Canon Canoscan 5200

The latest addition to the Canoscan range is the 5200F, a high-resolution scanner with a few tricks up its sleeve. Although most flatbed scanners look roughly the same, the 5200F is attractive and well built, with four EZ buttons (for 'easy' use) towards the front that can be programmed to perform different functions.

These provide shortcuts to common tasks such as scanning images directly to your printer or copying documents. Other functions include scanning documents straight to Adobe PDF format.

The accompanying software reads the text at the time of scanning, so that you can perform keyword or phrase searches to find specific documents later.

Like most flatbed scanners, the 5200F will scan at a maximum A4 size, but it is large enough to accommodate six 35mm negatives or four 35mm slides simultaneously. It also uses a USB 2 connection so it can transfer images to your PC quickly, which helps if you've got several items to scan in one session.

One of the 5200F's most impressive features is the built-in FARE Level 2 technology, which automatically retouches scratched or damaged pictures.

This system worked surprisingly well, although more experienced users may want to manually touch up photos using the bundled Arcsoft Photostudio 5.5 image-editing software.

Also included is Omnipage SE OCR 2.0, which allows you to convert scanned documents into usable text.

The Canoscan 5200F provides excellent results. All our test images were superbly reproduced, with a high level of detail captured when using the scanner's maximum quality settings.

It is more expensive than some basic scanners, and might not suit the needs of the average user. But if you want a fast, versatile scanner that can automatically touch up damaged photos - then the 5200F is well worth the money.

Contact: Canon 01737 220000
www.canon.co.uk