Scanner Reviews

Scanner or multifunction printer?

Stand-alone scanners have largely been eclipsed by multifunction printers that combine a scanner, printer, copier and sometimes even a fax machine (see our related report on multifunction printers). However, experts say dedicated scanners are still the best way to convert a large collection of photos, negatives and slides to a digital format. In many cases, they are also a better and more capable solution when converting reams of documents into electronic data.

There are a number of good sites to learn about scanners. PCMag.com reviews dedicated scanners on a regular basis, performs testing in a fair and competent way and identifies top models. Macworld features excellent reviews, but covers fewer scanners. British sites IT Reviews and Which? magazine also produce good reports, and many of the scanners profiled are available in the U.S. Photography websites and magazines such as Imaging-Resource.com and Shutterbug.com are good places to learn about scanners for photo professionals or hobbyists, but cover relatively few models. The German site ScanDig, recently translated into English, provides in-depth reviews of photo and film scanners. User reviews at Amazon.com, B&H Photo's website and Newegg.com are useful for seeing how a scanner performs in the real world.

Some otherwise-prolific tech sites, such as CNET and PC World have less coverage on scanners, but occasionally add a new model. As such, these sites are mostly useful only as references for older models that are still on the market. Canon, Epson and Nikon release new models relatively infrequently.

Reviews say most modern scanners do a good job of transforming hard-copy originals into electronic form. What separates the best from the rest is usability, speed and bundled applications. For example, PCMag.com says the Plustek SmartOffice PS282 (*Est. $375) is an "extraordinarily inexpensive" document scanner that's loaded with the types of features -- such as duplex scanning (scans both sides of a sheet of paper at once) -- that should make it a hit in the office. However, its speed falls short of the manufacturer's claims in many tasks. PCMag.com's M. David Stone could only eke out 11.1 pages per minute (ppm) -- nowhere close to the manufacturer's claim of 25 ppm. Stone had also hoped that the software would be improved over the older version of this scanner, the PS252, but he finds that "it hasn't addressed some of the most troublesome issues." Among document scanners, we found better reviews for the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 (*Est. $425),though it costs $50 more.