Bargain 36-Bit Scanners: Not for Everybody

The latest news in color scanners is not about rock-bottom prices: It's about next-generation bargains. New flatbed scanners from Mustek and Microtek Lab feature 36-bit color and 600-by-1200-dots-per-inch resolution--the first to offer these specifications at a street price of $200 or less. But the difference in quality between these scanners and their $99 30-bit, 300-by-600-dpi competitors isn't always noticeable. Casual users, therefore, may not want to spend the extra money, while people who enlarge and tweak photos regularly may find the investment worth making.

I reviewed preproduction versions of Mustek's $199 Plug-n-Scan 1200 III EP and Microtek Lab's $179 ScanMaker X6. Both units are TWAIN-compliant, with parallel port installation and printer pass-through. Ease of installation depends on such particulars as your computer's BIOS and age and your parallel port settings; I didn't have a problem.

The Microtek has buttons to power the device on and to launch its scanning software (which works only with Windows 95). The Mustek offers to launch its software whenever you lift its lid--which can be irritating at times.

Nonetheless, I found the Plug-n-Scan's scanning software easier to use than Microtek's somewhat confusing ScanSuite program. In ScanSuite, I had to search for the scan settings window, and the bundled software did not appear in the applications toolbar (you can add the programs manually, but it's hardly an intuitive process).

Both machines produced good-looking scans with colors that seemed more brilliant than those generated by even a top-notch $99 scanner such as Storm's EasyPhoto ImageWave. Surprisingly, however, in at least one instance the ImageWave caught detail that the Mustek beta didn't, probably because of differences in their respective built-in photo enhancement processes.

Microtek's fine applications bundle includes Ulead's PhotoImpact 4.0 (a very good low-end image editing package), a limited edition of the Caere OmniPage OCR program, the DocuMagix PaperMaster document manager, and Kai's Photo Soap morphing software from MetaCreations.

Mustek packs Micrografx's Picture Publisher photo retouching software (for Win 3.1 and 95), Ulead's IPhoto Plus 4 (for Windows 95 only) for publishing photos, and Xerox's TextBridge Classic OCR (a short version of TextBridge).

Overall, I found the ScanMaker a better deal. But if you don't require these models' higher resolution and color depth for sophisticated graphics, a good 30-bit scanner should work equally well.

SUMMARY

Plug-n-Scan 1200 III EP PRO: Fast, affordable 36-bit, 600-by-1200-dpi scans. CON: Loses some fine detail. VALUE: Crisp, bright colors, but do-it-yourselfers may not like image enhancement trade-off. $199 Mustek Inc. 800/468-7835 www.mustek.com

SUMMARY

ScanMaker X6 PRO: Cheapest 36-bit color scanner yet, excellent software bundle. CON: Clunky scanning software. VALUE: A good deal for people who routinely edit or enlarge photos. $179 Microtek Lab Inc. 800/654-4160 www.microtekusa.com