Visioneer OneTouch 8650

WHAT'S HOT:

A new addition to this month's corporate chart, the Visioneer OneTouch 8650's best feature is its bundled automatic document feeder, which handles up to 50 sheets. Otherwise, this 36-bit, 600-by-1200-dpi scanner is identical to Visioneer's OneTouch 8600 (a former SOHO chart resident), and offers the same benefits, including fast performance, Universal Serial Bus and parallel port interfaces, and quick-start buttons. The $299 OneTouch 8650's lower price and zippy performance helped it edge out the $500 Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 6350C (which is also bundled with an ADF) for third place on the corporate chart. Tested with its USB interface, the Visioneer scanner took 26 seconds to scan a black-and-white, letter-size page at 300 dpi; the ScanJet 6350C took 57 seconds to scan the same page.

WHAT'S NOT: Like the OneTouch 8600, the OneTouch 8650's color image quality is less than stellar, with some colors appearing washed out and lacking the richer, more-accurate tones delivered by other corporate scanners such as Microtek's ScanMaker X12USL and Epson's Expression 1600 Artist. Serious business users may also be somewhat disappointed with the 8650's software bundle. For example, although the unit comes with a handy document management tool (PaperPort Deluxe 6.1), neither of the bundled image editing programs (MGI PhotoSuite II SE and PictureWorks PhotoEhancer 3.1) is as robust as Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE, which comes with both of the other scanners on the corporate chart.

WHAT ELSE: The OneTouch 8650's front panel includes seven handy quick-start buttons: E-Mail, OCR, Fax, Copy/Print, Scan, Stop/Cancel, and Custom, which you can configure to send your scanned page to the application or device of your choice, such as an image editor, a desktop publishing program, or a second printer. Each button allows you to scan an item and send it to a specific application, such as the bundled OCR program, TextBridge Pro. If you also want to scan transparencies, you can get a transparency adapter with a maximum scan area of 5 by 7 inches.

BEST USE: The budget-priced Visioneer OneTouch 8650 is a good choice for any office that does lots of OCR work. Its dual interface also makes it ideal for those still using older PCs without USB ports.

SUMMARY

Visioneer OneTouch 8650 parallel port and USB, 600 by 1200 dpi, 16.7 by 13.0 by 7.0 inches (width by depth by height), 10.9 pounds, 8.5-by-11.69-inch scanning area, included automatic document feeder, optional transparency adapter. One-year warranty; free, unlimited toll-call support for 11 hours on weekdays. $299 888/229-4172 www.visioneer.com