Electronics : CanoScan LiDE 600F flatbed scanner, High Performance Ergonomic, 3-Way design

Rating: - Works perfectly with Vista and is very fast too.
I needed to upgrade my scanner as its now a crucial part of my business so I plumped with the Cannon LiDE 600 and haven't looked back.

I personally haven't used all the extra buttons on the scanner itself because the Cannoscan Toolbox works perfectly fine with Vista and after you've set up your preferences you just need to click scan and your away. The quality is excellent and 300dpi works great unless your going for a massive project scan and then I'd suggest upping it.

I haven't played with the negative scanner yet but I've read a lot of reviews saying that's great but tricky to get going with.

However if you need a personal scanner that doesn't need additional power as this one works from USB and that scans quickly (15 secs a page tops) then I highly recommend this one.

---

Rating: - Weak software (for OS X), fiddly hardware
I find this noisier and slower than my old scanner (a four year old cheap Epson Perfection 610). It wants to calibrate itself regularly which is slow and especially fiddly when trying to get negatives into the clumsy film adapter. It won't work connected to my powered USB2 hub which is very irritating as I have to unplug my printer to use the scanner now (didn't with Epson).

Initially it seemed to work with Image Capture but then I realised that half the features weren't available, such as 16 bit colour and film scanning. Needless to say the supplied software is unlike any software on your Mac (unless you still use OS 8.6). It is slow, unintuitive and astonishingly ugly. (Some of it is not universal for Intel so expect extra slow downs if your computer is less than two years old). I got fed up trying to tweak settings before seeing any quality scanning. Negatives were especially poor to look at. While writing this first time the software finished a scan and simultaneously my Macbook Pro kernal panicked. (Given the rarity of these total system crashes, I'm assuming the scanner played a part).

Outstandingly poor. Beware, Leopard users - there must be better options.

---

Rating: - colour accuracy is very poor
I needed to replace my trusty and very accurate HP 4100c as this will not work with XP or Vista if you have anything like printers or other USB hardware plugged in - too much hassle to disconnect - reboot and then use - so was advised that the Canon Lide600f was my answer. Very easy to install. Advantage of being able to use it in upright position. Fairly straightforward to use - HOWEVER - the colour accuracy is very disappointing......I would even go as far as to say appalling! Even with adjustments and using all the suggested editing I am unable to get anything close to the original colours - something very necessary in my business. Sadly this scanner will be going to someone who just needs a document scanner and unless I can find a much better colour reproducer then I will have to resort to using my old 4100c scanner on a seperate windows 98 PC!!!

---

Rating: - Works in Mac OSX Leopard
i don't have too much else to add, except that it works on OSX Leopard (I'm using v 10.5.1) like a dream.

My only complaint is that scanners normally hinge at the back, this one hinges on the right hand side making it absolutely horrible to use on the left hand side of your desk - This complaint seems small and silly, but my workflow usually involves my right hand on the mouse and left hand controlling the scanner.

The only saviour is that the lid in normal use only opens about 100 degrees so at least it doesn't fall on your keyboard.

EDIT: After multiple scans in Mac OSX, the error "failed to open a driver" comes up and you have to click scan in the software as the buttons on the scanner stop working. This bug has been reported in apple forums since october 2007 but as of Feb 2008 there is no fix for it.

---

Rating: - Joseph Graham
Great scanner, no problems installing to Vista. One disapointment was the 35mm fim scanner did not take colour- slides, I have to remove the slides from their holders a bit of a bind. 4 stars. Would have given 5 if it could have scanned my slides in their covers