Epson Perfection 610 review

The Epson Perfection 610 looks pretty standard for an A4 flatbed scanner.

It sports a USB connection for faster scans than the older parallel versions, and comes in a plastic case of the usual size and shape, with a particularly hefty metal base.

USB also claims to simplify installation procedures, but here it's not so true. Rather than a simple click-though routine that installs everything, then lets you plug in the scanner and go, the manual told us to connect the scanner, wait for Windows to detect it, and then point the Add New Hardware Wizard at the correct folder on the CD, so it could find the drivers. Why Epson couldn't write a bit of software to do this for us like everyone else is a mystery. To make matters worse, the folder the manual said the drivers were in didn't exist. We sorted this out pretty easily, but a beginner could get awfully confused.

Aside from the basic capacity to make a scan, pretty much all scanners come with a standalone photo-retouching program. The Epson provides Adobe's PhotoDeluxe 3 Home Edition. This is good software, made by the reigning kings of image editing, and includes tools for making calendars, certificates and the like from your photos.

Of course, image quality is where it's at when choosing a scanner, and here, the Epson does very well. In our comparative test of sub-£150 machines it was as good as any other device. It was narrowly beaten by the Agfa SnapScan 1212U in terms of definition and focus, but for colour accuracy it came out on top. Scanning text for OCR (software to turn your scans into text files) presented no problems either.

Overall, however, the best all-rounder is still the Agfa. Although its quality score is the same as that of the Epson, the Perfection 610 loses out to the SnapScan in other respects. The Agfa's superior TWAIN drivers make it ideal for the beginner and also great for those with more experience. Installation is simple, it's very fast, and it has that groovy new transparent casing. Then again, going for the Epson would be a sound investment.