Canon USA Canoscan LIDE30

WHAT'S HOT: The CanoScan Lide 30's standout feature is its accurate color reproduction. In our color print and on-screen tests, this scanner earned higher marks than most competing SOHO models for its ability to deliver crisp, well-saturated images with an impressive range of color shades--including accurate skin tones, the bane of many scanners. Its gray-scale photo scans showed ample contrast and brightness, as well as discernible details in both highlight and shadow areas. And the $80 price puts this scanner within reach of lots of users. The Lide 30's super-svelte design makes it an easy fit in small areas. It can be stored and used on its side to economize on desk space, and it doesn't require an electrical outlet since it's powered via a USB connection. Live technical support is available six days a week.

WHAT'S NOT: Plodding performance is often the downside of using the same cable for data transfer and power, and the Lide 30, with a USB 1.1 interface, is no exception: Its overall speed placed it near the bottom of the SOHO scanners we've recently reviewed. For example, the Lide 30 took 44 seconds to scan a 4-by-5-inch color photo at 100 dpi, compared with an average time of 23 seconds, for all the USB 1.1 scanners we've tested since August 2002. (The fastest model at this task was the HP Scanjet 7450c, which scanned the photo in just 9 seconds.) The Lide 30's performance was similarly slow on all our time tests. Unlike some SOHO units, the Lide 30 can only scan reflective items--it can't scan film negatives or positives--and it doesn't support an automatic document feeder.

WHAT ELSE: The CanoScan Lide 30 is the successor to the CanoScan N1240U, and it has a very similar design: it uses a contact image sensor scanning mechanism (which allows for a slim profile), weighs 3.3 pounds, and includes Scan, Copy, and E-mail quick-start buttons. Although the scanner can capture 48-bit color, its driver converts those files to 24-bit color. The versatile software bundle provides an image editor (ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.0), an image organizer (ArcSoft PhotoBase 3.0) that supports image archiving on a CD-R drive, a printing utility (Canon PhotoRecord) that uses templates to automate photo printing, and a full-featured optical character-recognition tool (ScanSoft OmniPage SE 9.0) for turning paper documents into editable text. The scanning software (Canon ScanGear CS-U) provides simple and advanced modes. In addition to offering easy choices for such common tasks as photo, magazine, or newspaper scanning, the simple mode also includes a multiphoto feature that lets you automatically scan up to 10 images at once. The Advanced Mode offers color adjustment and filter processing tools (such as sharpen and descreen).

UPSHOT: The affordable and unobtrusive Canon CanoScan Lide 30 is a great choice if you need to reproduce accurate color images--and you're not in a hurry.

SUMMARY

Canon CanoScan Lide 30 USB 1.1, 1200 by 2400 dpi, 10 by 15.1 by 1.3 inches (width by depth by height), 3.3 pounds, 8.5-by-11.7-inch scanning area; no optional transparency adapter or automatic document feeder. One-year warranty; free, toll-call technical support (16 hours on weekdays, 8 hours on Saturday). $80 800/652-2666 www.usa.canon.com/consumer