Umax Astra 1200s

I love this scanner, but I could not get it to work on my MSI Neo2 Platinum motherboard and AMD64 CPU based system. I tried too different PCI scsi cards and it won't work. Nevermind drivers, the PC itself won't even see the scanner upon boot-up. This was back in 2005. It's now 2008 and I am going to upgrade my PC again to another motherboard and CPU and see if through some fluke I can get it to work again.

This scanner isn't super fast, but it works really really well. Good quality scans overall. I just wish it would work with newer PC's. I would recommend looking for this older scanner, but I can't because of the compatability issue.

I bought my Umax Astra 1200s in 1997, hsd lots of problems with specific DLL on win 9x, but NT/2000 solved it, and works fine

now i bought new motherword without ISA connector, so i changed it, but it still works fine after 6 years !

FAILED AT THE ONE YEAR MARK

The Umax 1200S is sort of a perplexing machine. I've had it since it was new, and much though I'd like to upgrade and save the space this thing takes up, it's much too good to junk. The thing worth noting here, five years after I bought the thing, is that it provides better image quality than many of the lower-level scanners on the market today. I was so satisfied with the image quality on this scanner, for instance, that I decided to buy another Umax unit -- the 4400. But when I compared scans made by the two machines, the old scanner made images so much better than the new one that there really wasn't any comparison at all. I called the Umax tech support line, and the tech told me that I'd be a fool to replace the 1200S, that it was a much better machine, and that scanners just aren't what they used to be.

So here's the thing. It's 2003, the 1200S is obsolete as the do-do bird, and it operates at a snail's pace by comparison with modern scanners. But if you want to pick up a used scanner with good image quality, and you're not really concerned about the speed of operation, or you need a backup scanner with legal-size capability, you can pick up one of these babies used on eBay for about $10. To make it work in a modern computer, you'll need a new SCSI card, because the original card was ISA, and most modern computers do not have ISA slots. With a SCSI-2 card, an adapter for the SCSI-1 plug, and a modern computer, the speed of this scanner will double, though it's still not up to current speed standards. The main drawback is that the new card and adapter cost me $35, and, well, that's about the third of the cost of a good modern unit (if you're a good shopper).

So the bottom line is that the scanner makes sense primarily if you need legal-size capability, something most scanners today do not provide. But the scans are surprisingly good, and they certainly are better than the ones you get with today's bottom-of-the-line machines.

Erik Smith

These scanners are not exactly the fastest things you can buy but they do the job a lot better than most of the industrial scanners that I have used.

Easy to install, Easy to use, great quality descreens.

Fantastic scanner.

I purchased my 1200S three or four years ago. It has been working fine. I wouldn't know if it is slow or noisy because it's the only one I have owned. It does seem slow.

I haven't used it a whole lot and it is, or was, in mint condition until yesterday when it went south on me. The power converter went dead and I had to replace it with a Radio Shack model. The scanner's Mfgr. wanted $ 26. just to take a phone call for a simple question.

After replacing the converter, it makes a bad sounding, grinding noise and does not work. I'm going with HP from now on. They stand behind their products. I have several HP products and support has been superb.

This is an older flatbed 26 bit color scanner. This scanner has been around for a while and has been used alot. It's slow but it meets my needs. I would prefer a newer unit, but this one works ok, and if I got a new one it would be USB and I would have this expensive SCSI card doing nothing. I do not know how much this scanner cost when it was new, because I got it for free. UMAX, I have been told, is a very good name brand. Yeah, I would recommend this unit- if you found one for cheap (They are not made anymore, I am sure).