Microtek's Scanmaker 4800 is a low cost scanner which offers features often found on more expensive models, but it suffers from slow performance and poor image quality when scanning from film or slides.

Despite its low cost, this scanner offers 48-bit colour depth, a maximum resolution of 2,400 x 1,200 dpi, USB1.1 interface and a film/slide attachment.

Easy to use, it features five buttons to control all the functions you need. A 'Scan' button generates a preview of your image in the ScanWizard 5 driver, which you can then alter, scan as is, or send to another image editing application. Three other buttons allow you to scan the image and transfer it to your printer, e-mail program, or word processor, while the fifth button sends your scan directly to a Web site of your choice.

The ScanWizard 5 driver has a lot of useful features, including a pared-down control panel that lets you set the brightness, the contrast, and the saturation; unfortunately, you cannot switch between panel modes while working on the same pre-scanned image.

Although it produces good colour images, the ScanMaker 4800 is painfully slow. The greyscale scan speed is a lot faster than colour, but the image suffered, looking overexposed. Worst of all though is the quality from film and slide scanning when using the LightLid. Although you shouldn't expect crystal clear images from a scanner with this price tag, these images were still disappointing.

If your budget is limited, the ScanMaker 4800 is easy to use and offers good quality colour and greyscale scans, but if you want to scan film and slides, save your money for something more capable.