Advantages: Sturdy,esay to use and an extremely handy accessory.
Disadvantages: None really.

...There are so many scanners on the market to-day that there is no shortage of choice. However...they are not all the same.The Agfa E20 portays this to a point with its plethora of facilities and capabilities...and all for under 100.00 (u.k.) The Agfa E20 scans at photo quality (Thats about 1200x 1200 pixels per inch). Like all scanners these days tha Agfa E20 comes with the necessary software to use with O.C.R. (thats optical Character Recognition) which means that you can basically put a printed text douccument into the scanner and the text will be read by it and re-formatted into text for just about any wordprocessing software on the market. This means that one no longer has to type written or typed text into the computer by hand. Another great feature of the Agfa E20 is that the scanner is interpollated. This is a long word... Read review

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Advantages: USB, Looks good, simple to use
Disadvantages: Yet another product with poor documentation

...The Agfa SnapScan 1212u is a USB flatbed scanner. It is mostly recommended for home use and maybe small business. The first thing you notice when you open the box is the dual Macintosh and Windows 98 support. Nothing mentionned about earlier versions of Windows. This is interesting if you own a PC besides your Mac and need to scan images to use on a PC. Agfa claims that its color capture is 36-bit and reaches over 68 billion colors. Its plate takes up to 600 (horizontal) x 1200 (vertical) in resolution and scans up to 9600 DPI. It ships with ScanWise, the Color It! image editor, and OmniPage LE. The latter is for text recognition, which I don't use very often, but a mate told me it is quite adequate. Installation This scanner is easy to install. First, you plug the USB cable from the scanner to the USB port of the hub. Second, plug... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, scans come out pretty well too
Disadvantages: Not compatible with Windows 2000

...I've had the AGFA SnapScan 1212p for a few years now. I would agree that it's not exactly a slimline scanner, but then again, compare it with other scanners that are a few years old and it's nothing out of the ordinary. It's very easy to install in Windows 95 and Windows 98. Upgrading from Windows 98 to ME didn't make a difference, it quite happily continued working without needing to be installed again. I tend to use the TWAIN import feature in my paint package though, instead of using the software that came with the scanner. It's slow by todays standards but then I did pick it up for £20 on the bargain rail in PC World about three years ago! The speed is not a problem unless you're scanning lots of items, I am a fairly light scanner user so it doesn't matter to me. The resolution is fine as well, colour reproduction is pretty close... Read review

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Advantages: Quality
Disadvantages: Lid

...The snapscan 1212U out of the box isnt small..slightly bigger than my 2 year old plustek..but with USB is a joy to set up and use..not only faster but oh so quiet when scanning! Believe me this is important at one o' clock in the morning.. with the family upstairs! My last scanner made a terrible screeching sound on every scan. 5-10mins after opening the box I was scanning..software supplied is excellent and generous and most important..image quality is first rate.. I can honestly say I was gobsmacked at the quality scans of this scanner..the only thing I can say negative..and its a small negative is to agfa regarding the scanner lid..it just doesnt feel solid enough when lifting,it can move slightly from side to side.but hey..im nit picking.If you want a fast sleek quiet and impressive scanner look no further than the 1212u.... Read review

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Advantages: great high quality scans
Disadvantages: parallel port connection and average speed.

...When my old scanner broke, I went out looking for a reasonably priced scanner that delivers good quality scans. The scanner requires a parallel port, so that you plug it into the port that your printer would normally be plugged into. But don't worry you can still use your printer, the scanner has two ports in the back of it, one to the PC and then one to your printer. It is also easy to install and it has a very clear instruction book that explains everything easily. Even for a non-computer literate person, it shouldn't be too hard. All though not the faster of all scanners, it still scans at an average rate. Of course what you are scanning effects the time, and also at what resolution you are scanning at. Obviously the bigger the picture and the higher the resolution, the longer the image takes to scan. I normally scan at 600 DPI... Read review

