I had an old printer (Epson Stylus 740) hooked to my system at home, also hooked up was an Acer scanner.
As it happens it was time to consider replacing the printer as it wasn't working all that well...so I went looking.
I found a new "All-in-One" machine (Canon Pixma MP130) that loked good. I hadn't been looking to replace the scanner, but maybe I could save some desk space.
Wow!
This thing is relatively cheap...and it's both a better printer than the old Epson and a better scanner than the Acer!
The point?
Don't disregard your peripherals when considering upgrades. This thing is a blast! I can scan 4 times faster than before...not because it scans so fast...but because it can scan 4 photos at once and properly deal with each of them seperately.
Another advantage...the driver is less troublesome than those of the old scanner or printer.
Computer performance is noticeably better.