Product Reviews

For the past year the Agfa SnapScan 1212P has been our scanning Best Buy, with excellent image quality at a very good price. A year on, we're taking a look at it again (this time in its 1212U USB version), along with the latest models from other manufacturers, to see if it still deserves the accolade.

Despite being almost entirely plastic, the 1212U is extremely sturdy and comes with an eye-catching, iMac-inspired translucent turquoise design. There are occasions when we object to this current trend, but in this example it works.

A TWAIN driver is a standard interface that allows you to scan straight from your favourite image editing software, but the one that comes with the Agfa stands out. It's actually supplied with two different versions: one called FotoSnap, which provides basic options for beginners; the other called FotoLook, which gives much more advanced choices that'll come in handy when you've really got to grips with scanning.

Aside from the basic capacity to make a scan, all scanners come with at least one standalone photo-retouching program. Agfa offers Ulead's PhotoExpress - a respectable program, but by no means outstanding.

Even if, like most people, you're not planning to use your scanner for especially serious work, you should still demand the best image quality

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you can get. Producing enlargements, for example, is an exceedingly taxing task that depends crucially on the focus of the scanner. OCR (which converts scans of text into text files) is less fussy - but again, the closer the scan is to the original document, the better the recognition results will be.

Until recently, manufacturers had a penchant for quoting sky-high 'interpolated' resolutions, gained by artificially adding more pixels than the scanner can really see: these figures are rubbish and should be ignored. The optical resolution is the only statistic worth paying attention to, and the optical resolution of most models at this price, including this one, is 600dpi horizontally by 1200dpi vertically.

Of such machines, the Agfa maintains pole position for clarity of images, revealing more detail in our test photo than any other model. Colour accuracy was pipped to the post by the Epson Perfection 610, but still the Agfa scores highly in this area.

Flatbed scanners are getting so good and so cheap that it looks as though it's becoming hard for the top performers to get much better. The Agfa SnapScan 1212U is still the leader in the quality stakes, but it's the rest of the pack that are catching up. Best of all, the 1212 is an awful lot cheaper now than it was when we last tested it.

Overall, the best all-rounder is still the Agfa. Although its quality score is the same as that of the Epson, the Perfection 610 loses out to the SnapScan in other respects. The Agfa's two different TWAIN drivers make it ideal for the beginner and also great for those with more experience. Installation is simple, it's very fast, and image quality is superb. On top of that, build quality is there with the best, and it has that groovy new transparent casing. So, hats off to the 1212U for retaining Agfa's crown and its place in our Top 50 as the best value scanner you can buy.