Mustek A3 2400S - High speed A3 Large Format 11.7-Inch x 16.5-Inch Color Scanner

I’m an artist (kidsntraining.com) and was looking for a A3 flatbed scanner with a removable lid that I could afford (under $300). I needed to be able to scan my large watercolor paintings in sections and put them together again in Photoshop to produce art prints. I found the Mustek A3 2400 scanner on Amazon and purchased it. Instead of using the CD that came with it for installation, I downloaded a driver from the Mustek website that is compatible with Windows 10. However, there was a problem with it and I kept getting an error when trying to scan. I couldn’t find a solution. Finally, I called the Mustek website and talked with Richard. He had his technician email a video to show how to install the driver. Still, it didn’t work. Richard set up an appointment with me to have his technician, Sam, contact me from Taiwan and actually take control of my computer so that he could figure out what the problem was. In just a few minutes, Sam was able to get the driver installed correctly and the scanner is now working perfectly! I’m thrilled with it and also with the excellent customer service provided by Mustek’s great team of personnel who go out of their way to get it right!

I am a technically inclined artist. I wanted a basic affordable A3 format scanner with decent resolution to make giclée reproductions of my work professionally. Upon arrival, the box was ever so slightly crunched on one corner. I opened it to find the inside manufacturer box crunched in the corresponding corner. The inside styrofoam packing material was also broken. Despite the unit's pristine appearance, I fear it was damaged internally during shipping. The manufacturing packaging is cheap and ineffective. The scanner cover wasn't secured or taped in any manner and the plastic did seem lightweight and cheap-ish. It might be OK if you buy this product in a store. I wouldn't risk it online, especially if you are on a time-crunch. I had two of my own tech support gentlemen look at it, one of which worked for Intel, the other Apple (as the Mustek online "help" center just directs you to their drivers, which haven't been updated since 2008.) Neither could get it to communicate with my Windows7 HP machine, regardless of the multiple scanning software we tried (Windows fax and scan, and VueScan two name two.) It would NOT communicate with any program. After wasting two days wrestling with the terrible Mustek sotftware we decided to return it and buy an all in one Epson WF-7510 with a protection plan that ultimately cost less. Cons: Cheapish plastic. HORRID software that looks and functions like it was coded in 1991. There are almost no online troubleshooting forums, which is weird. There are absolutely NO buttons (not even a power switch) on the unit itself. Pro: the cover EASILY comes off for book/XL scanning and the scanning bed is completely flush with itself. Lightweight, and the footprint of the device isn't much larger than the scanning bed; good if you're short on space. It's not heavy if you need to move it and store it when not in use. I'd say stick with Epson, Canson or HP for any imaging hardware.

I purchased this scanner as I have a large quantity of oversize music that needs to be scanned. In the past, I've either done this at work (a no-no, I know!) or had to scan it sideways in two passes per sheet, and stitch it together in Photoshop. (a royal pain!!). This scanner works faster than my slightly older legal sized scanner, and is 'way faster than doing it in two scans and Photoshop. My biggest quibble is with the software. It doesn't seem to be possible to directly load ONLY the drivers from the accompanying CD. I use Vuescan from Hamrick software (going on 15 years, now!) and have my own workflow. I don't want the scanner program that comes with a scanner. The software actually interferes with Vuescan's operation (and deletes each scan after a few seconds! (EVIL!) I got around this by loading the $%^& software, finding the DLLs that are needed as drivers, saving them on a USB key, and then uninstalling the software (which also removes the drivers!). THEN I could re install the scanner, and point Windows at the USB key as the source of the drivers. Anyway, other than the intrusive software, the scanner works like a champ, so far, and is certainly the best tabloid sized scanner I've found for the money!

I ordered this large A3 size Mustek A3 2400S - High speed A3 Large Format 11.7-Inch x 16.5-Inch Color Scanner scanner on Aug, 2015. It took about 10 minutes to install, etc. and start scanning. The colors are fine. You are able to signify the area of the page to include (there's a preview scan) and there are some basic adjustments you can make using the Image Acquire app after the final scan, i.e. "enhance" etc. JPEG, TIFF, and PNG are available on save. Speed is satisfactory. It easily scanned a page from a moderately thick oversize book ... the hinge end of the lid pops up about an inch to lie flat over a book or you can remove it entirely for something really thick. This seems to be simple, easy to use equipment. Best choice of all, it does the job without breaking the budget.

I bought this scanner to scan in A3 sized schematics I use for work. This scanner does that job VERY well. It takes about 15 seconds to do a scan at 600 DPI on a full A3 size page, which isn't too bad. The image quality is very good. I can't speak to the included software, except for the drivers, because I only installed the drivers and use TWAIN in my other programs to do my scans. I'm using Windows 8 and so far I have scanned using Acrobat, ABBYY Finereader, and Nitro to scan with, and they have all worked great with the scanner TWAIN interface. The only thing I see that isn't great is the scanner doesn't capture the entire length of an A3 size page, it is about 1 cm short. For my purposes, this isn't a problem because I split the difference and end up cutting off a little on each end, and none of my A3 schematics go all the way to the very end of the page anyway, but if you are looking for a scanner that needs to capture every mm of the page length on A3 documents, this one will not. I gave this 5 stars mainly because you just can't get an A3 size scanner under a $1000 dollars that actually works, and this scanner works fine!

