller, it recognises colours far too gaudily, with poor realism. There is also a problem with this technology recognising sharpness, and hence uses a software interpolation to sharpen the scan afterwards. Unfortunately, this sharpens the noise and distortions too, leaving you with lots of moiré (white dots).
Initially, I thought there must be a problem with my scanner because of this poor...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: USB, Adobe Photoshop LE, easy installation Disadvantages: Deceives about *otical* resolution, slow, huge, poor shades and tones.
...the superior EpsonPerfection1240U which can actually achieve an *optical* resolution of 1200 x 2400 dpi.
The software is pretty good, with Adobe Photoshop LE thrown in. This is essentially a cut-down version of Adobe Photoshop, with some of the more advanced features missing. But it is certainly a great deal better than any other graphics software I have seen included with scanners.
The driver program allows you to choose different effects like blur and smooth to apply to your scan, which other scanner drivers don’t provide. But then again, this poses this question “Do we really want our scans to come out blurred?”, and besides, these effects are for the graphics software !
The automatic colour controlling option gives you a mint-green background instead of pure-white, and generally false tones and shades all around...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Ideal for the home and small business user the Perfection 1240U is extremely easy to set up and use. With a true optical resolution of 1200x2400dpi, fast scanning speeds and an amazing 42 bit per pixel color depth for accurate color reproduction, the results from this scanner are outstanding. Plug & Play USB connectivity and 3 QuickStart buttons allow the scanning and sending of data with a single press of a button. The enhanced Epson Twain driver features a Full Auto mode enabling minimal intervention. New features such as Document Type Recognition and Auto Skew Correction, ensure high quality scans requiring little, if any, subsequent software manipulation. The Perfection 1240U is bundled with a comprehensive range of bonus software, including Adobe Photo Deluxe for image manipulation, and Textbridge Pro for scanning text documents. In addition, Epson Smart Panel enables customization of the Start buttons as well as offering scan to e-mail, scan to OCR, scan for creativity and scan to application and photo print.
30.09.2000
19.08.2001
