Epson Perfection V600

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson Perfection V600	A4	6400 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The Epson is the perfect flatbed scanner for Windows 10. It is fully compatible with the latest version of Windows 10 64-bit. Both the Scanner Driver and the Epson Scan Utility are compatible. Now the Epson Scan Software was not designed to be metro-style, but it will work just fine on your laptop or desktop. You can use TWAIN or ICA drivers so you can use more than 99% of the scanning apps built for Windows as most of them use the TWAIN interface including the Windows scan app. This device is capable of fast scanning. It takes about 6 seconds to scan a color photo at 300 dpi resolution. This means that realistically you will be scanning 6 pages per minute, provided you are quickly scanning and changing the document on the scanning glass. This is about as fast as you can go with flatbed scanners.

It can scan any paper size up to A4 that fits on the scanning glass. This flatbed scanner comes with a CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) sensor with an optical resolution of 6400 dpi. It is considerably higher than other scanners in its price range and this pixel density is achieved without any interpolation. To connect it to your Windows PC you can use the integrated Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port and USB cable.

The package for the Epson perfection v600 color photo and document scanner includes software for improving the image quality and photo editing, more specifically: Epson Easy Photo Fix, Epson Copy Utility, ArcSoft PhotoStudio, ABBYY FineReader Sprint Plus OCR.

The ABBYY Software is the perfect OCR engine to convert your JPEG, TIFF and Bitmap files to editable Word documents or searchable PDFs. If you scan text that’s been printed by multifunction laser printers, you can expect an accuracy of over 99%. The software also has some digital ICE features so that you won’t have to use Photoshop. First, it can detect if you placed the photos upside-down and adjust the orientation. Then it can also detect the scanning area and automatically crop the photo to the right size. Along with these, you also have the option to remove dust and scratches from old photos.

Because cloud features are not the best through the Epson Capture app on this device, the best thing to do is to set up hot folders in windows on your hard-drive that are synced with your Google Drive or Dropbox. Basically all your documents in Windows that are stored in files and folders under the hot folder are synced, regardless of the file type. Basically you click the scan button with just the default setting and from then on things should happen automatically. It is a workaround that works quite well.

The Epson perfection v600 color photo image scanner weighs approximately 9 lbs and it will be pretty easy to move around. You can scan slides and negatives with it, it has a set of film holders. It can digitize 35mm film using the built-in transparency unit. It won’t be nearly as productive as a specialized negative scanner, so expect to only use it for small amounts of film.

If high-quality scanned images are your priority, have a look at the Epson Perfection V850 pro. If you need a bigger A3 scanner, Epson also offers the Epson Expression 12000XL-GA and the Epson Workforce DS-50000.

Epson Perfection V550

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Epson Perfection V550	A4	6400 dpi	Hi-Speed USB 2.0	48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The Epson V550 is very similar to the Epson V600 in most ways and thus it is fully compatible with the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system. There is a CCD sensor mounted on it that can output an image resolution of 6400 dpi and you get exactly as many pixels per inch as you would get in the V600 flatbed scanner. You can connect this A4-format flatbed to your Windows 10 PC using the USB 2.0 port. It has the TWAIN, ICA and WIA drivers. Bothe these flatbed scanners have the new ReadyScan LED technology that is superior to fluorescent lamps because they have 0 warm-up time and they can scan immediately. The scanner features programmable buttons on the front for preset actions beside your usual scan button and preview button.

Epson ships the following software: ABBYY FineReader Sprint 8.0 (MacOS), ABBYY FineReader Sprint 9.0 (Windows), ArcSoft Scan-n-Stitch Deluxe (Windows only), Epson Copy Utility, Epson Easy Photo Scan, Epson Event Manager, Epson Scan. ABBYY is a welcome addition to this OCR scanner as well with its powerful optical character recognition software which helps you convert scanned copies into searchable PDF files. Since the software is the same, all the Digital ICE features for enhancing the color images are the same and if you didn’t have time to read our review of the V600, basically it has auto crop, auto deskew and it can clean the dust marks or scratches on your scanned images.

Both of these scanners will upload your digital images automatically to DropBox, Evernote, OneDrive or Google Drive after you scanned them, but we recommend implementing a hot folder workaround for the scanned pictures folders.

In terms of weight and dimensions, it weighs almost the same and it is just as big. Where the Epson V550 and V600 are different is that the V550 can only apply its Digital ICE functions to film and not normal photos or documents. Film gets easily scratched, it’s true. But so do processed photos and this feature is important to have on a scanner, that is why we would go for the V600.

