CanoScan LiDE 110 and 210 Scanner

Unlike most flatbed photo scanners, the CanoScan LiDE110 and CanoScan LiDE 210 colour image scanners do not give you the option of film scanning. Film scanning is the ability to scan slides and strips of film to image files. Essentially this makes both of these LiDE scanners cheaper, so if you do not wish to scan film, you will have a cheaper option to paying for a feature you will likely never use.

Apart from the obvious price comparison between the two scanners, the resolution and image quality are the largest differences.

The Canoscan LiDE 110 provides sufficient quality with its 2400 pixels per inch (ppi) for scanning photographs for home use, while the 4800 pixels per inch provided by the Canoscan LiDE 210 will scan images in fine detail and give you the option of zooming in on a portion of the image without any distortion.

For people that require the higher ppi, it is well worth paying the small extra cost.

Epson Perfection V330

The designers at Epson attempted to assemble a scanning package for the mass market and the aptly named Epson Perfection V330 they have hit the mark.

In addition to a good quality scanning engine, it includes a comprehensive software package featuring photo fix and stitching software and a transparency adaptor for film, both negatives and slides.

Transparency adaptors were formerly only available in professional and expensive consumer scanners. As technology advanced the price of these adaptors fell and now more devices, designed for home and small office use, include them. Epson’s Perfection V330 has taken this to new price lows with their product being available for under £100.00.

The Epson Perfection V330 has a curved top which narrows to the left and a step at the front. This step contains four control buttons and the scanner lid opens from left to right. Unusually, the documents to be scanned are placed with their top edge facing the front of the scanner. The lid hinges are extendable so as to accommodate books and magazines. Overall it is a slightly strange design, but it is quite attractive to look at.

A 15cm x 10cm colour print takes approximately 15 seconds to scan and the results were typically good, though I noticed the red colours came through slightly orange and the other colours were a little lighter when compared to other scanners in the same price bracket.

The software suite included with the Perfection V330 features programs such as Arc Media Impression and ABBYY Fine Reader Sprint which allows character recognition. This application is useful when you need to extract text from printed pages. It works directly to create a formatted Word document.

The Canoscan LiDE 210s ease of use, scan quality and green features makes it a very popular option. While the price of the Canoscan LiDE 110 and the overall combination of price and features of the Perfection V330 make them viable alternatives.

It is fairly straight forward to choose from among the three. If you simply wish to copy snapshots to share locally, buy the LiDE 110. If you require the film scan feature, buy the V300. If you require high quality scans but do not need to scan film, then the LiDE 210 is the scanner of choice.

I hope one of the scanners in Flatbed Scanner Reviews 2013 was to your liking.