Canon CanoScan N670U Flatbed Scanner

At first, this scanner performed expertly. High resolution, relatively high-speed scanning, no external power cord, compact. Besides a few minor software glitches, it seemed too good to be true.

To complete the tawdry cliche, it was. A few months out, it got stuck. That is, the scanning mechanism literally got stuck to the front edge of the scanner. It made funny noises and stopped working. Dead.

As an example of the poor workmanship, when you press one of the buttons on it firmly, but not hard enough to break any decent piece of electronics, the mechanism moves. That is, the scanning mechanism is indirectly attached to the buttons you push to turn it on! Try it at a store display! When the mechanism moves by a firm button press, the extremely thin metal rod that holds everything in place bends like a piece of wire in a [garbage] compactor. That can't be good.

Although the scanning itself is fine, this scanner is extremely flimsy and is sure to break after a sure period of normal use.

It has those buttons on the from but you cannot program them to say, launch photoshop. At least you can't on the macintosh. I like that it has no power cord, drawing power from the USB cord however. And it's very slim allowing it to be easily stored on it's side.

One big downside is that canon doesn not support Mac OSx! why not, get with it.

I was attracted by its slim design and the canon name. What I got was a very cheaply manufactured and highly defective product with massive software problems. The moving arm is noisy and constantly gets jammed making scanning photographs a nightmare. The software for the Mac is of the bundled nature and crashes constantly. There is a jumble of five different titles which look and operate poorly and cheaply. They are poorly integrated and guaranteed to crash even the best maintained system. They are not supported by the software companies who refuse to provide updates for "bundled" versions. None of these applications works well -- if at all -- in System X or in Classic and updates are not available, despite Canon's assurances. The thing completely fell apart after 90 days, after which it was too late for me to return the product. It's not even deep enough to make into a cat litter box, its only real suitable purpose.

Avoid it and all other Canon scanners like the plague

I am still amazed of how good this little scanner is. Setup under WinXP was a piece of cake. Just connect the USB cable and install the driver and software from the Cannon CD (Do not use the WinXP CD) After just five minutes I was scanning, making copies and sending emails to my friends, all at the touch of a button. This little scanner is fast, quiet, and produces great results, almost identical than the originals. The real steal is in the bundled software. Cannon gives you a great OCR and photo lab.
I would recommend this little scanner without any hesitation.

I've been using a Canon 670u scanner for about 2 weeks, and I'm very satisfied. It was easy to setup, is fast (for a scanner in this price range), and produces great looking scans. I previously had two UMAX scanners. My Astra 1200s still works, but is not compatible with Win 2000. I had replaced it with a refurbished Astra 3400 that was very disappointing. It would not shutoff properly, and then quit working about 10 days after the 90-day warranty expired. UMAX support was also disappoiting, but I'll skip the details. The Canon has been great, and I really like the small size and the single USB cord connection with no power cord. The only disappointment is the ArcSoft Photo software that comes with the scanner. It doesn't seem to be as versatile or easy to use as the Adobe Photo Deluxe software that came with the Umax. Fortunately I can still use the Adobe software, so now I have the best of both!