Umax Astra 4000U

Positioned between the Astra 2000 and Powerlook ranges, Umax's Astra 4000U is targeted at mid-range users. It is a solid scanner offering a true optical resolution of 1200 x 2400dpi, available in up to 42bit colour.

Physically speaking, the Astra 4000U is not the most compact of flatbed scanners. Compared to the latest breed of ultra-slim models from the likes of Canon, the 4000U comes across as quite a boxy unit.

Connecting to your PC with a USB cable, the 4000U requests the driver disc and gets on with a painless installation. However, the USB cable is quite short, measuring only one metre. The software package consists of Adobe Photoshop 5 LE, Presto PageManager and the choice of Omnipage LE and Recognita for optical character recognition. Umax's own VistaShuttle utility guides you through making eCards, wallpaper and screensavers, while the actual Vistascan Twain driver has two modes for beginners or experts.

On our 733Mhz Pentium III test machine with 128Mb of RDRAM, the 4000U came up with previews in 25 seconds and performed A5 colour scans at up to 300dpi in just over half a minute. A 2.5 x 1.5in mono scan at 1200dpi arrived in 30 seconds. It's not a really quick scanner, but we've seen slower.

Image quality on automatic settings was good, and the device captured slightly more detail in bright highlight or dark shadow areas in 42bit mode rather 24bit. But don't be fooled into thinking it'll get anywhere near the dynamic range of more expensive scanners such as Umax's own Powerlook.

The 4000U is a fair scanner for the price and a contender for anyone demanding 1200dpi optical resolution for enlargements of originals.

Contact IMC 01344 871 329