Scanners > Minolta Scanners

Advantages: A fine scanner at a budget price.
Disadvantages: Yet anotherthing to plug into your PC!

...years ago I bought a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II brand new. These can now be found on Ebay for £100 or so and offer a fine machine at a rather more affordable price. The results I've had are truly superb, with fine detail and subtlties of colour faithfully reproduced. The Scan Dual II is a machine capable of scanning 35mm and APS (with optional adaptor) negatives with an output resolution of up to 2820dpi. This is more than enough to produce images ...
...slides. The drivers and Minolta Scan Utility software are supplied on a CD on which you will also find a 109 page User Guide in PDF format. There is also a Quick Reference Guide in paper form to get you started. The software lets you control such things as scan resolution, final image size etc. It also lets you choose between colour negative, black and white negative and colour positive (slides). OPERATION If you buy secondhand the supplied copy ... Read review

Advantages: good quality, lots of editing features, produces up to A3.
Disadvantages: slow, requires more time to edit than your digi photos, glitchy software.

Despite being in the digital age i still have slides and negatives that need 'digitising'. After careful consideration i decided on the 5400. Its tech spec and reviews said it all. After the first install i encountered a problem. The second install was fine. But the software has a few glitches. With my Apple (running OSx 10.4) and Windows XP machines i decided to use the software with Adobe Photoshop elements. This came with the scanner. Sometimes ...
...an error - and i'd have to restart the computer. This happened a few times. Once reloaded it worked fine. The scanner software, coupled with Elements, had plenty of features for tuning up the photographs. Although the scanner does a very good job with colours and contrast, its not perfect. You will almost certainly need to edit them afterwards. Depending on your editing skills the end result was, usually, pleasing. Though, for the price i paid (the ... Read review

Advantages: Excellent quality when scanning slides and negatives
Disadvantages: Professional mode could cause problems for the novice used

...Previously I had the Epson 2480 and although this was good, it is no match for the 4490,expected really with the time elasped between the release of the models. With the resolution set at least 2400dpi and with only unsharp mask and colour restoration selected the faded slides and neagatives were nearly as new. There are a few points that should be noted. If you are a novice and just want to scan something quickly without having to set different ...
...selecting colour restoration and Background correction when they are not needed, you can have a negative effect on what would have been not such a bad scan, if these items were left alone. Also, as with many scanners if you want a good result but with an equally fast time for scanning,you won't get it. You need to move up in the market for quality and speed. All in all I wouldn't change the scanner with another in the same range. The digital ICE ... Read review

Advantages: Lightweight, Portable, Compact, High Quality, Good Software & Bundled Stuff
Disadvantages: Can't Scan In Books/Booklets/Full Size Newspapers Direct

This scanner's intended purpose was to provide a portable scanner for my laptop - something that I could carry around without lugging a box that was bigger than my actual laptop! It had to meet 3 requirements: be portable, scan quickly and scan in detail - as I wanted to be able to scan in business cards for work and the occasional article. Anything else was a bonus. So, what did I actually make of the M12 scanner. Well after having this scanner ...
...have some bells and whistles. I was surprised when I opened the box as to just how small and light it was. It's about the size and weight of a toblerone bar, so if you are looking for a lightweight scanner, this one is great. It also proved to be highly portable - after you've downloaded the driver onto your laptop, you just plug it into a USB port and it is ready to scan. That's it - no power cords, no batteries that need re-charging, etc., all ... Read review

Advantages: image quality
Disadvantages: software ,scan speed

I have owned the canoscan scanner for several years now. the scanner is small,compact and portable.On the front it has 3 quick buttons which usefull for speed.eg copy which will scan and print.the image quality is great and via the software provided you can select the image quality in DPI (dots per inch).It simply plugs directly into your pc or laptop using a usb cable and it has no need to be plugged in to the mains.The downsides are 1. The software ... Read review