If you need an even cheaper flatbed scanner from Epson, then the Epson V39 is the right choice. It doesn’t have the film scanning features, the scan quality is lower but it scans directly to the Cloud with the Epson Capture app.

If you want fast scan speeds, Epson also makes combo scanners like the Epson DS-1630 which has an automatic document feeder adf tray and flatbed unit.

Canon CanoScan Lide 400

Product	Format	Optical Resolution	Connectivity	Color Depth	Price
Canon CanoScan Lide 400	A4	4800 dpi	USB Type-C	48-bit Color or 16-bit Grayscale	Click for more info

The Canon CanoScan is a different scanner than the other two. It is a fully compatible Flatbed Scanner for Windows 10, 32-bit and 64-bit. It has an image resolution of 4800 DPI that is made possible by a different type of sensor, called a CIS (Contact Image Sensor). The difference between a CCD like on the Epson and a CIS can be very small sometimes but we prefer to use CCD whenever possible as it seems to have more dynamic range, more accurate and vivid RGB colors.

Canon ships this flatbed document scanner with the following software: IJ Scan Utility (Windows), IJ Scan Utility Lite (Mac), Auto Scan, Document Scan, Photo Scan, Custom Scan, Stitch Scan, and OCR (Optical Character Recognition), ScanGear MP Driver, Quick Menu. A minus for the scanner is that it doesn’t come with ABBYY technology for text recognition. It is good not to be biased and the reason I mention this is that only after testing all the major OCR software on the market, did we come to this conclusion. The bezel is quite slim but still not good enough for scanning books, so this is a scanner for photos and documents at most. For that, you should look at the Plustek book scanners, but the problem is that they don’t work well or at all on Windows 10.

It’s a good idea to download the driver from their website and not use the default Windows Update drivers that will install automatically once you plug this color image scanner into your Windows 10 computer. If for any reason you need to remove the default driver just go to Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Devices and Printers and then right-click on the device and click “Uninstall”, then install the Canon Driver. It has a 48-bit color depth when the scanning mode is Color and 16-bit when you scan in Grayscale mode.

The big minus for the Canon is that it doesn’t scan photos on film negatives and therefore doesn’t come with the appropriate film holders and accessories but the price makes it ideal for home and office documents.

If like the Canon brand and you want a desktop scanner version from the same ecosystem with duplex scanning, then have a look at the Canon Imageformula R40 office document scanner or if you want a high-speed desktop document scanner from Canon, the DR-G2110 should be the one for you.

What is the Best Flatbed Scanner for Windows 10?

The Epson V600 is the best way to go. It has everything you need in a compact and fairly priced package. It can scan films which the Canon cannot and it can apply ICE features to photos which the V550 cannot. It has everything you need in it to digitize any photo, document or film. All the flatbed scanners reviewed here will not disappoint in real life usage.

If you are looking for a flatbed scanner that can digitize 3d objects, a german manufacturer called Image Access makes 2 scanners: the Widetek 12 and Widetek 25 that are able to scan with a sense of 3d depth up to a point.

Scanners that should have made the list: epson perfection v800, epson perfection v39. These are 2 great scanners that work well with both operating systems, Windows 10 and Mac OS X. The Doxie Flip is also an interesting product. It is made by the same company that made the Doxie Go SE portable scanner and since it scans to SD Card it will be forever compatible with any operating system.

The scanners that are missing from the list: canon canoscan 9000f mkii, canon canoscan lide220 photo scanner, epson perfection v370, epson perfection v19. These are not manufactured anymore and will not be supported by Epson and Canon. The Plustek a3 flatbed scanners are also missing because they aren’t fully compatible with Windows 10.

If a flatbed is not enough and you need to look into duplex document scanners with an additional document feeder and faster scanning speeds, then what you can do is purchase any Canon ImageFormula scanner or Xerox Documate color duplex document scanner or Fujitsu (without the Fujitsu ScanSnap line-up) and then just buy the flatbed unit accessory. Or you can go for an HP ScanJet Pro scanner like the 2500 f1 color duplex combo scanner which has a flatbed and a sheet feeder integrated into it. The automatic document feeder sits on top of the flatbed unit.

There is also a fast photo scanner that works with Windows 10, the Epson fastfoto ff-680w. On our website we also reviewed compact desktop scanners like the visioneer patriot h60, kodak alaris s2060w and portable scanners. Check out our homepage for more details.