Scanners > UMAX Technologies Scanners > USB

Advantages: Good looks, nice price
Disadvantages: A bit slow

The UMAX AstraSlim 1200 SE is quite a fashionable scanner, which can be brought on a budget for around £35. I decided to buy one when I found out or suddenly became aware of how useful owning a scanner is. But, as usual, I was on a budget, and gave myself the task of buying a scanner which, is not only inexpensive but also is of good quality . After looking through the catalogues, I stumbled across this scanner. The package looked good and it was ...
...A little information on the UMAX then: Speed: 6 out of 10---The scanner’s speed is quite slow, but if you are only going to use it for general things, this shouldn’t be a problem. Colour Sensitivity: 7 out of 10--- Colour sensitivity is good for the scanner; it produces some quality scans of paper with many different colours on them. Resolution: 7 out of 10--- The resolution of the scanner is of a good standard, and again it is O.K for general ... Read review

Advantages: reliable, durable and cheap
Disadvantages: Hand-writing recognition not that great.

...and finally decided on the UMAX Astraslim SE. At first I did not expect much from this scanner as it was less than £40 to buy but I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to find it was such a good investment. Along with it's scanning capabilities this piece of hardware also comes with a photocopier (direct image to printer), e-mail function which allows you to avoid the hassle of saving to the hard-drive in the correct format then having to find ...
...also comes with a handwriting recognition option and some limited recognition software. (textbridge and ABBYY) Other software included with the scanner is the Ulead photo express suite. This is a trial version but it has no time limit on it. It offers all of the basic features which are on the full version and it is actually quite good. Using this software you can edit photos with ease by cropping, rotating, changing the contrast and the brightness ... Read review

Advantages: Inexpensive, easy to install
Disadvantages: Quite bulky

I purchased this scanner to enable me to produce worksheets and leaflets for work and I have been very satisfied with its performance. This flat bed scanner is quite bulky but affordable. It has been very reliable and gives excellent quality output. The scanning process itself is quite slow, but reasonable for the price bracket it is in. The scanner is easy to install with a step by step CD to follow. There is quite a bit of software included with ... Read review

Advantages: Great quality of scanning, reasonable price, tech support, MAC and PC
Disadvantages: Large dimensions, rather noisy, low productivity, week software

...with the low resolution. Umax Astra 4000u has shown an excellent quality of scanning. It is necessary to mark good parameters of an actual resolution, low level of noise on a received image, and also the exactitude of colors. The productivity of Umax Astra 4000u has appeared rather low. Nevertheless it is necessary to mark that, despite of a little bit disappointing outcomes, the hardware of this scanner has a large potential, which can be uncovered, ... Read review

Advantages: cheap, reliable, quick [scsi], incs transparency adaptor
Disadvantages: no scsi support [afaik] under win2k

Looking for a cheap scanner, I happened upon this beauty in jungle? why beauty? well it only cost me £60 INCLUDING the transparency adaptor. and it includes a scsi port [a DB25 type, ie looks like parallel] as well as the more conventional USB type. This is a brilliant idea, although they only provide the cheaper USB cable [and it's quite short at that] It is reasonably quick through USB, not stunning but then I wouldn't expect so for this price. ...
...I was mightily impressed. It has the usualscsi pass through, scsi id etc. The buttons [to-program, copy, user-defined] on the scanner are useful, and it isn't *too* tricky to change what program it uses in the TWAIN drivers - it defaults to the included page something or other - not the adobe one oc! - which is fine for beginners, a pain for anyone else. Speaking of the TWAIN drivers, they aren't too bad as it happens. the basic will get you up and ... Read review