Canon CANOSCAN N670U FLATBED SCANNER 600X1200DPI USB 48 COLOR & MONOCHRO

WHAT'S HOT: The sleek three-pound Canon CanoScan N670U offers engaging 48-bit-color images for a very affordable $79 price. In our on-screen judging of a 100-dpi (Web quality) photo, images displayed accurate color tones and sharp details overall. Color accuracy in print tests was similarly likeable, but some details were fuzzier than on-screen versions. A photo scanned at 1200 dpi (interpolated) showed well-balanced, pleasing color and contrast, though it looked predictably jaggy.

The scanner's front panel has three handy quick-start buttons--for scanning, copying, and e-mailing (via MAPI-compliant software). Like the CanoScan N1240U, the N670U is powered through a USB connection, and does not require a separate power supply or plug-in outlet. As with all Canon scanners, live technical support is available six days a week.

WHAT'S NOT: With 600 dpi of optical resolution, the N670U is the lowest-resolution scanner in our August 2002 roundup, and that lack of power became apparent when we scanned at maximum resolution. To achieve results comparable to those of the other scanners in our test set, we had to use an interpolated resolution of 1200 dpi. While the 1200-dpi line art looked smudgy and lacked a lot of the original's detail, the high-resolution color photo looked surprisingly good, as described above.

Because the N670U uses a contact image sensor rather than a charge-coupled device to record data, the N670U can't accommodate a transparency adapter or an automatic document feeder. So-so speed is another drawback to the N670U, attributable mainly to its using the USB cable for both power and data transfer. Although it was reasonably speedy at scanning a 2-by-2-inch photo at 1200 dpi, the N670U lagged behind the pack on line art and on a magazine page, both letter-size pages scanned at 300 dpi.