Not so long ago, a scanner was something that you plugged into your PC via the parallel port - or sometimes a dedicated interface card - before waiting an eternity for a poor representation of a colour or greyscale image to struggle onto your monitor screen.

With the introduction of USB 1.1 the tedious time delay has been reduced quite a bit, so fast, accurate scans are no longer the domain of very expensive professional scanners. Instead they're available to most people at a fairly reasonable cost.

In addition, USB 2.0 scanners are beginning to make an appearance, so there will soon be a wide choice of these fast devices, although for now USB 1.1 is still the most common interface around.

The latest scanners have plenty of buttons to relieve the scanning process. In addition, most include some form of adapter for transparencies and slides, while some also include heavyweight imaging software from companies such as Adobe.

We've taken a look a six of the latest scanners, ranging from £60 to £145. Most are USB 1.1 models, but we've included a few USB 2.0 devices to see just how noticeable the speed difference really is.

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