Canon CanoScan LiDE 30 Scanner

The CanoScan Lide 30 is a solid, inexpensive flatbed scanner. It works well with Windows, but don't consider buying it if you're looking for a solid, inexpensive flatbed scanner to be used with under OSX.

The drivers provisioned by Canon are an insult to everything ever created by man, and are the digital equivalent of a broken sewage pipe leaking into your living room.

Okay, so this is hyperbole, yes. Let me try again.

The newest drivers are from 2008, are basically the same than the previous version from 2007, and even back then they were already outdated. The main desktop interface is an application called "CanoScan Toolbox X" which successfully manages to throw away years and years of UI design and even logic. It looks awful, it's unbelievably clunky, and most importantly, it barely works. After a lenghtly and confusing installation of both this "tool" and the actual drivers (which are even older than the tool) you'll basically have to jump through hoops if you want to scan anything. For example, if you want to use the scanner using Photoshop, you'll have to run PS in compatibility/Rosetta mode.

Oh yeah.

So, to sum up: it's a neat piece of hardware, but for your own sake, stay away from it if you're a Mac user.

I bought this scanner back in 2004. I do a lot of digital art and at the time I needed a scanner that will scan in very high resolution. Resolution can get up to 1200 x 2400 dpi. Usually I only need 600, but it's great having the option. 4 years later I'm still using it, and it still works perfectly. The only problem is it's slow, and a little loud when it's scanning. This is worse depending on how high you have the resolution set. But I wont be replacing it any time soon because for now it completely meets my needs.

The best scanner I have ever found for my personal use after having used different brands of scanners. I recommend this flatbed scanner strongly.

the picture comes out good if you choose a high enough resolution, but don't count in this one if you're in a hurry... good scanner, but very slow.

I already own a N670U scanner (which I've reviewed), but I bought the LiDE 30 as a mobile unit to go with my Thinkpad T30 laptop. Canon's low-cost LiDE line of scanners already scores a big win in that regard; these machines are extraordinarily light and will fit comfortably into any good-sized laptop carrying case (I use a Targus Platinum case, designed to hold 17" laptops, which I bought with the express intention of being able to carry both laptop and scanner, and the LiDE 30 fits perfectly.) The USB interface means that you don't have to worry about packing an AC adapter, and this unit draws very little power, so you can plug it into your laptop's USB port without worries(make sure you have USB 2.0 built in or a USB 2.0 adapter card for best results).

In terms of performance, the LiDE 30 is quite comparable with the N670U. I gave the machine a good workout a couple of weeks ago at the Library of Congress, where I scanned over 400 pages, with a mix of color and black-and-white/grayscale images, in various page sizes, during a 7 1/2-hour period. I find that the LiDE 30 scans black-and-white/grayscale images very quickly indeed, with image quality comparable to or somewhat better than the N670U. The LiDE 30 is, in my somewhat limited experience so far, slower at scanning color images than the N670U, particularly if you use the full-platen setting, but there's nothing to complain about as far as quality goes; the color pictures this scanner produces are every bit as good as the N670U's. Both scanners have a recessed glass platen, which some other reviewers have complained creates problems with scanning oversized images. I don't necessarily agree. I find that with the N670U and LiDE 30 both, if you have a large book heavy enough to create its own pressure on the page being scanned to put the page in proper contact with the platen, and if the size of the image to be scanned is overall the same as or smaller than the platen, you can get good results from processing an "oversize" page. The software is quite good and works well with IrfanView, my preferred image viewer, and the Windows XP software provides a lot of options for expert-level scanning adjustments.

All in all, this is a very fine budget scanner which, though no longer in production, is still well worth getting for somebody who doesn't require a heavy-duty, bells-and-whistles unit or wants something to take on the road as part of a laptop outfit.