Canon CanoScan LiDE 600F - flatbed scanner

Summary: This is my first scanner in ten years. I bought this to replace my HP Scanjet 3200C. My system is a Windows XP Professional.

This works great out of the

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Summary: This is my first scanner in ten years. I bought this to replace my HP Scanjet 3200C. My system is a Windows XP Professional.

This works great out of the box. Once the software is loaded, you only need the one usb 2.0/1.0 cable to hook it up. The usb cable serves as a power cable and is also included. The only downside to this is that if you use it with a laptop, you will obviously have to have your laptop plugged in because power will be drawn from it. Either way you would have to have one device plugged in so in that sense it is not really a negative. It just means less clutter and wires to worry about.

The design is great. It is very slim and is about the size of my 17" screen laptop, but much lighter at a little less than 5 pounds. It has a built in stand so that you can also store and use the scanner in a verticle position. The lid also opens 180 degrees which is great for scanning larger objects like books. The lid also has magnets so that it stays tight over the document you are trying to scan. It also features 7 quick button features for one touch scanning, printing, emailing, and pdf creations. The buttons are customizable with the bundeled software.

This scanner is also really fast at medium settings of 300dpi for colored prints. The preview button is also really great because it lets you know if your item is aligned like you want before you spend the time to do a scan at higher resolutions. This unit also keeps nice and cool. I'm not sure how other scanners are these days, but my old scanner used to heat up all the time.

A great function is that you can scan documents and the included software will also create an editable document so that you can actually edit it like you would a normal document in word or adobe acrobat, as opposed to being saved as a picture/jpeg. There is also a feature that will allow you to scan multiple pictures and crop them all at the same time. This saves loads of time!

This unit also comes with an adaptor for scanning upto 6 frames of negatives or slides at a time. The adaptor has its own light source which allows for clearer scanning of negatives. The adaptor is plugged into the main unit and then placed on the bed of the main unit. I haven't tried this option yet so I couldn't say more, but I imagine it's much better than just a piece of plastic for putting your negatives on and then using the regular scanner and its light source. My only comment on that is that it would be nice if they could have the same results as with the use of the adaptor without having to use the adaptor unit.

Overall this is a great scanner. It will probably last me another 10 years honestly. I also find having a standalone scanner much better than an all-in-one unit because the standalone units at this time have greater scanning quality than those units.

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Summary: After extensive research, I opted for this scanner mostly to scan my 400-500 slides and 2000+ negatives, and still have a document scanner in the end.

Imagine my dismay when

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Summary: After extensive research, I opted for this scanner mostly to scan my 400-500 slides and 2000+ negatives, and still have a document scanner in the end.

Imagine my dismay when after setting it up, I determined that it will NOT scan MOUNTED 35mm slides.

The packaging, documentation, and Canon's website all say "Scans 35mm Film (Negatives / Positives)"

Yeah, but only if you destroy the slide mount to take the raw frame out.

Only after extensive searching did I find that caveat documented.

So, even though it technically will scan slides, most users wanting to scan slides will find this model WORTHLESS.

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Summary: "Sidewalk_Bends" wrote a great review. (Read it.) I am as pleased with my scanner as he is. - - There are several design improvements to this scanner compared to last ...

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Summary: "Sidewalk_Bends" wrote a great review. (Read it.) I am as pleased with my scanner as he is. - - There are several design improvements to this scanner compared to last year's CanoScan LiDE 500F model. The 600F has a vastly improved lid hinge with a push-button release so it can lay totally flat. (The 500F had a poorly designed hinge that broke (!) unless the lid was not carefully and precisely maneuvered into position.) The high optical resolution - 4800 x 9600 dpi - and the high scannable resolution via included ScanGear software - 25 to 19,200 dpi - with Adobe color correction software tools built-in should satisfy almost anyone. (This is a significant improvement over the 500F.) The small magnets on the lid of the 600F also are a nice addition. The 35mm film scanner is greatly improved; instead of a simple plastic carriage, it now has a back-light - no extra electrical wall outlet needed. All of these improvements were made with no price increase over the old model! (Thank you Canon!) - - My only minor complaint is that at 43mm (1-5/8"), the 600F is noticeably thicker than the 500F. However, at a mere 2.6 kg (5.8 U.S. lbs.) without the film scanner, the 600F compares favorably to other lightweight portable scanners in its class. - - Highly recommended.

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Summary: Under Vista OS my 4-year old HP 4670 scanner balked at scanning film and only worked marginally, at very best, as a no-frills copier.

A techex with HP confirmed that

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Summary: Under Vista OS my 4-year old HP 4670 scanner balked at scanning film and only worked marginally, at very best, as a no-frills copier.

A techex with HP confirmed that the 4670 was "not fully compatible with Windows Vista..." and subtlety suggested it never would be...

After a bit of research found the Canon LiDE 600F was Vista Capable and noticed it also had some pretty good user reviews. Had excellent luck previously with Canon printers & cameras so added $149.99 on the plastic for a 600F and took it home.

A Vista caveat here: in the store found some 600F boxes were labeled as being Vista capable, other boxes were not. If you are, or will be running Vista, get one in a 600F box that says Vista capable. A 600F Vista driver update is available on the Canon support website (Canon has a very good tech support website IMO), but there is a lot of non-Canon software on the CD in the box...

After logging in as Admin (another annoying Vista feature), inserted the CD, hit the install button and it took about 15 minutes to load the software. All went smoothly although Vista did pop-up one error message along the way indicating one of the add-on programs had a Vista compatabilty problem.
Hard to tell which as sometimes Vista runs a bit behind...

Either Vista worked out a solution, found an update, or kissed the sore spot since everything seemed to work fine after the installation & reboot. Have not tried all the 2rd Party software however so a problem
could still exist.

After installing the software connected the included USB2 cable and my computer found and installed the scanner without a hitch.

Should point out that my computer came with Vista OS installed so people that upgraded from XP may not have the same experience or
results.

Thus far have scanned several pictures, a couple of documents and both B&W and color film with excellent output and speed. Not sure however if the speed is attributable to the 600F or my computer which is on the high-end (E6700, 2G RAM, 1TB HDs, 512MB Video, etc.)

Points off for not making a film attachment that works with mounted slides. Tried to place the slide under the attachment with fuzzy results so the only way to scan those would be to remove the mounting...

Extra points for the dedicated cloth that fits under and protects the glass on the flim attachment when it is not being used.
Nice thoughtful touch.

Bottom line, nice piece of work, works well under Vista Premium (32-bit), a huge improvement over my old photo/film scanner that cost about the same $ four years ago.

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Summary: They used a very small connector to attach the film scanner to the flat bed and you have to use duct tape to keep it from working it's way ...

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Summary: They used a very small connector to attach the film scanner to the flat bed and you have to use duct tape to keep it from working it's way out of contact.
I called customer support and they sent me a replacement after an hour and a half on the phone.

Guess what, the replacement had the exact same problem. Piece of junk.

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