First, know that I'm a comic book artist and illustrator. I bought this to scan 11X17 bristol boards. Second, know that I work on a Mac, and I stay pretty current software-wise as I also teach at an Art School in my area. So, we already know the advantages: it'll scan the right size, and it's much more affordable than an $1,100 scanner that we know I'd rather buy. Disadvantages: 1) On the Mac, it's a twain scanner. Twain support went out many "OS"s ago. This means you have no choice but to use the twain application "Image Acquire". Don't even try to install the scanner through "preferences". 2) "Image Acquire" will not scan at 2400 dpi, despite the scanner's ability to do so. It'll just give you an error message. So, know that 1200 dpi is the limit for large scans. 3) It claims to do 48 bit color, but the limit is 24 bit color. 4) Scans are good! But not as clean as an $1100 scanner. Bright side: slightly better than the Brother large format all-in-one I had been using. 5) When scanning several images in a row, be prepared to shut the software down between scans, or it'll crash/refuse to save. 6) I'm pretty tech savvy, and it took me about an hour to get up and running on OS 10.9, so if you aren't too tech savvy, it'll likely take longer. So, there ya go! If you want a "real" scanner, spend a LOT more money. If you can sacrifice a bit of time for install/usage, this'll do!

BUYER BEWARE. POOR RETAILER. POOR PRODUCT. AVOID This scanner is extremely cheaply made. - No on/off switch, the recommendation is to unplug it form the wall - Super light, there is basically nothing in this to make it worth $100 much less the sale price as is - Scanner is pretty much junk. Buyer beware. This scanner does not work with CURRENT the Mac OS - Repeatedly sent driver links that are 3 years old - Repeatedly sent FTP site logins that fail to connect to download additional drivers - Repeatedly sent out of date TWAIN detail This scanner does NOT scan as reported resolution without failure - I was only able to get the scanner to do anything via using a combo of two third party software programs - scanner will not proceed at max resolution, will not proceed at 75% of the stated resolution, will not proceed at even 50% of the advertised resolution - scanner ONLY completes a scan at 600dpi... yep... not 4800, not 2400, not 1200.... 600 only Retailer identifies as Mustek and Mustek-USA however when pressed on returning the unit, passes the buck as if they are only a reseller and NOT Mustek at all. Retailer was condesending in email exchanges, made false statements, and strict to a 30 day window to provide refund recourse. NOT 45, not 40, not 31... 30 days. Retailer seemingly can't wait until they get past 30 days of sale so they can wash their hands of the unit and offer no recourse, no exchange, no like-kind replacement and certainly no refund. If there was a ZERO stars option, or a minus 10 star option... this experience with junk equipment and a junk retailer certainly qualifies. BUYER BEWARE. POOR RETAILER. POOR PRODUCT. AVOID

I sell books on Amazon and originally bought this to be able to scan large format books such as art books that were too big for my office-type scanner, in order to be able to post product photos of them. While I do still use it sometimes for that purpose (mostly I now take actual photographs in profile, at least for hardcovers), and it is much faster than my other scanner, I meanwhile discovered that this one is really great for scanning the jacket flaps to get text for the description. First of all I can scan both flaps at once; but perhaps more importantly, the built-in pdf converter does a much better job than my other scanner of creating a searchable pdf that I can copy and paste. Not only that, I don't even have to do that part at the same time, i.e. I can just scan everything to the default .jpeg format, and come back later to do the conversions. Another big plus is that it is very lightweight, so I can keep it out of the way until I need it, then just bring it over to my work table, do my scans, and put it away again. The device only has to be connected to the computer for the actual scanning process, the conversion software does not. All in all I am very happy with my purchase.

Excellent product. Great for scanning large items like designs. The software was easy to install and very simple to use. Easy to email, print and save your scan as a pdf. Does not have any wireless features so must be connected to a computer.

Easy to set up. Works well. Great picture quality for animators.

when it arrived, the glass platen had come unglued. I returned the scanner. not really fair to rate it at all, except that maybe it should have been held together with metal rather than glue.

One heck of a hassle getting installed - never did successfully install on intended Windows machine! Literally dozens of attempts - I gave up when I started getting the same advice a 3rd time - after communicating that various efforts had not worked on previous occasions! Fortunately I had a second Windows based machine on which it installed first go! Once installed I found the quality of the scans to be very good - however I am so disappointed in the accompanying software. My reason for getting a purpose built scanner (as contrasted to "all in one devices") was to be able to mount an entire photo album page on the scanner, prescan, set a scan area, scan, set a new scan area, scan, etc to create multiple JPEG images of the individual photos on the album page! With the supplied software dialogs that interact with ABBYY and MS Word I am able to perform a single scan which I can prescan and set a scan area - but I am unable to do successive scans of different areas of the current image. I have to go back to the prescan process in order to set a new scan area! By comparison - I was able to do successive scans of different areas from the prescan image with the software from one of the popular "all in one" device suppliers - so you can imagine my disappointment with scanning software for a device that all it does is scans - which is not as useful for my purpose! The ONLY reason for the 3 stars is because the hardware seems fine and it would be unfair to give a lower score because of the, for my purposes, nearly useless software.

when I get some results I will change this rating however I've been contacting tech support for a week and still have heard nothing back yet. Work on your support please mustek.... Scanner arrived broken, been contacting Mustek for two weeks with NO response.