Amazon.com Product Description
With a slim design and a single cord for both power and data, the Canon CanoScan N670U adds minimal mess to your desk while offering a number of instantly accessible scanning options. The USB connection and plug-and-play installation will have you up and running in no time, while the one-touch buttons allow you to e-mail, print, and copy images without referring to a user's manual.
The unique Z-lid design expands the scan area to accommodate bulky originals, such as magazines and textbooks, but the total depth of the scanner is a mere 1.4 inches. The maximum scan size is 8.5 x 11.7 inches. Images are enriched by the 48-bit color depth, while monochrome documents receive excellent clarity and legibility via 16-bit grayscale. With a maximum resolution of 600 x 1,200 dpi, your scans will display crisp detail and process at a speed ideally suited to the serious hobbyist.
The N670U is compatible with Windows 98, 2000, ME, and XP, as well as Macintosh 8.6 or higher. Included in the box is a software bundle that allows users to edit and process their images with ease. Canon provides a one-year warranty on parts and labor.
Product Description
The CanoScan N670U scanner is a truly remarkable addition to your home or workplace. Its intelligent, state-of-the-art features save you time, and the unbelievable price can save you money. Its sleek styling looks great on any desktop. And the results you'll achieve are simply spectacular. At just over one inch high, the N670U scanner is one of the smallest flatbed scanners in the world. It's also one of the easiest to set up and use. Connect with just a single USB cable to any compatible Mac or PC - no power cord or bulky transformers are necessary. Then scan, copy or e-mail your images in just one step using the three convenient external buttons. You can even burn complete photos onto CDs with ease. So it's easier than ever to take advantage of this scanner's full capabilities: remarkable 48-bit and 600 x 1200 dpi resolution that gives you over 281-trillion possible colors for richer, more robust scans. The accompanying stand allows you to stand up the N670U scanner to make room on your desk, and still use it to scan at anytime.Canon's advanced Z-Lid Expansion Top will forever change the way you scan bulky items, such as books and magazines. Other scanner covers lift only at an angle and become uneven and awkward when scanning anything that isn't completely flat. The N670U scanner cover includes a special expansion hinge that lifts vertically and lays flat to create the space needed for bulky items, and to help ensure clear scans.
These are the reasons this scanner has impressed me:
1) Photo scan quality is good. So good in fact, that a recent scan of a color drawing on paper revealed the fine paper texture in the image.
2) This makes photocopies a snap. All you have to do is put the paper under the lid, press one button in front, and within seconds the printer is spitting out a great reproduction.
3) Slim design doesn’t draw to much attention to itself, and is perfect for keeping a workspace looking tidy.
Spent the past 3 days with the N670U scanner and my opinion went from loving it (first scan looked great) to disliking it (discovered its significant weaknesses) and then back to just liking it (figured for the $82 +S&H, it couldn’t be perfect). In the interest of brevity, I’ll just summarize with pro’s & con’s. But first some basic information: This scanner replaced my UMAX 1220U b/c WINXP made the old software obsolete and therefore limited its usefulness. My system is a heavily used COMPAQ PIII 500 MHz with 256 ram, running Windows XP Home.
CONs:
(-) A bit confusing on install as to which CD to use; my unit came with two CDs, one with the ScanGear CS-U driver and software package and one marked “For winxp only”. But when I read the documentation, it said you should NOT install that (for winxp only) driver if you wanted all the features of the included regular TWAIN driver and software. The fine print on the winxp cd explains that it’s a WIA driver and contains limited features for basic scanning. Right on the scanner box it says designed for winxp, with the logo and everything, so my question is why would anyone want to have only basic, limited features?
(-) LOTS of mainly white, dust-like-looking, specks on the scans, if scanned with default settings and viewed at full size. I guess it might be called “noise”. The glass on the platen is perfectly clean, but the scans look as if it was dusty as hell. Later I found a fix that cleans it up pretty well: check the check box on the first driver screen that says something like “use driver to make additional adjustments” and then go to advanced settings where you’ll find a “remove dust and scratches” feature that gives you several options: I choose “hard”.
(-) I get a “Windows 16 bit subsystem error” each time I start the driver to scan. I get this with some other software too, so maybe it’s my computer. In any event, I can click “Ignore” and it proceeds after about a 20-25 second delay.
PROs:
(+) small, lightweight, vertical footprint
(+) whisper quiet
(+) usb for power
(+) fairly fast scanning (after the delay mentioned above); not including the delay-which is probably my computer issue-I can scan a 5×7 photo at 600 dpi with the dust/scratch removal feature on in about a minute and a half, much quicker at lower dpi of course.
(+) no real warm up time needed; scanning with my UMAX was like starting up my old Chevy Nova on a cold winter morning in Wisconsin.
(+) decent color, although sometimes overly saturation of some photos (even using the same original photo, sometimes I have difficulty getting a scan as good as the first time I scanned it which had very natural and even coloration). This can be easily adjusted with any photo app though.
(+) multiphoto scanning is an amazing feature; downside of this is that you can’t get the advanced scratch/dust removing option using the multphoto option (at least I haven’t figured out how). So, the scans are not the best quality – ok but not great.
(+) nice ScanGear Toolbox interface; pleasing to the eye and basically user-friendly.
(+) buttons on front of unit are assignable and quite convenient.
(+) overall scanning of text (and photos if you don’t mind some white specks or using advanced setting) is pretty good.
(+) just tried the OCR and it worked very well; Canon gives you the OmniPage Pro versus a cut-down SE version which would be expected for the price.
(+) it just plain looks good!
So there you have it: the good & the bad. Looks like the thumbs up and thumbs down folks are both partly correct. And CNET’s rating of 6 isn’t too far off either. I’ll be generous, but not as generous as most customer reviewers, and give it a 7. The “noise” (mainly white, dust-like specks) is a fairly big negative and prevents a higher score.