BIOS: Technology Means Business

Epson's 48-bit Perfection 3170 Photo is a good choice if scan quality, support for multi-format film, and a relatively affordable price are your main priorities. Its robust built quality and good looks should also appeal, and business users will appreciate the optional automatic document feeder for the scanning of up to 30 sheets at a rate of around 4.5ppm. Those looking to capture high-quality images where price is less of an issue should wait for Epson's forthcoming Perfection 4870 Photo, which has an optical resolution of 4,800x9,600ppi.

Pros: Excellent software; easy to use; great results; optional ADF
Cons: Noisy when scanning; photos can lack sharpness

Epson recently released three colour flatbed scanners, two of which are designed for entry-level users and the other for photo enthusiasts looking for a multi-format scanning solution. The range starts with the Perfection 1670 (£79.99), whereas the Perfection 1670 Photo (£99.99) adds a transparency adapter. The Perfection 3170 Photo, reviewed here, adds a higher scan resolution and multi-format film adapters, so should appeal to those looking for a more capable and versatile solution for scanning documents up to 216x297mm in size.

The silver and smoked-black Perfection 3170 Photo has a rounded design that shares the same finish as Epson's latest inkjet printer range. The 276x458x117mm (3.8kg) scanner has a power switch on the right hand-side of the unit and a single USB 2.0 port at the rear of the device. Other hardware features include four programmable One-Touch buttons that let you scan, copy, e-mail and scan to the Web, a robust scanner lid that houses a removable white reflector board that covers the transparency adapter, a DIN connector for the transparency adapter light, a sliding hardware lock and a power switch. Network connectivity is not supported on systems running Windows operating systems.

The Perfection 3170 Photo offers an optical resolution of 3,200x6,400ppi thanks to its Matrix CCD and new micro-lens technology. Also new to the scanner is a PC-centric ASIC processor which transfers image data at a higher quality and also processes the image with a higher frequency than previous Epson models. As well as scanning photos, the Perfection 3170 Photo's supplied transparency adapter and film holder let you scan medium format film (6x9cm) or up to twelve 35mm film frames in one batch. Those looking to scan multiple documents will be pleased to know that Epson offers an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) as an optional extra (around £125), which supports the automatic scanning of up to 30 sheets at a rate of around 4.5ppm.

Epson's new driver software, Epson Scan, works as both driver software that sends image data to a TWAIN-compliant application and as a stand-alone application that saves images to files. Epson Scan also includes image-editing tools to help you to restore colour restoration to faded or discoloured photographs. The software's different modes let you adjust the amount of options available when editing and restoring images. Dust removal technology is also built-in, whereby the scanner detects 'dust noise' during scanning and removes the noise by replacing it with neighbouring pixels.

The scanner's Smart Panel software provides a single interface where you can you scan to file, e-mail, OCR, a multi-page PDF, the Web, or even a PDA. BizCard 4.1 lets you scan and convert multiple business cards into editable contact details which can then be exported as XLS, CSV, and TXT files for importing in PIM applications, such as Outlook and ACT! Adobe's Photoshop Elements 2.0 provides additional image scanning and editing tools, while ABBYY's FineReader 5.0 Sprint Plus is provided for optical character recognition (OCR) tasks.

Installing and operating the Perfection 3170 Photo is intuitive and logical, due primarily to the way the scanner automatically recognises the type of document it's scanning and then presents you with a selection of appropriate utilities to manage the scanned file. The scanner also works relatively quickly and smoothly, although it can be a little loud when operating. Photos scan very well and colours, contrast, brightness and saturation are well reproduced, although aren't quite as faithful as some competing models. OCR accuracy is very impressive and the scanner made very few mistakes when we scanned both A4 documents and business cards.

Links:
Epson Perfection 3170 Photo Web site