Fast Flatbed Scanner?

[mbigna]

I'm looking for a flatbed scanner that is fairly inexpensive (< $200) but scans quickly. The minimum required [actual, not interpolated] is 1200 dpi. I'd like to have a scan speed of 5 seconds or less for a standard letter sized ( 8.5" X 11") page at this resolution. I have done quite a bit of research and rarely is scan speed listed in the published specs. Some of the more expensive (commercial) scanners that come with auto-feeders do list a scan speed, however even they aren't clear at what RESOLUTION that they achieve their published speeds. This has become frustrating to me.

Does anyone have any experience or advice as to finding such a scanner. It must be a flat bed because the material I'm scanning is bound and can't be placed in a feeder mechanism. I'm heading to Fry's in Downer's Grove, IL and I'm bringing a laptop and some material so I can try a wide variety of scanners.

[dfonda]

I use an Epson 2400 that should fit your requirements. Its an older model the newer ones are even better.

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/ProductCategory.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=-8172

The 4490 is around $200 and comes with Photoshop elements which is worth qiute a bit(If you even need it.)

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=53540925

[mbigna]

To their benefit, Epson does list scan speed in the specifications page:

Scanning Speed

* 4800 dpi high-speed mode: Monochrome 16.96 msec/line; Full color 16.96 msec/line

So, I try to do a little math:

16.96 msec = 0.01696 seconds for one "line."

Time to do 4800 "lines" = 4800 x 0.01696 = 81.408 seconds.

Time to do one 11" page = 11 X 81.408 = 895.488 seconds or almost 15 min!

Obviously, their definition of line is not what I'm thinking. So, I'm STILL oblivious to how long this scanner (or any other) would take to scan a single page...

[dfonda]

Mbigna ,I will run something thru mine and time it. Text I think your looking for right?

[dfonda]

Ok from the time I opened the scanner program and chose the format to scan (a text doc that I scanned to pdf) it took about 25 sec. to complete, that included warmup.

EDIT. It took around 12 to 15 seconds to do the same doc a full page of text, without the warmup.

So its in the ballpark for you. The new ones will certainly do it faster.

[mbigna]

dfonda--

Thanks for checking for me. I'm still flabbergasted by the lack of documentation in the specifications (and not just for Epson).

Actually, I'm planning on scanning lots of lab logbooks that contain mostly handwritten notes. There will be some graphs and tables. But, for now, I'm saving the pages as images for archival purposes. I will run OCR and store the pages in a database at a later time.

[mbigna]

What? Nobody else want to put in their 2 cents?

[Cyrix_2k]

What? Nobody else want to put in their 2 cents?
sorry I can't help you... I use an OLD HP scanner still. I'm amazed it uses USB ;)