Umax Astra 2000P Flatbed Scanner

Amazon.com Review
This scanner connects to your PC's parallel port for quick and easy setup with almost any Windows-compatible computer. Paired with a well-designed driver and a complete software bundle for editing and managing your images, Umax's Astra 2000P offers hassle-free scanning.

To set up the Astra 2000P, we followed the instructions in the quick start guide. We connected the parallel cable from our PC to the scanner and then connected our parallel printer to the scanner. We plugged in the AC power and installed the software from the CD-ROM. The software installation process was mostly automated, installing several applications consecutively. In our case, installation of the last application (OmniPage OCR) failed, requiring us to install it manually--a process that turned out to be quite tedious.

We tested the Astra 2000P by starting an imaging application and scanning a magazine photo. The Umax VistaScan driver software started automatically and, after a short delay while the lamp warmed up, showed us a preview scan. (VistaScan consistently waited for the scanner's lamp to warm up even after the lamp was already warm.) VistaScan has Beginner and Advanced buttons at the top of its window; the Beginner screen includes icons for color photos, printed material, text, line art, and Web images. We selected the working area on our preview scan and clicked the Color Photo icon for a final 300-dpi scan. VistaScan automatically exported the image to our graphics application. The image had an unsightly moiré pattern, so we repeated the scan using a magazine descreening option. A third scan at 600-dpi looked only marginally better than the first scan and not as good as the second.

To test OCR abilities, we scanned a page of text that contained accompanying line art. The scan took about 40 seconds, including OCR translation. Caere's OCR software ignored the line art, created a two-page single-column document from our single-page two-column original, and exported the document to Microsoft Word. The two-page formatting was unexpected, but the interpreted text was correct. The OCR software did a decent (though not perfect) job of recognizing different fonts. You'll want to explore the well-chosen bundled applications, which are designed more for home use than for business.

Pros:

Easy hardware setup
Detailed, printed owner's manual

Cons:

Lengthy software setup

Product Description:
The UMAX Astra 2000P is the ideal scanner for home and office. It features intelligent scanning software that simplifies the scanning process. With the Parallel Port interface, setup is simple. Just plug in the scanner, install the software and you're up and running in minutes. Use scanned images to add excitement to your documents, reports and Web pages, or share images by e-mail with clients, family and friends. With the included software you can archive photos and important documents, copy, fax and more! This combination of exclusive hardware and powerful software will be one of the most fun and useful computer tools you'll ever use. Explore your creativity and make your documents come alive.

Average customer rating:

Decent but not great scanner...
Extra cost w/win XP
Yellow bands and no XP
Good scanner for newbies!
Can't get it to work with XP

Umax Astra 2000P Flatbed Scanner

Manufacturer: Umax
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

Flatbed | Scanners | Office Electronics | Categories | Electronics

Flatbed Scanners | Printers & Scanners | Camera & Photo | Categories | Electronics

Printers & Scanners | Used Photo & Camera | Specialty Stores | Camera & Photo Features | Electronics

Office Electronics | Refurbished & Used | Special Features | Electronics Features | Electronics

Umax | Brands | Electronics Features | Electronics
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Acoustic Research AR-8V 8-Outlet, 1284 Joule, $50,000 CEW Surge Protector

Product Features:

True 600 x 1,200 dpi optical resolution
Superior CCD scanning technology
36-bit color
Parallel interface
Caere OCR software

ASIN: B00000JGPS

Product Description

The UMAX Astra 2000P is the ideal scanner for home and office. It features intelligent scanning software that simplifies the scanning process. With the Parallel Port interface, setup is simple. Just plug in the scanner, install the software and you're up and running in minutes. Use scanned images to add excitement to your documents, reports and Web pages, or share images by e-mail with clients, family and friends. With the included software you can archive photos and important documents, copy, fax and more! This combination of exclusive hardware and powerful software will be one of the most fun and useful computer tools you'll ever use. Explore your creativity and make your documents come alive.

Amazon.com Review

This scanner connects to your PC's parallel port for quick and easy setup with almost any Windows-compatible computer. Paired with a well-designed driver and a complete software bundle for editing and managing your images, Umax's Astra 2000P offers hassle-free scanning.

Pros:

Easy hardware setup
Detailed, printed owner's manual

Cons:

Lengthy software setup

Customer Reviews:

Decent but not great scanner..........2006-12-06

I owned this scanner for a little less than a year with satisfactory results. The scan speed seemed a little slow on higher-resolution images, but the scan quality was great. After about 9 months I started getting the yellow bands on my scanner that other users seem to get as well. If you have Windows 98, the scanner might be worth purchasing for the low prices it currently sells for, just know that you'll probably only get about a year's worth of scans out of it. However, I did use my scanner fairly heavily for the duration of the 9 months I had it.

Extra cost w/win XP.......2004-02-10

Used scanner w/W98 with so-so results. Upgraded to W-XP.
Scanner doesn't work w/XP. Sent in $15 to umax for CD that
was supposed to allow 2000P to work W/XP. Re-installed soft-
ware from CD umax furnished, no go. Tried to e-mail umax for
some help, but ran into a long jump-thru-the-hoops process that
did nothing but frustrate. So, I now own a 2000P door stop.
If anyone is thinking about buying umax, I would think long &
hard about their products.

Yellow bands and no XP.......2003-07-03

I used this scanner with great results for a year or so... was very happy with it. Then I started getting yellow bands on my scans (as have MANY OTHER PEOPLE -- most haven't been able to get rid of them). I haven't attempted to see if I can get rid of them because I upgraded to windows XP and UMax doesn't provide an XP compatible driver.... wonderful scanner... for a year.... if you have Windows 98...

Good scanner for newbies!.......2003-04-29

I found the quality and speed to be just fine especially scanning pics for my web page. The software offers all of the options with regard to resolution, size and the various choices you may want to make for a scan if you are a more experienced user. It's a parallel port scanner so it won't work with XP but it runs great on win98. It might be good to use on a second system with Win98 or maybe for the kids on their system. It's not the best but I believe it's a decent scanner that can be found for an inexpensive price now.

Can't get it to work with XP.......2002-09-28

Now using Microsoft XP but can't find a driver to bring it up past 98.

Electronics:

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