Canon LiDE 50 Scanner

02 SEPT 2004

Canon LiDE 50 Scanner

Canon is known worldwide for their excellence in digital imaging. This can easily be seen in the quality of their digital cameras and printers. They have been able to bring their technologies into the realm of consumer scanners.

Today, I will be reviewing the Canon LiDE 50 Color Image Scanner. At the retail price of $99.99 (according to Canon’s website), this product is aimed toward individuals looking for a non-bulky scanner without the compromise in performance.

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Features/System Requirements

-up to 1200 x 2400 resolution

-4 easy buttons to allow you to Copy, Scan, E-mail, and File with just a single push

-maximum 281 trillion colors possible

-Z Lid expansion top
The Z Lid expansion top allows the scanner to scan thick objects such as books. The base of the lid will expand if necessary to accommodate the site of the object.

-USB 2.0

This scanner is compatible with both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. For Windows, you can use this scanner on Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP. It is also compatible with MacOS 9 and 10. It is recommended to have at least 566Mhz and 128MB of RAM to be able to take full advantage of USB 2.0 speeds

Technology

This scanner as the name implies uses LiDE technology which is short for LED InDirect Exposure. As opposed to conventional scanners which use fluorescent light, this scanner uses the red, green, and blue LED’s. LED’s as you might know consume far less power, therefore, making it possible for this scanner to be powered just from the USB port. This technology also supposedly allows for more accurate scanning results. I remember I had a scanner which took at least a minute to warm up the light bulb. With this technology, there’s no need to warm up at all. Once you turn it on and start scanning, it will start immediately.

What's In the Box?

In the box, you can expect to find a simple package. There is the scanner itself, the instructions, and the CD containing all the necessary software. The contents of the package are typical in most scanner packages. Since this scanner is fully powered from a USB port, there is no need for an AC adapter. -low differential voltage for signals

Visual Appeal

This scanner is thinner than the majority of other scanners I've seen. This is one of the main selling points of this product that will appeal to quite a few consumers. Because of that, this scanner can be considered semi-portable. It would be perfect for college students moving away for home or for those just looking for a scanner while saving desktop space. This scanner can be used either horizontally flat on a surface or it can be put on the provided stand to sit vertically. When the scanner is placed on its stand, the scanner sits vertically. This is more of a space-saving feature rather than providing addition functionality. This is ideal if you have very limited space on your desk and would like to put away the scanner vertically. When you are ready to use the scanner, just place it on a flat surface temporarily to do your scanning jobs. Then you can put it back in its vertical position when you are done. If you try and scan a page in its vertical position, the page will quickly fall out. The front of the scanner has the feature of the 4 easy buttons. By default, the buttons are marked in the order of Copy, Scan, File, and Email.

Testing Methodology

The scanner was tested on the following computer configuration. Although the computer far exceeds the system requirements as well as the average user who is going to use the product, it will provide the maximum performance to test the limits of the scanner. Windows XP with SP1 Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz 1GB of PC2700 DDR RAM 120GB 7200 RPM Western Digital Hard Drive The scanner will be tested in a variety of common everyday applications. The main part of the testing will involve how well the scanner can scan different kinds of pictures, photos, and text. Another important test will involve how fast it can scan at various resolutions. The last test will explain the range of materials and items that can be used with this scanner. All these tests will be performed with the included software to find out if the software package is adequate.

CanoScan Toolbox

The Canoscan Toolbox is the software that allows you to control the scanner. It allows you scan, copy, email, and file just the like the buttons in the front. What’s unique about the program is that you can also reassign the physical button of the scanner to do different functions if you’d like. For example, you can make the Copy button do Email instead. This customizability gives the user better flexibility and to meet their needs in different situations. This software feature is useful because since you can't really see the physical label names on the front of the scanner, you can assign the buttons yourself.

Scanning Speed

Scanning speed is a very important factor when choosing a scanner. Unfortunately, manufacturers don’t really indicate the scanning speed on their products because it is variable with different kinds of pieces being scanned. I present to you examples of how quickly the scanner was able to scan different items in order to gain a general idea of the speed.

