Microtek Lowers Prices on Scanner Line
September 7th, 2007
Prices for entry-level color desktop scanners hit a new low this week when Microtek dropped the price of its ScanMaker E3 scanner to an unprecedented level: just $199.
Until now this low price was seen only in color photo scanners, such as Kodak’s Snapshot Photo Scanner, which don’t accept 8.5-by-11-inch originals. The retail price for the color desktop ScanMaker E3 was $329.
Meanwhile, Microtek also lowered prices on two other models. The ScanMaker E6 with PhotoImpact dropped $100 from $599 to $499. The ScanMaker E6 Pro with Adobe Photoshop 4.0 now retails for $649, down from $799.
The ScanMaker E3 is a 24-bit color flatbed, with 300-by-600-dot-per-inch resolution that can be enhanced to a maximum resolution of 2400-by-2400 dpi. The ScanMaker E6 is a 30-bit color flatbed with 600-by-1200 dpi optical resolution and a maximum resolution of 4800 dpi. The products come with bundled software, including scanner control software called ScanWizard.
To use a scanner, customers need a 386 PC or higher with 16MB of RAM. The E3 and E6 work in full 32-bit mode under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, as well as under Windows 3.1x in 16-bit mode. Various software bundles are included on CD-ROM.
What’s better about this scanner than comparable ones on the market? As a Microtek spokesperson said, Price, price, price. Whether other vendors follow suit remains to be seen.
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