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Advantages: Good colour recognition, easy for beginners
Disadvantages: Speed and build quality

...features. Here's a list of them: 1. The scanner takes a long time to start. It is warming, calibrating, recalibrating, taking previews at a speed my HPs were taking the actual scans. It is a pain in the neck, if you need to scan something fast. I've read somewhere the AGFA scanning software sends the whole firmware to the scanner each time it is started, which seems very likely. 2. Scanning itself is slooow. Not as slow as with some Plustek scanners, but still slow enough to make it unsuitable for OCR use, if you plan to OCR anything more than a few pages long. What's most surprising, an A4 scan takes about 50 seconds at anything above 100dpi (and ages at >300dpi), no matter if you scan B/W, grayscale or color. The scanning head also returns to its original position very slowly, so the only conclusion is it must be a purposeful limitation... Read review

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Advantages: lightweight, fast and easy to set up and use. nice slimline design.
Disadvantages: None that I have found

...program so I can scan photos directly into it from the menu. But I found the quality of the scans were so good I did not need to alter them, only if I wanted them bigger or smaller. But if you don't have any photographic software on your computer, there is no need to worry because the LiDE35 comes with a copy of ArcSoft Photostudio, which is quite good. I had not long fitted a USB2 port into my computer, so on first using the Canon, I was as happy as a pig in the old what-you-call-it when I scanned my first photograph. It was so fast and quiet compared to my old Agfa. I then loaded the OmniPage program from the installation CD that enables the scanning of text documents directly in Word. When doing this, as with all text scanners, I needed to read through the scanned documents carefully because some letters was not recognised, especially... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, parallel port, fast and friendly service, good software included.
Disadvantages: Erm, haven't found any yet, except the OCR (text editing) software was hard to setup properly.

...and within minutes I was scanning a photograph. There are plenty of options for the type of media you are scanning so that you get the best results such as newspaper, magazine, photo, glossy or matt and other options. You can easily change the size of the scanned image and choose how to manage it, such as saving it to a file, printing it immediately, (like a photocopier) or dealing with it in some other way, such as the text editing sofware options. I was very impressed by the results, as my friends scanners, that came with their PC's and cost a lot of money, which are good makes such as HP and Epson, could not produce images as good as mine in my opinion and were not as easy to use. I was able to edit the photo and the print it very easily. Newspapers tend to have lines and marks left in the image, but not with the Agfa Snapscan. The images... Read review

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Advantages: Quick and quiet.
Disadvantages: A little bit big.

...the on screen instructions and in about ten minutes from unpacking the scanner you will have a new scanner. Ok, so the setting up was easy, but it doesn't mean it was any good. I went and found a range of picture to scan in and one after the other i scanned in, i was surprised. The scanning of the pictures is very easy, a few clicks and it's done. There was a few colour adjusting options, and so if the preview wasn't right then you can adjust the colouring. Many other scanners require you to scan from the software like CorelDraw, Paint shop Pro, but with this AGFA scanner, you scan the picture, and you can save it either to a file or import it to a picture editing software. Pretty handy. I normally scan in the pictures then edit them later. I must admit, althought this is a bit of a big scanner, it's damn good. It's quiet, quick, and you get very... Read review

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Advantages: Good price and good functionality
Disadvantages: The scanner must be on when you boot up your computer if you've got Windows 95

...All in all a very good scanner and a load of good sofware to go with it. Now when people say this scanner isn't fast, what are they comparing it to because it goes at a nice standard speed. Of course the speed at which a scanner scans something depends generally on two things: what you are scanning and at what resolution you are scanning it. If you don't understand the concept of picture resolution I'll quickly explain it now. The scanner will scan the picture as individual coloured dots. It is these dots that are referred to when talking about resolution. The resolution you scan something is basically the number of these dots per inch (dpi) you want the scanner to scan. Therefore the higher the dpi of the thing you want to scan the longer the scanner will take to scan because it is having to scan the picture in more detail. As I... Read review

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