HP PRESARIO S200 SCANNER (Compaq-232014001)

WHAT'S HOT: The Compaq S200 is easy to operate, has 48-bit color, and at only $80 is very inexpensive. It comes in at only $1 more than Canon's CanoScan N670U, the least-expensive scanner reviewed in our August 2002 comparison. The S200 scored a throughput rate of 363KB per second in the maximum-resolution test--considerably better than average compared with other current small-office models.

WHAT'S NOT: The S200 did very poorly on our image quality tests, placing last in our August 2002 comparison. All the photo samples appeared too dark and rather blurry; line art, while reasonably clean looking, didn't show the original's fine detail.

Although Compaq provides around-the-clock tech support for the S200, it's free for only 90 days; after that it costs $39.95 per call. The limited warranty also lasts only 90 days, whereas most models we test come with a one-year warranty. If you want to upgrade this scanner in the future, you'll be out of luck: Neither a transparency adapter nor an automatic document feeder is available for the S200.