Mustek Be@rPaw 1200CS

BACKGROUND
My father-in-law is a real life Derek Trotter. His spare room seems to have a huge array of books, CDs, electrical equipment, computers bits and, bizarrely, bricks. Before you cry "thief", he's no crook and none of the products are stolen. He likes to do what he calls "swapsies". If his friends have got something that he would like, he'll suggest doing a swap. In the past, he has swapped hard drives for mobiles, ...
...this is all pre-owned stuff similar to the second hand bobbins that you get on e-Bay or at boot sales. He just operates out of his spare room. No money passes hands and everyone's happy. So, when I told him I was after a scanner recently and that I had an old CD player to swap for it, he did the biz and produced this: the Be@rPaw 1200 scanner.

MY PHILOSOPHY
I don’t like reading lists of specifications and jargon on hardware ... more

BACKGROUND
My father-in-law is a real life Derek Trotter. His spare room seems to have a huge array of books, CDs, electrical equipment, computers bits and, bizarrely, bricks. Before you cry "thief", he's no crook and none of the products are stolen. He likes to do what he calls "swapsies". If his friends have got something that he would like, he'll suggest doing a swap. In the past, he has swapped hard drives for mobiles, bricks for toasters. It's totally strange, I agree, but this is all pre-owned stuff similar to the second hand bobbins that you get on e-Bay or at boot sales. He just operates out of his spare room. No money passes hands and everyone's happy. So, when I told him I was after a scanner recently and that I had an old CD player to swap for it, he did the biz and produced this: the Be@rPaw 1200 scanner.

MY PHILOSOPHY
I don’t like reading lists of specifications and jargon on hardware and electronic reviews, so if you don’t mind I’ve written this review of a scanner to appeal to the technophobes among us.

WHAT’S THIS THEN?
It’s a flatbed scanner that also manages to fax, copy and send email (but not, alas, at the same time). Scanning is the act of putting a sheet of paper that you wish to copy onto the glass face of the scanner (like a photocopier). The copied image can then, via something called a USB connection, be copied to your computer. You can then “manipulate” (ie touch-up, remove blemishes etc) this image using the special software than accompanies this product. A scanner is useful for copying and emailing magazine articles, or photographs to friends and family around the world. Sadly, with the advent of digital photography the scanner’s usefulness is somewhat in decline and may soon be going the way of vinyl records and the video recorder. Having said that, the Be@rPaw 1200 is a startling easy product to use and if you are in the market for one, here’s why you should consider one of these…..

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
Do you remember big Texas Instruments “Speak And Spell” games of the late 70s? Well, in texture and colour and generally design it reminds me a lot of one of those. If you were to glance at this scanner you’d think it was a child’s product from V-Tech, or a similar manufacturer. It’s called a Be@rPaw for a reason.

There are five very simple looking buttons, each labelled with the function they perform. The largest button is the "scan" button with four smaller buttons positioned in arch above it to look like a bear's paw. Hence the name. From left to right, these buttons are for the functions: copy, fax, email, panel.

It's a mixture of grey and navy blue with the wording of the functions next to the buttons in red. Open the flip-top lid and you are presented with the glass tray upon which you place your document for scanning. The lid lifts easily and smoothly and caused no problem at all.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?
Along with the scanner you get:

*a power adaptor
*a user guide scanning
*the installation CD
*a scanning utilities manual on CD

WHAT DO I DO FIRST?
You have to install the "drivers". This means that a little bit of software has to be installed on your PC so that your machine is able to recognise the scanner whne you want to use it. It's the same sort of thing as installing drivers for an MP3 player or a printer. This, I found, was quite user firendly and a "wizard" saw me safely home.

The manual warns that for certain type of older versions of Windows (95/98 for example), it may be necessary to use the install new hardware wizard. If so, a pop up will appear and another wizard will guide you through the process of setting this up with ease.

HOW DO I KNOW IT'S INSTALLED PROPERLY?
In your "tray" on your desktop (the bottom right hand corner area of your screen that displays the time), an icon in the style of a bear paw should be evident. Everything about this product is so user friendly it's ridiculous.

YES, BUT IS IT ANY GOOD?
Frankly, yes. I haven't used it for faxing or emailing because I don't need to and don't really want to. As an out and out scanner it's perfect. It's ridicuolouslly simple to use. Once the software and the drivers have been installed as outlined in the above text, it's really a case of getting down and scanning. And how do you do that? You just put your shreeet of paper that you wish to scan on the glass under the lid and press the largest bear paw button: "scan". Pathetically easy. A "progress bar" will appear on your monitor showing you the scanning progress (0%-100%) and once that's done the image will appear for manipulation on-screen where can either touch it up there and then or save it on your PC for another look at it later.

If you get stuck there's a handy help menu that even has some cartoon footage of Mustek's bear giving you simplle instructions. Whilst this is bit like that bloody annoying paperclip bloke in Office, at least the bear waits until asked before popping up and answering your questions.

OVERALL
A great little scanner. It's my first one and I'm really happy with it. It's looks good, is simple to use, has four different uses and the English section in the instruction manual is only 12 pages long. Result!

Thanks for reading.

 

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