Top 10 Scanners
Epson's Perfection 4180 Photo
Two Epson scanners debut on this month's chart. Upon a second look at the Epson Perfection 2580 Photo (our first take was in last September's New Products), we gave it our small-office Best Buy award for its speed and attractive color scans. The transparency feeder in the 2580's lid makes scanning negatives very easy, too. (Note that the similar Epson Perfection 2480 Photo debuted in the September Top 5 Scanners chart.)
Aimed at more serious photo hobbyists, the Epson Perfection 4180 Photo offers 4800-by-9600-dpi optical resolution and in our tests captured particularly crisp scans of black-and-white line art.
On the corporate half of the chart, Canon's CanoScan 9950F premieres at number one and earns our Best Buy award. With 4800-by-9600-dpi optical resolution, it excelled in our black-and-white and color image-quality tests; scan speeds were above average across the board.
Two scanners we tested this month did not make the chart. Plustek's OpticBook 3600, while fast, has only 1200-by-1200-dpi resolution and ranked near the bottom in image quality. Its case design lets a book lie flat against the scan glass. The Microtek ScanMaker i700, with a legal-size scan bed, was slow and captured average image quality despite its 4800-by-9600-dpi resolution.