Good things come in small packages

I bought this scanner about a month ago, after growing tired of the poor image quality of my old HP Photosmart 1000 scanner.

I'll be honest - I let my ego guide me on this purchase decision.... it looks so sleek and sexy in the store, at only 1.3" thick, and weighing in at 3.3 ounces, this is a seriously small and sleek scanner. My ego didn't misguide me this time though, as I have been quite impressed with the quality and ease of use.

Ever since I went digital with respect to photography, I 've wanted to convert my shoeboxes full of printed photos to organized JPEG files that I could reprint and/or touch up at will. My old scanner was inadequate for this purpose, because of the low image quality, but those one will actually help me reach the goal of digitizing all of my photographs.

Upon opening the box, I was presented with remakably few items. There was the scanner, an installation CD, a USB cable, and a stand (we'll talk about this later). Conspicuously absent was a power cord. The scanner takes all of its power from the USB port, eliminating the need for a bulky power brick and an extra cord to add to the rats nest of wires under your desk.

I inserted the CD, and the installation program took me through the appropriate steps. I only installed the CanoScan toolbox, and declined the extra imaging apps on the CD, because I already have Adobe Photoshop. After the installation was complete, I plugged the scanner into my USB hub, Windows XP recognized it instantly, and I was ready to scan.

The CanoScan toolbox allows you to assign tasks to each of the 3 on-etouch buttons on the front of the scanner unit. I've set one for scanning a photo and immediately printing it, therefore acting as a photocopier, another for scanning a photo and immediately attaching it to a new email in Outlook, allowing me to quickly and easily send photos via email. The last button is configured to scan the photo at the highest resolution setting (1200dpi) and opening it in Photoshop.

Things I particularly like about this scanner is the ability to scan several photos at once... I usually do 4 x 6 prints in batches of 3. The scanner driver recognizes that there are multiple photos on the glass, and saves them each in a separate file. There is also a plastic stand included which will allow you to use the scanner in an upright position. This allows you to save desk space while still being able to scan, provided you have space to open the cover. I have it sitting on top of my computer tower, where I would not be able to store a normal scanner in the flat position.

I usually scan 4 x 6 photos in 1200dpi mode, and it takes about 30-40 seconds to do the scan. Slow, but the quality is well worth it. I suspect the slow speed is because the scanner only supports USB 1.1, which is slower than the USB 2.0 that is standard on all new computers nowadays. I've scanned 4 x 6 prints and proceeded to print them as 8 x 10 borderless prints with very little degradation in image quality.

In the past month, I've scanned close to 400 pictures with this scanner, and it's still as good as new. It's very unobstrusive, because of its small size, and is a joy to use with the bundled CanoScan toolbox.