Plustek Opticbook A300

usability

price, reliability, size

62% of the reviews on Amazon.com give this product a positive rating.

Scans up to A3/tabloid size. Lets you scan a book page to the edge of the spine. Software eliminates distortion and shadow artifacts, and lets you automatically rotate facing pages. Scans documents and photos as well.

Lacks an automatic document feeder (ADF). Limited photo-related features.

There's a lot to like about the Plustek OpticBook A300: its large scan area, the ability to scan to the edge of the platen, software that correctly orients facing pages, and relatively fast speed for a flatbed-based book scanner. It is worth...

This scanner, like the "Opticbook 3600 Plus" I owned before it, functioned for 13 months, just long enough for the one-year warranty to expire. Then the CIS module (i.e., the light source) failed.

I had heard Plustek's customer service is poor and my personal experience confirmed this. First, a Plustek representative attempted to charge me $400 to replace the scanner light source (a component that costs less than $200). When I requested the name...