Tell Me Stuff: Technology Division

[gnomi]

mabfan and I are looking to buy a scanner. We'd love to get one that also can be a fax machine. But we don't know what are the best ones, so we figured we'd ask here. Our current technological parameters are:

-- Needs to connect to a Mac iBook G4 running Tiger (OS 10.4)
-- Needs to be able to produce good-quality digital renditions from color and black-and-white photographs

So? Suggestions?

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

We have a Lide35 which we like because it's very thin and lightweight, so we can tuck it into a bookshelf when we're not using it, and it draws power from the USB cable, so it's quick and easy to set up. It does not double as a fax machine, though.

[michelel72.livejournal.com]

I have an HP PSC (2510), networked on a house LAN, and I've been happy with its scanner, but I haven't tried to scan photographs and I don't know how happy it would be with a Mac. As I recall, violetcheetah had trouble setting it up on her Mac laptop, but she had an old OS and I think that might have been the problem. Or something. Since I don't have a landline, I've never been able to test the fax. It works nicely as a copier, though.

So, in summary ... narf?

[eal.livejournal.com]

Um, HP 5610v.

Your guess is as good as mine whether it will play nicely with a Mac, but it does WONDERFUL color scans, copies, AND faxes beautifully. I have had virtually no complaints.

[ckd]

We just bought an Epson "Perfection V100 Photo". It's not a fax machine, though I suspect I could send faxes from it using the modem in my desktop Mac.

It seems to do a pretty nice job on photo scanning, as the name implies. Mac compatible, and ran something like $100 at Best Buy IIRC. I'm happy with it.

seconding LiDE for scanning

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

We've got an LiDE60 and I used an LiDE-something at a previous job. Both do/did well with color photos, and I used the one at work to turn color photos into black-and-white for publication. I also used the one at work to scan black-and-white/greyscale artwork, so I'm guessing it can handle b&w photos.

As for using as a fax, I'm pretty sure I've seen software for using one's computer as a fax machine, although it probably required a computer-to-phone connection (and may have been seen when dial-up was standard). If such does exist, going from scanner to computer file to out-going fax (and incoming-fax to computer file to printer) shouldn't be too difficult.