Scanners > SmartDisk Scanners > Microsoft Windows 98

Advantages: Excellent scans, little competition at this price range.
Disadvantages: Dreadful manual, cumbersome software, poor build quality.

...I recently bought a SmartDisk SmartScan 3600 slide scanner for my grandfather's birthday. He has a collection of over 3500 slides that will probably never be viewed again unless they are digitised so it seemed like a worthwhile thing for him to while away the hours with! I researched extensively what was available in terms of slide scanners before deciding on this one. I knew they existed, but to what extent and in what price range I really wasn't ...
...install the driver off the SmartDisk CD, the CD interface is poorly designed and very slow but gets there in the end. Then you connect the scanner which is recognised by XP and installed off the CD. Then you're ready to go. The scanner's controls are accessed by opening Photoshop (which can be quite slow given the size of the program) then choosing to 'import' from the CyberView program (the scanner's driver software). Am I the only one who thinks ... Read review

Advantages: Sooooo many features
Disadvantages: None that I can think of

We use the CanoScan Lide 25 (which I'll refer to as Lide 25 from now on) at work and a handy little scanning tool it is indeed. It's very slim and lightweight and sits nicely on my desk, ready to jump into action whenever I need to scan a document or photo. You can copy directly from the platen (glass screen) to your printer or print or even email and it's very easy to set up. AN ABUNDANCE OF FEATURES The Lide 25 uses a USB connection so ...
...handy indeed - saving on energy is always a better option. Unlike other home scanners I've used in the past the Lide 25 scans to a fairly high resolution of up to 1200 x 2400 dpi so when scanning photos you get very good quality images. The software that comes with the scanned allows you to scan documents to PDF too and you choose whether you want them in colour or monochrome or select the image quality you want from 75, 100, 200, 250, 300 or 400 ... Read review