Canon is boasting that its two new scanners are ideal for "consumers looking to archive old family snapshots or just keep better track of their household bills and documents...".
I was intrigued: scanners that let me archive household bills. I guessed there would be some sort of document feeder, where I could pile in the contents of the cardbox box that holds all our bills from the last three years. Presumably, the scanner would also handle multi-page bills that I've stapled together.
Same for the old family snapshots (the snapshots are old, not the family). I have a large metal case filled with probably a thousand or more slides that I want to have digitized. I had planned to hire my daughter this summer to scan them -- four at a time -- on my Epson scanner. But Canon was promising something better, perhaps a bulk slide scanner attachment.
Let's see what excitment Canon has in store for someone like me:
* Only 1.3" high. (I would prefer 1.3" wide, like the stand-up HP scanner).
* Uses one cable to provide both power and a USB connection (one cable instead of two).
* Three buttons for copying, scanning or e-mailing of images or documents.
* Quality Automatic Retouching and Enhancement (reduces dust and scratches).
* Lid lifts approximately one inch vertically and lays flat.
* Maximum 1200 x 2400 dpi optical resolution and 48-bit color
* Software generates multi-page PDF files.
* Multiscan handles up to four items at a time.
The higher priced model has four buttons and USB v2.
Oh. What a disappointment. These new Canon scanners do nothing more for my needs than what my five-year-old SCSI-based Epson 3.5"-tall 1200dpi scanner already does.
Where is the easy household bill scanning? The easy hundreds-of-old-family-photos scanning? Just another case of marketing people hyperventilating.
Comments