Microtek SCANMAKER X12USL OFF ED W/25PG ADF & ABBYY FINEREADER OCR SW

WHAT'S HOT: Microtek's ScanMaker X12USL Office Edition combines the winning features of the veteran ScanMaker X12USL (a former Corporate chart Best Buy) with the added benefit of a bundled automatic document feeder. It offers attractive 48-bit color, 1200-by-2400-dpi optical resolution, a legal-size scan bed, and a versatile dual interface. Priced at $430, the X12USL Office Edition costs less than many competing corporate scanners with ADFs.

In both print and on-screen tests, the ScanMaker produced admirable images, with saturated and accurate colors and fine shadow and highlight detail.

WHAT'S NOT: A number of corporate scanners outperform the ScanMaker X12USL Office Edition. For example, its 75-, 300-, and 600-dpi scans took from 6 to 17 seconds longer to process than did those of the Epson Perfection 1640SU Office. (Both scanners were tested using their USB interfaces.) If you want to use the ScanMaker's SCSI interface, you must purchase your own SCSI card and cable.

The X12USL Office Edition no longer represents state-of-the-art capabilities for a corporate scanner. Its ADF, for example, handles up to 25 pages in a single batch, versus the HP Scanjet 7450c's 50 pages and the Epson Perfection 1640SU Office's 30 pages. And although high resolution isn't necessary for OCR scanning (which is typically performed at 300 dpi), the ScanMaker's lower 1200-by-2400-dpi resolution makes it less desirable than the newer models from HP and Epson for scanning detailed images.