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Umax Astra 2000P Flatbed Scanner
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Umax Astra 2000P Flatbed Scanner

Features
 True 600 x 1,200 dpi optical resolution
 Superior CCD scanning technology
 36-bit color
 Parallel interface
 Caere OCR software
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Umax Astra 2000P Flatbed Scanner description
This scanner connects to your PC's parallel port for quick and easy setup with almost any Windows-compatible computer. Paired with a well-designed driver and a complete software bundle for editing and managing your images, Umax's Astra 2000P offers hassle-free scanning.

To set up the Astra 2000P, we followed the instructions in the quick start guide. We connected the parallel cable from our PC to the scanner and then connected our parallel printer to the scanner. We plugged in the AC power and installed the software from the CD-ROM. The software installation process was mostly automated, installing several applications consecutively. In our case, installation of the last application (OmniPage OCR) failed, requiring us to install it manually--a process that turned out to be quite tedious.

We tested the Astra 2000P by starting an imaging application and scanning a magazine photo. The Umax VistaScan driver software started automatically and, after a short delay while the lamp warmed up, showed us a preview scan. (VistaScan consistently waited for the scanner's lamp to warm up even after the lamp was already warm.) VistaScan has Beginner and Advanced buttons at the top of its window; the Beginner screen includes icons for color photos, printed material, text, line art, and Web images. We selected the working area on our preview scan and clicked the Color Photo icon for a final 300-dpi scan. VistaScan automatically exported the image to our graphics application. The image had an unsightly moiré pattern, so we repeated the scan using a magazine descreening option. A third scan at 600-dpi looked only marginally better than the first scan and not as good as the second.

To test OCR abilities, we scanned a page of text that contained accompanying line art. The scan took about 40 seconds, including OCR translation. Caere's OCR software ignored the line art, created a two-page single-column document from our single-page two-column original, and exported the document to Microsoft Word. The two-page formatting was unexpected, but the interpreted text was correct. The OCR software did a decent (though not perfect) job of recognizing different fonts. You'll want to explore the well-chosen bundled applications, which are designed more for home use than for business.

Pros:

  • Easy hardware setup
  • Detailed, printed owner's manual

Cons:

  • Lengthy software setup
Umax Astra 2000P Flatbed Scanner Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ Decent but not great scanner...
I owned this scanner for a little less than a year with satisfactory results. The scan speed seemed a little slow on higher-resolution images, but the scan quality was great. After about 9 months I started getting the yellow bands on my scanner that other users seem to get as well. If you have Windows 98, the scanner might be worth purchasing for the low prices it currently sells for, just know that you'll probably only get about a year's worth of scans out of it. However, I did use my scanner fairly heavily for the duration of the 9 months I had it.
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