Canon CanoScan LiDE 200 review

Canon's CanoScan LiDE 200 is a lightweight scanner that requires a single USB cable for power and data. Its CIS sensor makes it light enough to carry in a backpack and efficient enough to be powered by a laptop.

The LiDE 200 comes with Canon's excellent driver and ArcSoft PhotoStudio, a basic image viewer and editor. If you want to do any serious graphical work or document management, you'll have to get some software elsewhere.

The first time you use the scanner, it runs an auto-configuration process that lasts around a minute. During this, and when scanning normally, it makes occasional unpleasant high-pitched grating noises as the scan head moves along the platen.

The scanner interface has a Basic Mode with a few simple presets to let you scan quickly. We preferred the Advanced Mode, with its range of resolution, colour, and error-correction tools. A pull-down Output Resolution menu allows you to select scan resolutions up to 1,200dpi, although the scanner actually has a maximum optical resolution of 4,800x4,800dpi. You can type in higher resolutions manually, but you'll need to do this only if you're scanning images for enlargements or you need to manipulate individual pixels at a very high level of detail.

When you finish your first scan, you're asked if you want to close the interface or continue scanning. You can set either as the driver's standard behaviour, and use profiles to configure the interface to match the way you work.

Modern CIS scanners suffer few of the problems associated with early incarnations of the LED-based technology, such as murky images and poor resolutions. The LiDE 200 is a good example of just how far the technology has come. Our scans were clear and had accurate colours. Even tiny font sizes were perfectly clear in 150dpi and 300dpi scans, the resolutions most suitable for archiving documents. Some very fine detail wasn't quite as sharp at 2,400dpi as scans captured by Epson's Perfection V200 Photo, but the Canon's reproduction of delicate colour and fine shading was precise.

Scan speeds were quick, with an 11-second preview time. We had to wait just 16 seconds for a 300dpi scan of an A4 document, 17 seconds for a 600dpi 6x4in photo scan and 51 seconds for a 1,200dpi photo scan. All these speeds compare favourably with the best of the scanners in our last group test.

The LiDE 200 is more expensive than Epson's Perfection V200, and it can't scan 35mm negatives. However, it's compact and easy to move and store. It even comes with a stand so it can be kept and used upright. If you're short on space, have no need for negative scanning and don't want to make the compromises in scan quality common to many MFPs, the LiDE 200 is ideal.

Author: Kat Orphanides