Product Reviews

The Epson Perfection 1200PHOTO (reviewed Labs, issue 66, p128) won our scanner Labs with its impressive 1,200ppi optical resolution and superb scanning speed at a competitive price of £203. This was one of the first steps towards bringing professional-quality image processing to the masses, and with the Expression 1600 Epson is taking this one step further. At £544, the 1600 may seem expensive to the average consumer, but you have to remember that this is a professional high-end scanner with SCSI, USB and optional IEEE-1394 interfaces, a superb software bundle and a huge optical resolution of 1,600ppi.

While 1,600ppi may look impressive on paper, this rarely tells the whole story. Unless you have masses of free hard disk space and RAM, scanning at this resolution isn't really practical - our 189 x 109mm test sheet in 24-bit colour alone took up 229Mb. With the USB interface this scan also took eight minutes, 34 seconds, so unless you're scanning transparencies or have similar high-resolution requirements stick to 1,200 or 600ppi.

Considering the price of the unit, the overall scanning speed was slower than expected. Using the USB interface to scan an 8 x 10in photo in colour at 600ppi took two minutes, 57 seconds, compared to the Perfection 1200PHOTO completing the task in two minutes, 39 seconds. However, it previews the whole scanning area very quickly in just seven seconds, so you're not left waiting needlessly.

Using the same test methodology detailed in our scanner Labs, issue 66, we were able to measure the Expression 1600's ability to capture detail. Scanning at 1,600ppi gave the best results we've seen yet, with a horizontal resolution score of 0.73 and a vertical resolution score of 0.70, bringing it far ahead of all the scanners featured in our Labs test. The previous highest score, a vertical resolution of 0.6, came from the Canon CanoScan FB630U (reviewed Labs, issue 66, p126). This basically means that the Expression 1600 can pick out sharp black and white lines at even 180lppi (line pairs per inch), where other lower resolution scanners may see that depth of detail as solid grey.

The signal-to-noise ratio results were equally impressive, with an end result of 119.12, so there's very little in the way of electrical noise from the scanner mechanism that can affect image quality. Surprisingly though,

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this wasn't as high as the exceptional 169.72 scored by the Perfection 1200PHOTO. It nevertheless blows the rest of the competition away with a score that's still highly credible. Likewise, the colour accuracy results, although very good, were shown up by cheaper scanners. The final average fidelity error rate of 4.96 is good enough and far superior to the Epson Perfection 610 (reviewed Labs, issue 66, p129) with its score of 10.60, but was shown up by the Agfa SnapScan Touch (reviewed Labs, issue 66, p126) with an impressively low error rate of 3.13 with its much cheaper price tag of £119.

One area where Epson hasn't gone to town, however, is aesthetics. With no fancy frills, the Expression 1600 gives the impression that it's built to last and means business. Far removed from the consumer-based styling we saw from the Agfa SnapScan Touch with its translucent coloured handles and buttons designed in a paw print motif, the Epson 1600 is a big box with a single button on the front. With a depth of 562mm it requires plenty of desk space, and will not be a pretty addition to the desktop. On the plus side though, the mechanism is satisfactorily quiet while scanning and its setup is straightforward and fast.

PC connectivity is via both USB and SCSI should you need a performance boost, and if you need to go that one step further, Epson is also offering an optional IEEE-1394 interface for an additional £195.

The driver has some good professional features such as manual focus, unsharp mask, gamma and shadow and highlight controls, which will be great for optimising images. However, it was difficult to set the software up for a neutral setting, as moving one slider down often moved another one up to compensate. A menu for selecting the destination such as OCR, fax or photo was present, but there was no neutral setting. The best compromise is to click the Customise button, deselect all the options and set the Gamma to 100, although this often meant losing my previewed scan while adjusting.

Bundled software includes the fantastic Adobe Photoshop Limited Edition. Although it doesn't have some of the advanced options such as Histogram analysis, it will certainly cover most of your photo editing requirements in a well-featured and professional package.

The Epson Expression 1600 offers reasonable value for money at £544. With some high-end professional features and a very impressive 1,600ppi optical resolution, it also performed well in our tests. Unfortunately it falls down in other areas. While its performance is acceptable, it's difficult to justify its price when a scanner costing less than a quarter of the price is outperforming it in some tests. If you're looking for the ultimate resolution and are prepared to pay the price then this is the scanner for you, but if you don't think that you're going to use the extra optical 400ppi, the Perfection 1200PHOTO certainly offers better value for money.