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From $99 bargains to corporate workhorses, there's a scanner out there with your name on it.
If you've been longing for the day when desktop scanners would cost as little as $99 and be as easy to use as a microwave oven, then stop yearning and start buying. In some cases, scanners are easier to install and repair than average kitchen appliances. With Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface on many of the models, you can plug into a running PC and watch Windows 98 load drivers automatically. Some scanners even include buttons that launch applications and run previews in seconds.
All 19 scanners we reviewed scan color photos, optimize gray-scale images for black-and-white printing, and convert text pages into editable word processing documents. Some even weigh less than a half gallon of milk.
In evaluating these devices, the PC World Test Center tested each scanner's speed and image quality performance. I conducted similar tests informally in my workaday office and, more importantly, reviewed each unit's ease of use, features and software, and vendor service and support.
The result: a Top 10 list of scanners and, among those, three Best Buys, each intended for a specific use. If you're on the prowl for a personal scanner, chances are you want one that's easy to use and easy on your pocketbook, yet produces good-looking scans for e- mailing to friends and sending to your color printer. The $149 Plustek OpticPro 9636T not only meets those criteria but also provides lots of extras. Hewlett-Packard's $199 ScanJet 4100C is also terrific for home users. (At press time, HP introduced a new, higher resolution model, the $199 ScanJet 4200C with an optical resolution of 600 dots per inch.)
For a small or home office, spend a little more for a scanner that's fast and a champ at optical character recognition (OCR). The $299 Epson Perfection 636 fits that description to a tee--so well that if we had to select just one Best Buy, this unit would be it.
Corporate users need a flexible workhorse that produces high- quality scans from reflective media such as pages and prints, and from transparent media like slides and film negatives. Top-notch OCR capabilities are also a must. Just four scanners in our roundup...