Steven - this question has come up before and I'm sure there will be plenty of pros & cons about any scanner as they say "it all depends". A lot depends on how much you want to spend and what you want to do with the scans when you're done.

There are some very expensive slide scanners that you can make highway size billboards out of the huge file size they are able to make, but the scans take a lot of hard drive space.

If you want to just "archive" your stuff and be able to do it faster than just one slide at a time - I have the HP Scanjet 4850. It's a flatbed scanner with a 6 frame negative or 6 slide holder. This make it relatively fast to archive slides and you can still make those huge 200 meg files if you want. I think the colors are good and so is the resolution and the cost is around $200 to $250. That fits most folks budget. You can spend up to $7,000 or $8,000 for a dedicated slide scanner - so to answer you question "What's the best?" It all depends.

I'm sure there will be many who agree or disagree with me - but this scanner works well for me and it works in Vista. That is something to consider when buying a used scanner - will it work with your OS?

BTW - I really like the old HP Scanjet S-20 that I have, but there is no software updates for the new Microsoft operating systems.

Talk to ya later,
Dale Jones
www.railroads-of-montana.com