Scanners > SmartDisk Scanners > Microsoft Windows ME

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: Simple to use, Relatively Cheap, Looks good.
Disadvantages: Takes a while to install, lid hinge is awkward.

Being a Graphic Art student, during my first year of university I found myself fighting the urge to buy a scanner. However, even mounting student debts and an overdraft extension could not put me off this bargain of a scanner! Other scanners on the market either seem to have too many needless features bumping the prices up, or they are painfully slow and bulky machines that would not sit comfortably next to a new Mac. I managed to get mine for around ...
...perfect for fast but accurate scans of images, without the fuss of useless applications that clog up your memory [it works best straight through Photoshop]. The added extras like the automatic white-balancing save time, and it crops whilst in preview mode. To add to the list of necessities, it is quite light, it easy to clean, and looks sleek in silver and black. It may take a while to install but it's not complicated and is worth the wait when you ... Read review

Advantages: Very easy to use
Disadvantages: A bit slow

I bought this item a few years ago and was very impressed, easy to set up and use. Just plug it in load the software and off you go. The TWAIN adapter is easy to use, just click on preview, and then on the photos you want to have scan, you get the choice of rotating them, and playing about with the colours if you want to, and a choice of what sizes you want them scanned with. Canon, are very good and have produced many updates to the TWAIN, the ...
...manily used this with the APS adapter wchich has been effortless, just load the film in teh cartridge, slide the cartridge into the machine, press the scan button and wait for the photos to appear. I have only used the film adapter once, and did not find that the film lined up with theframes on the adapter. It also comes with adapters for slides, which my family have made good use off, again easy to use, load the slides, push the adapter in and ... 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