Thanks to digital cameras, I find I don’t need to scan nearly as often as I did a few years back. Yet I also don’t use a traditional fax machine anymore and often need to scan documents to PDF format for sending to others or to an online fax service.

While my previous needs for scanning photos have decreased, my overall need for scanning has increased a bit. As I went looking for a scanner, I wanted something fairly inexpensive and as compact as possible. The Canon CanoScan LiDE 110 is currently selling for $54.99 at Amazon and uses just a single USB cable for power and to transfer data to your computer.

The optical resolution is 2400 dpi and some of you will say that is far less than some of the more powerful scanners. If you really need more resolution, you can purchase a more expensive scanner. Don’t be tricked by “interpolated” resolution as that is just a way of faking higher resolutions. In all the years I’ve been doing graphics, I can’t remember ever setting a flatbed scanner to more than 1200 dpi. So if the limit is 2400 dpi, I’m fine with that as I’ll never use that high of a setting anyways.

This is by no means the best scanner on the market. But it provides a lot of bang for a small amount of bucks and will meet the needs of the vast majority of users. If you’re in the market for the scanner, you’ll definitely want to look hard at this scanner.