When flatbed scanners come as cheaply as $99 a pop, paying $500 for one may seem hard to justify--until you look more closely at what you get for your money. Home- and small-office users who are zapping snapshots to post on a Web site or doing simple fax and optical character recognition (OCR) chores can probably get away with the slower speeds and lower resolution and color depths of inexpensive scanners. But offices with serious scanning needs--such as scanning multipage documents for OCR or converting slides, film, or 35mm negatives into digital images--will find a midrange scanner's higher-level attributes well worth the money. The Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 7400c and the Canon CanoScan D2400UF, for instance, can scan documents and photos just fine; they're also equipped with the finer optics and backlighting devices that graphic designers need for film scanning. Despite their professional qualifications, they're easy enough for a well-heeled novice to use. But as usual, there are differences between the two. The Canon captures better quality on some kinds of images, but the HP is faster. The HP also offers some extras, including a SCSI port as standard issue and a face full of buttons that each launch specific scanner operations. The Canon's design, however, makes switching between scanning opaque objects and film more convenient. If you're ready to step up to a new level of scanning quality, capability, and speed, take out your wallet--and prepare to be pleased with the results. Click here to know more on it..