Buying the Best Scanner

What are the essential 5 things that you have to necessarily consider while purchasing the scanner that best meets your requirements?

In the present era, scanners have become an integral part of the computer. Today, the office is incomplete without a scanner. The scanners are primarily utilized for the transfer of printed materials, like photos, drawings, and even text into your computer. However, the most essential 5 factors or specifications to be considered when purchasing a scanner are:

• Type of scanner
• Bit depth or dpi of the scanner
• Optical resolution of the scanner
• Speed of the scanner
• Scanner software

Type of scanner

The type of scanner to be selected largely depends upon your needs and even the quality of the scanner. A low resolution scanner is preferred only when you need to scan text and a flatbed scanner is preferred if you don’t need to scan from books or magazines and have limited space, since it takes up much less space on a desk. Thus, flatbed scanners, also known as desktop scanners, are widely used in homes and offices. Whatever may be the type, the scanner should basically include the scanning software and an image editing program in addition to an OCR program that will systematically translate the scanned text into text that can be easily edited.

Bit depth or dpi of the scanner

It is better to get a scanner with a minimum of 300 dots per inch (dpi). It is obvious that as the scanner offers more pixels, it will have the better output and eventually increase in the cost of the scanner. Although a cost factor is not really an essential factor since many low costing scanners that are priced anywhere between $150 to $250 avail 1200 by 1200 dpi resolution and scanners costing even less than $100 provide a great picture of 600 by 1200 dpi resolution.

Optical resolution is a prime factor in determining the quality of a scanner. A scanner with a greater resolution than a printer may not be preferable. A low or medium resolution scanner should be purchased if you plan to scan photographs. If you plan to buy a high resolution scanner then scanners with higher than 600 x 600 dots per inch or dpi scans is the best. A 36-bit color depth scanner is, however, preferred if you plan to scan photographs or even color graphics. A parallel port scanner can be purchased if you are working with large files.

Speed is the biggest factor to be considered while buying scanners. Parallel port scanners that utilize the existing printer port of your computer though cheaper are the slowest. However, USB scanners that are costlier are also faster. Furthermore, SCSI card scanners are the fastest and the most expensive scanners. In such scanners, an installation of SCSI card is necessary.

Scanner software should be the latest available in the market. The scanners normally come with the software that greatly enables the user to get down to the basics of image editing. Although there are certain scanners with outdated software, the scanner software do need to be upgraded to enhance the images. Scanners in the market today also perform printer functions. Thus, with the purchase of a printer scanner you can avail of twin benefits.

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