Plustek Smartphoto P60

Recently we have looked at two Plustek photo scanners, from opposite ends of the company’s range. The expensive Opticfilm 7600i produced superb results, while the cheaper Smartphoto P50 was quite poor.

The Smartphoto P60 sits in-between those two products, costing £99 and being a scanner for printed photos rather than films or slides. It’s a small device, around the size of a large pepper mill, which can accept one 4x6in (or smaller) photo at a time.

It connects to a spare USB socket on the computer (a cable is supplied) and no external power is required. Pictures are scanned using the supplied software and saved on your computer. Scan quality was impressive – certainly good enough for using online, and even, at a pinch, for archiving.

The scanner is a little on the expensive side – a combined film-and-documents scanner such as Canon’s 8800F will produce better results for only a little more money.

Working with Windows from the 2000 edition onwards, as well as Mac computers, the Smartphoto P60 is easy to use and convenient, though better results can be had from a more expensive film scanner. If you are only scanning small prints and don’t mind having to wait to feed them in, the P60 will do the job well.