Customer Reviews

Canon CanoScan D660U USB Flatbed Scanner

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First I would like to say that all of you who are buying this scanner as your first are spoiled rotten! My last scanner was purchased about four years ago and served me well. Still works but I decided to upgrade becuase it's quality isn't up to par with my needs anymore. THough it was long ago, I still vividly recall the three days it took to get it, the scsi card, and the drivers all working happily together.

This scanner on the other hand had a step by step guide that had me up and running in only two minutes, no joke, didn't even have to reboot.

The quality is great. The color balance is excellant, incredibly sharp, and no artifacts or saw edges of any kind. The saturation seemed a little low at defualt so I tinkered with the settings some to get it where wanted.

Another big bonus is the film scanner. I've seen other scanners that seem to have rough "quick and dirty" adapters and so forth but this scanner is truly optimized for the purpose. It has a light built into the lid, instead of a mirror system, to ensure balanced light. The image from negative scans is a little soft, I assume that this is cuased by the slight bends in the film. Its not hardly noticable unless studied side by side with a print. The startling aspect is the color. It is extremly vivid. I was rather shocked when I looked at some picures of a past vacation. The perfect color brought back realism that was lacking from the print which was color balanced by a lab technician.

I'm looking forward to using the film scanning function for professional purposes but I would also like to point out that is is a very handy feature even for just home use. I'm sure that some of you are like me, with boxes of negatives in the closet and prints scattered to the far ends of the earth. Instead of paying expessive lab fees for all 10,000 of them to processed, I can just browse through them, scanning the ones that look ineteresting and emailing some to buddies.

I bought this scanner because of its low price and features. What I really wanted was a good basic level slide/negative scanning capability at the lowest cost, and this scanner fits the bill well. Nothing could be easier than setting up this scanner--took all of 10 minutes (from opening the box to plugging it all in to loading software to actually scanning an image). Operation is very simple--put photo on platen, push button, follow on-screen prompts. I've found the software packages very useful. Those looking for batch slide scanning will find no such capability here, and if you have a stack of negatives to go through, plan on taking some time. However, you can't beat the capability of this scanner for the money.

Also, tracking my purchase through Amazon.com was excellent--all the info you could want about where in the pipeline your purchase is at any given moment. They said 5-7 days, it arrived in 3. Great Job.

This scanner was a replacement for my Mustek 1200 that I had recently bought and was dissatisfied with the quality of output. The Canon D660U, though not as fast as the Epson Expression 636 I use at work, has better output quality. This scanner is PERFECT for my home and business needs. The ability to scan 35mm slides and negatives is an added plus. Although I still use Adobe Photoshop to edit all my graphics, the software that comes with the D660U is every bit as good. The included Ceare Omnipage OCR software is top notch. This is an easy to use, high quality scanner package that everyone should be happy with.

This is an excellent scanner for the money. Good speed. Clear pictures. Elegant looks. Film scanning is a great feature.

But, don't expect the installation to be as easy as others say. I took more than an hour to make it work on my new Windows Me PC. Did everything as per the quick installation guide and the scanner wouldn't work. The scanner would make some noise and an error message would say something like "Cannot communicate with scanner. Check the cables".

Then I found the "Driver Update" CD in the pack. (There was no mention about it in the installation guide). It is not mentioned anywhere on this CD why this update is required. Anyway, after I installed whatever is on this CD, the scanner started working. But the film scanning still wouldn't work. I got some error like "Can't determine TWAIN properties". Then, I went to Canon's website and downloaded the driver and the scanning Toolbox programs and everything worked.

I would suggest you directly go to Canon's website and download the 3 files (Driver and 2 Toolbox programs for sheet and films scanning) instead of using the CD's that come with this scanner.

Be warned that negative Film scanning is very very slow and is not as clear as scanning a print. It is to be used only if you don't have the print.

Had it working in about 5 minutes out of the box with WIN-98 and on-board USB connection. No driver problems with WIN-98 unlike a previous reviewer had with WIN-ME.

The color negative and slide (film) scan feature are what really sells this scanner for the price. The film scans are a bit slow at 1200 dpi but worth the wait. I was concerned about how well film scanner would work before I purchased it. Other "film" scanners cost hundreds of dollars. However, this product comes through with shining colors as a "film" scanner at this price. Yeah, freedom from slide trays.

Normal picture and document scans are fast and push button simple!

I sure hope CANNON keeps this concept of a low priced film/picture/document scanner alive.

My first experience with a Canon scanner was horrible. No response was received from Canon after 2 inquiries about a seemingly defective scanner. (Thank-god for Amazon customer service!)

Despite the problems, I rolled the dice on another Canon and am pleased with it. The 660U scans reasonably fast; the picture quality is nice and the film scanner is a fantastic bonus. Hookup was a snap (Windows ME didn't even crash!) and the scanner has performed flawlessly since.

The purchase of any Canon scanner over the web would seem to be a significant risk due to the lack of support from Canon. It is simply a pain to have to keep shipping things regardless of who is footing the bill. If you get one that works, you'll be happy with this one.

Don't buy a D660u. A week ago I bought (from Amazon) a new Canon D660u. After I hooked it up I noticed that the underside of the glass had grime on it and needed to be cleaned. An email from Canon in response to my question asking how to clean the underside of the glass, I was told that it is not consumer serviceable and needs to be forwarded to a warranty station. An email to Amazon brought a VERY prompt reply and an offer to Air Express a replacement unit or issue a refund. The second one arrived in two days and is just as contaminated. Looks like a grimey gray wavey film on the bottom of the glass that simply needs a two second cleaning. What a shame that this simple that task is not something Canon thinks ever needs to be done. I'll be returning this one too (at Amazon's expense). I sure like dealing with Amazon, though. They're number one in my book. Canon on the other hand, sucks.

This was my first experience with a scanner, and it does everything I expected with absolutely no glitches. I wanted a scanner for all-around use, including scans of photos, negatives, and text, with photo-quality resolution. The scanner was easy to setup and is easy to use. I'm still discovering the capabilities of the included ArcSoft PhotoStudio software, but is certainly easy to get started with. The Caere OCR program works well in scanning files to Word. The negatives: scans on highest resolution are slow, and scanning negatives requires the removal of a sliding cover on the inside of the lid to expose a built-in backlight. All in all, I'm extremely happy with how well and how easily this scanner works.

Software is very good. The scanner is good for the price, but it's a little slow and the quality leaves a little bit to be desired. But for under $..., this is a very good buy. If you have 300 for a scanner, go for an epson with a film adapter, it's much faster, and has better scan quality.

I purchased this scanner for the 35mm negitive scanning. I wasn't disappointed. I setup the machine, installed the software and was up and running scanning negitives in about 30 Minutes. Very nice negitive scanning at 1200x1200 for the price ( I was not interested in purchasing a 400.00 film scanner). Photo scanning was simular in quality. Overall a good product.
The only thing from making it a 5-Star was the time it took to
scan negitives was about 3 minutes though it seemed like forever.