WHAT'S HOT: With the arrival of the $150 Microtek ScanMaker 4900, you no longer have to pay top dollar for a 48-bit-color, 2400-dpi scanner that can churn out scans quickly with impressive-looking results. The ScanMaker 4900 also sports a sleek metallic design, provides easy USB 1.1 connectivity, and offers both reflective and transparent scan modes.

In our August 2002 speed tests, the 4900's overall performance ranked high among the five 2400-dpi units we tested with a USB 1.1 interface, and ranked second for performance among small-office scanners. For example, the 4900 took only 39 seconds to scan a 2-by-2-inch color photo at 1200 dpi, compared with 46 seconds for the next-closest USB 1.1 model, the Canon CanoScan D2400UF, to complete the same test. The only faster 2400-dpi scanner in our roundup was the $1000 Microtek ScanMaker 8700 Pro Design, tested on its FireWire interface.

As for image quality, the ScanMaker 4900 earned the best scores among small-office scanners in our print test of a 4-by-5-inch color photo, producing more-accurate colors and better details in shadows and highlights than other scanners we evaluated for our August 2002 roundup. Because of its high resolution, it also performed well in our on-screen black-and-white line-art test, reproducing finer details in small geometric lines and in tiny 4-point type.

WHAT'S NOT: Free technical support is available for only 90 days after purchase and only for basic installation issues. You pay any toll charges, and after the 90-day period--or for advanced troubleshooting--you'll have to pay to speak to a technician. No optional automatic document feeder is available for this model.

WHAT ELSE: The ScanMaker 4900 has seven quick-start buttons, labeled Scan, Copy, E-Mail, PDF/OCR (which can automatically create a file in Adobe's Portable Document Format), Setup/Cancel, Custom, and Scan to Web, which automatically scans and uploads your images to IMira.com, a photo-sharing Web site. This scanner also comes with a transparency adapter that can handle one 35mm slide or filmstrip at a time. Mounting slides and film in this 9.5-by-3-inch device requires more manual work than using a built-in transparency lid, but it is capable of producing good-looking results, partly because of an included adapter calibration utility.

Also in the software bundle are an image editor and image manager (Adobe PhotoDeluxe 4 and Ulead Photo Explorer 7 SE, respectively), optical character recognition (ABBYY FineReader 4 Sprint), and an image-archiving application (Ulead DVD PictureShow) that automatically copies image files and photo slide shows to CDs or DVDs. The excellent TWAIN driver (Microtek ScanWizard 5) provides separate modes for beginners and for advanced users, and a step-by-step online (PDF) tutorial helps you use both modes of operation.

UPSHOT: The dual-format Microtek ScanMaker 4900 offers a lot of bang for the buck, including speedy performance, high-quality scans, and push-button convenience--all at a relatively low price.

SUMMARY

Microtek ScanMaker 4900 USB 1.1, 2400 by 4800 dpi, 11.8 by 19.3 by 2.4 inches (width by depth by height), 5.7 pounds, 8.5-by-11.7-inch scanning area, includes transparency adapter, no optional automatic document feeder. One-year warranty; free technical support for 90 days (10 hours on weekdays, call is not toll-free); thereafter, fee-based support is available for $30 per call (same hours, call is not toll-free). $150 800/654-4160 www.microtekusa.com