Introduction :

It wasn't all that long ago that scanners were considered a professional tool and commanded price tags that put them beyond the typical home user. Most were rather large and bulky items, the size of small photocopiers, and they were also fairly slow, often needing three "passes" to complete a colour scan, one for the red content, one for green and of course one for blue. The only scanner you were likely to see in a home would be a hand held unit, which you would pass slowly over your document in several overlapping strokes, to be "stitched" back together by software later. Your budget user would perhaps own a greyscale handheld scanner, while your annoying rich neighbour might just have a colour unit.

 

Of course, as the price of scanners began to fall, so more and more ended up in the home. To begin with, these were typically large units with an optical resolution of around 100 to 300 dpi (dots per inch) and priced upwards of £200 ($270). The goal was to produce a sub £100 scanner that gave good results, and many said it would never happen. How wrong they were!

Now that scanners have shaken off their novelty value, people are beginning to look more seriously at the role of the scanner, and demanding neater looks, better quality, faster scan speeds and of course better prices.

There is now a massive choice of flatbed scanners in the sub £100 ($150) bracket, and possibly the smallest are the two new additions to Canon's range, the N 650U and the N 656U. Despite the model numbers, these are the same basic scanner, but the N 656U is shrouded in a brushed aluminium like cover, adding to its chic. To say these 2 scanners are compact is an understatement. Thay are barely over and inch deep, and have a footprint not much bigger than a sheet of A4 paper. But have corners been cut to cram all this technology into such a small case? Let's take a look.

Specifications