CanoScan LIDE 500F

[zagato27]

Just thought I'd give you a very quick review of the Canon 500F scanner. I bought it as my wife needed something to scan student work and then post as PDF document. I had read reviews and they were all positive in that it was Mac friendly and worked great. Didn't hurt that it looks great and is positively ultra slim and did I mention....looks great. Features: single button copy; scan; PDF; and email. Powered through the USB 2.0 connection. I've got it running off of one of the ports on my Dell 1901F. It has the ability of scanning film too. Cool feature: you can place it flat on your desk or you can place it in a stand that places it just 20 degrees or so shy of vertical. The door is hinged and then held/stopped by the stand so that if opens like a "v" and you drop your item to be scanned. Pretty slick. The hinged cover allows you to scan books and such that require to be laid flat. It's 48-bit and 2400x4800 dpi. I haven't tested it extensively but my first scan was a hand drawn card by my daughter to my wife on her B'day. All I can say is WOW. Just dropped the card in and hit the scan button and it was done. Very quick and very quiet. The scan came up as a jpeg and with it came a whole host of tools to resize, change color etc. I've attached the jpeg of the card and you can see the color and detail. FYI, the drawing (my daughter, by hand) is a rendition of Gustav Klimt's "Mother and Child". After going through "Price Grabber" for price I initially found it for about $114 from NEWEGG I believe. Funny that Amazon was listed so I checked. It was a bit higher but they do have a way of letting them know that you've got a cheaper price. I went ahead and plugged in the NEWEGG price and url and then came back in a couple of days. The result was that Amazon's price was within a few pennies of or the same as NEWEGG. That was including shipping and no tax. So I ordered it for $112.99. As I said, this was just the first test and initial impressions. Right now I heartily recommend this for home use. I don't depend on a scanner for my living but do need it for the occasional scan so there are undoubtedly better scanners. For the price, this is super. I'll try to post a bit more as I use it more and gain experience. Cheers

 

[mduser63]

I've got one of these too. Had it for about 3 or 4 weeks now, and so far I really like it. Does a great job of scanning negatives, which is the main thing I've been using it for. My favorite thing about this scanner is the fact that it's bus powered. I'm getting sick of wall warts and power packs, so to not have to have one for my scanner is great.

I bought a Canon Pixma iP1600 last night to replace my Epson Stylus Photo R200 (which was simply out of ink, didn't feel like getting new ink for it). Haven't printed a photo with it yet, but it prints REALLY fast when printing standard black and white documents.

 

[zagato27]

I bought a Canon Pixma iP1600 last night to replace my Epson Stylus Photo R200 (which was simply out of ink, didn't feel like getting new ink for it). Haven't printed a photo with it yet, but it prints REALLY fast when printing standard black and white documents.

A bit off topic but.... My son's Epson printer seems to have died. Course it happened right after we bought 4 or 6 new cartridges for it (~$60). We were at Best Buy and I almost bought him a Canon 1600. Think it was going for $49. Maybe next week. Glad to hear that the iP1600 works well. Be interested to know how it does on photos. Cheers

 

[sw1tcher]

If you do a fair amount of color printing, I'd say get the Canon iP3000 instead. The iP1600 does not have individual ink tanks, and the cartridges for the iP1600 are tiny.