Plustek Opticbook 4800 Scanner

I previously used a 3600, which was junk. The 4800 is a much better piece of hardware. The software is disappointing, but it gets the basic job done. If you need to scan pages from a book, this is the way to go.

So far, this scanner outperforms any other scanner previously owned or used. It is fast, and the ability to scan from the very edge of the platen is a plus.

I should have moved up to this high-speed scanner ages ago. The work just disappears! I use it at home to scan all instruction manuals and several books so they're safe inside my computer. And the OCR software really works! Also, when scanning a book one page at a time, you can optionally set the software to rotate alternate pages 180 degrees. It's a pleasure to own!

I've been using this scanner for several years, scanned some 20-30 books to be read on my iPad, and I absolutely love it! To have better control over the quality of the scanned book I scan the pages as images, adjust them with Photoshop (with Actions) and bind them together with Acrobat Pro, so the quality of the bundled scanning software does not bother me. The complaints would I have are the driver is PC only and I have to run it under Parallels in my iMac, and that I cannot scan piano scores with the scanner as they are slightly larger than A4 size. I may consider the A300 just for that if this one breaks down but it has been very sturdy thus far and there is no sign of it doing so in the near future.

The Plustek OpticBook 4800 is designed for books, with a platen that comes to the edge of the scanner so a book can lie flat with one side hanging over the edge.