Canon CanoScan N1220U Scanner

This scanner is great!! I cannot say enough good about it. I have had mine for over two years now and I take it with me everywhere my laptop goes including courthouses where I use it to copy marriages and other court documents for genealogy. No power cord needed and is every bit as good as any of my larger HP ones stuck at home.

Since buying this nice looking piece when it first came out, I have actually NEVER had it working properly under Windows 2000. It has limped along, and at times I have found ways to work around it's consistently inconsistent behavior. When it works, as one reviewer said, it is a rather nice scanner to use BUT that is the trick.... get it to function first. Every so often, after a relatively smooth spell, I get the error saying that it is unable to find or open the TWAIN source. To this problem, there seems to be NO definite solution. I am a tweaker.... everything IS installed properly and up to date. The Canon website is NO HELP. I'll un-install and re-install, as recommended, and will get the same error for hours on end, more re-installs, USB re-installs, all related software un/re-installed, registry cleaning, etc... NOTHING works! Some time ago, while still under warranty, Canon tech support, having exhausted all possibilities, decided it was a "rare flawed hardware" problem.... so they sent me a new N1220U scanner in exchange... ha! I got the same errors with the new one until it finally worked after more tedious tweakings by me... alone. How it was resolved is still a mystery to me. It worked OK, for a little while... about a year. It scanned well that is until, as is the case now... I simply have to walk away. The dreaded TWAIN error has appeared out of nowhere again and I am simply tired of trying to fix it. I will NEVER again buy another Canon product out of principle. I will gladly throw this piece of junk away after crushing it in my bare hands later on this week.
My recommendation: Buy yourself a different scanner! ANYTHING would be better than this! If I could rate this with 1/2 a star, I would.

I thoroughly researched scanners before I selected the CanoScan N122OU. Several brands and models included the high resolution output which I need for my photography hobby work, but the deciding factors for this model for me were:

1) It is very thin and lightweight -- PLUS it stores vertically on my desk.
(My older scanner was heavy, big, and took up LOTS of room.)
2) I had confidence in the Canon brand - and still do.

Having made the choice, I have had no regrets. It has been easy to set up and use (I can even use it while it is in its vertical position - quite a handy feature that I didn't realize it offered when I was making my selection.)

I am pleased and would recommend this to anyone needing a high quality, easy-to-use and easy-to-store scanner.

Good scanner when it's working. I have had nothing but problems with the software under Windows 2000. One day it will be working, the next day "Unable to open TWAIN source." Countless times unconnecting/reconnecting, unloading/reloading the software yields occasional success. Canon tech support is useless. Good hardware without good software is pointless. This scanner/software is nothing but frustration.

I am speaking from personal experience not based on the quality of the scanner. I used this scanner with a computer that using WIN XP and the installation was a great headache. The installation took 2 days just to come out the right way and when it was already installed the scanner will not work with WIN XP. I've 3 scanners before and this has been the most frustrating installation yet.

I tested the scanner with another computer that uses WIN 98 and installation was very easy.

In conclusion, if you have WIN XP and you try buy this scanner your doing so at your own risk.