In order to test the scan speed, I took one of the pages of the brochure included with the scanner. The brochure has in big bold letter ‘Canon’ at the very top. Below the title, there are four detailed pictures.

Before scanning, you are presented with a variety of options. You can select the scan mode as well as the image quality you wish to scan at. I selected different combinations of options in order to get a relative idea of the speed. I timed the amount of time it took once I pressed the scan button and after it showed up in the PhotoBase program.

Mode/Image Quality	Black and White	Grayscale	Color (Magazine)	Color (Photos)	Color (Multiscan)
300 dpi	22	22	56	38	35
600 dpi	40	40	1:01	1:00	1:15

Based on my tests, the scanner generally spent the most time scanning in the Color (Magazine) mode. There were not really any differences in scan speed for the black and white and grayscale modes. The numbers show that the scanning speed is mediocre. If I were to average all the numbers, I would say that scanning a document takes approximately less than a minute.

Image Quality

When choosing a scanner, image quality is most important. Since this scanner is much thinner than other scanners, I was curious to find out whether there was any degradation in image quality of the scanned documents. In addition, we'll find out if Canon's LED scanning technology can provide equal image quality compared to the conventional scanners which use a fluorescent bulb.

While doing the scan speed test, I managed to save all the pictures scanned. Out of all of them, the brochure scanned in the Color (Magazine) mode worked best, but at the expense of time. When comparing the original to the full-sized best scanned picture, I could see some discrepancies. When looking closely, there are still some edges where it should be smooth. The discrepancies I noticed was when I was being very picky. Most people will be very satisfied with the results. The colors of the scanned image were vibrant and vivid which means that it was a tad brighter than the original. When I reduced the size of the picture, the discrepancies were no longer visible and looked exactly like the original; This means that this scanner is excellent in the application of taking pictures and inserting them into your own documents. Overall, I found that the images produced by the scanner were very good. The scanned images were very clear and looked very much like the original.

Keep in mind that as you increase the scan dpi, the file sizes get larger. At the highest quality setting, file sizes were as high as 24 Megabytes (bmp file). Be sure to save the files as JPEG instead because you will get the same picture quality at only a several hundred Kilobytes instead. Scanning at a higher dpi (600) is ok if you want to maintain the highest quality and you are storing it on your hard drive. If you want to be able to send the scanned image to someone else, I recommend using 300dpi or less.

At first, I was looking at the images through the provided ArcSoft PhotoBase software. For some reason, the images they show are much worse than the actual scanned image. I recommend looking for the files on your computer and viewing them directly.

Noise

A scanner can make a lot of sounds while scanning. When doing the actual scanning, the LiDE 50 is relatively quiet. The most sound it will ever make is when the scanning mechanism is finished and is moving back to its original position. Overall, noise was not a problem at all.

OCR

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is not a direct feature of the scanner, but is a capability with the provided software. OCR is often an overlooked function that one with a scanner can perform. OCR is a great tool when you want to be able to take a scanned document and edit it using Microsoft Word. I scanned documents at 600dpi in black and white. Then I used the provided Scansoft’s Omnipage SE to perform the OCR conversion. The program definitely works best for plain reports and typed text. When there are graphics and other interesting shapes on the page, it gets a little interesting. Sometimes, tables and graphics were shifted. I found the OCR program to work most efficiently when there are large groups of text together. It had more trouble with some headlines and bold titles since they are commonly used in different fonts or are within a design.

Conclusion

Canon has managed to bring a semi-portable and slim-profile scanner into the market. The image quality of the scans was overall very good. This scanner is good enough for most consumers, but those who want even faster scan speeds should look at higher models. At the retail price of $99.99, this scanner is a great value for the quality you are getting. The installation was simple and the software package has all the tools you need to get scanning right away. I really love how this scanner is powered just from a single USB port. The only other minor recommendation is for Canon to make the buttons on the scanner clearer to see.

Reviewed by ronald@digitalreviews.net

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