How to Buy a Scanner

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Chris Bryce from superservice.com. Let's talk about how to buy a scanner. There's a couple different styles of scanners out there. The most popular being the flatbed scanner which allows you to raise a lid, put whatever you're needing to copy, such as a book or paper or business card, photo, on the scanner, close the lid and then scan. The next style is the feed scanner which allows you to put a piece of paper, business card, photo, something, in a slot that then feeds through the scanner and allows you to scan into your computer. This is usually a smaller footprint and takes less space on your desk or table or wherever you may be. The final style of scanner is what they call a keyboard scanner. Now this is a type of feed scanner that is very small footprint and usually mounts right on the back of your keyboard which allows you to take up almost no room at all and scan your images that way. The thing to look for though is what type of documents you're going to be scanning. In my experience, if you're ever going to be scanning a book that you can't take apart or something thats large like for instance a cardboard sign or something like that, you can't fit those through a standard feed scanner and you have to go with the flatbed scanner. For all around scanning, the flatbed is really the best way to go. As far as resolution goes, anything over 800 by 800 DPI which most scanners are now, is a perfect buy. The only thing you're looking at then is price and then also warranties. But you can pickup a good flatbed scanner for anywhere from 50 to 100 dollars and feel good that you've got something that's good quality and its going to last you a while and its going to work for most of your needs. That's the best way to buy a scanner."