The hunt for a cheapo flatbed scanner

Mine is HP. I get annoy with some of the HP printers because they are rigged up to make it difficult to use cheaper ink cartridges, but for reliability there is no brand of inexpensive scanner I respect as much as Hewlett Packard. Good luck in your search. Since I am a graphics artist myself (although retired), I know how important it is to have tools close at hand.

You didn't say what you call cheap. However, I have had a Brother Multi-Function Center (MFC) for about 4 years now & have been thrilled with it!!! I bought it at Walmart for $99.00. It's a printer, scanner, copier, fax & photo printer all rolled up into one. With the right settings, you can get GREAT picture resolution. It takes practically every media known to man to print pictures direct to the printer without messing with the computer. I bought it mainly for the fax aspect but have found I use the scanner more & more every day!!!The only place I have problems is with the OCR scanning. Sometimes I have to proof & make a few corrections. Office Depot has one on sale for $134.99 http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/399579/Brother-MFC-240c-Color-Flatbed-All They have some that are more expensive. However, for a cheap flatbed, you can't do better!!!

I'm with mibngold, the All-in-one models are pretty cheap and they have everything you need while saving plenty of space. I recommend purchasing Brother equipment. where I am, the Brother MFC-240C and Brother MFC-290C are both under $50. The Brother MFC-465CN and Brother MFC-5460CN are both under $65. Brother ink tends to cost much less than other brands and you can also find third-party ink for even less. I can personally attest to the scanning/copying quality as being immaculate with the Brother multi-function centers. Good luck.