The arrival of a new A4 scanner on the market is always to be welcomed and Epson is currently crowing about the new GT-1500 flatbed scanner, which has been developed as a solution for de-centralised scanning in large corporations, as well as for SMEs looking for speed and economy.

The scanner's features include a 40-page auto document feeder to scan at up to 18ppm in black and white and up to 12 ppm in colour, whilst fully customisable, user-friendly controls and presets offer efficient one-touch operation.

In addition, the GT-1500 comes complete with the new and enhanced EpsonScan 3.4 software which is stuffed full of such useful features as RGB colour drop-out, auto de-skew, auto page size detection, text enhancement technology and Searchable PDF.

There's no warm-up time and the scanner is ready to function as soon as it's switched on. This is thanks to the use of LED lamp technology - a claimed first for business scanners - with the scanner using up to 40 percent less energy than other scanners.

For the time being you'll have to be patient, as the GT-1500 will only become available in June 2008, priced £270 excluding VAT.