Scanner Reviews

Generally, I don't trust the concept of an all-in-one product. My experience in the past is that they tend to not be good at any one of the included functions. That experience is different with the OfficeJet R60. Paper handling is very good. It handles copy paper, inkjet paper, heavy stock, envelopes, and photo paper with no troubles. Color copies look great, from photos to magazine pages. B&W copying is surprisingly quick. Printing is as good as any inkjet printer I've used. I didn't plan on using the scanning function until I noticed that my FAX software had a "fax and scan" feature. I fed a page into the document feeder on the R60 and it "scaned and faxed" just fine. The R80 might be a better deal as it includes a built in FAX (if you need more FAX services than PC software), but other than that this is a really good product.

I own a small home-based business and purchased the R80xi when they first started shipping in early July 1999. I have had nothing less than excellent service from this unit. I use all the functions, i.e., printing & copying (color, B&W), faxing and scanning. I have used the printer for my customer newsletters, company catalog and product brochures. I was the scanner to scan in my products (yes you can scan 3D objects (carefully) into your computer). I use this all-in-one in conjunction with"~ a very reliable HP LaserJet 4+ printer that I've had for over five years. this printer for small business/home office... but don't limit yourself. This printer could be used as a department printer too (in conjunction with a laserjet).

I purchased the Hp R60 back in Dec 99 and it replaced my hp4200 scanner and Hp682 printer. I was looking for a more quiet faster unit and to my surprise it is all that.. The scanner scanned my pictures perfectly and printed them without seeing the pixals. Never had a paper jam problem. Very easy to use software. Looking forward to buying a Kodak digital camera and seeing how the pictures turn out. I'm very happy eliminating the other two units and recommend this all in one with high praise.

I thought the scanner was great, but the lamp went out just after 1 year after I bought it. So now all my scans have a rainbow line from top to bottom. Microtek's extent of technical support is reinstall the drivers, if that doesn't work you have to return it so we can repair it, because there are no authorized repair people out there, but us. They will not sell me the lamp, because they need to repair it themselves (they want the labor dollars). So, after I paid $1,400 for this thing a year ago I am going to have to pay another $200-300 for repair and shipping both ways.

Microtek makes one of the only large format scanners on the market today, which concerned me as I don't like to see a monopoly as then product quality won't be job #1. I was surpised, albit pleasantly when I was received the scanner from CDW and how easy it was to use. It has SCSI, Firewire and USB connections on the back which make it easy to setup and install. Scanner quality is excellent as we scan dental xrays and then send them to insurance companies, who are always complaining about fuzziness of the scans. Needless to say we have had no difficulties with this Microtek and would probably buy another one in the future!

I have waited four years to buy a large bed scanner. I will never understand why the slight difference in scanner bed size increases the cost so greatly, (an 11 X 14 scanner is as little as $...) but that's the market as it stands. As an artist, I needed a scanner that would capture my work in one scan.

The Microtek scanner came practially ready to go right out of the box and installed into Windows XP effortlessly. It even came with a firewire card to install into the computer in the event the buyer didn't already have one. Very considerate! All necessary cables, both a Firewire OR a USB will operate it, and all the software was there and ready to go. Plugged in, it woke right up and scanned perfectly on it's first time out, as easy as downloading pics from my digital camera. No problems!

Amazon.com not only had the best price after a year of looking around, but offered free shipping and still got it to me the next day. If I had to spend this much on the scanner I at least got great service and treated well by the seller, as well as a quality product. OUTSTANDING!

You can print and fax and copy all at the same time. Extremely versatile. Ink cartridges are ecconomical each color and black have seperate cartridges.

It slices, dices and even purees. I have owned this machine for 6 months now and am very happy with it. It's easy to use, prints very well and cartridges are easy to install. I haven't had a paper jam yet despite some fairly intense printing.

No problems at all even after more than two years of heavy use. No paper jams, copies are clear and crisp. Great machine!

I bought the 6800 after using a lower grade Microtek scanner for 9 months. The old one kept locking up after doiong a scan directly to the printer. The 6800 did the same. I contacted Microtec and they walked me through a down load (via e-mail and a printout) from their site. Still had same problem after taking same steps 3 times and the fourth time I tried to reload the disk that came with the scanner. Still same problem. I again contacted Microtek. This time no responce. I retured the scanner to the store. However, if don't use the direct scan buttons, and go through the program steps, it does scan well. Tired to do a few slides, and only got a black square. People at store said maybe I had a bad light in the 35mm adapter. Anyway, for a new scanner that I paid $150.00 for, I guess I expected everything to work!

I got the ScanMaker because I have lots of photos from my wedding to scan. I also have roughly 450 medium format negatives from my photographer. Scanning both has been a breeze. The scanner software can operate in advanced mode, which allows saving different areas of the scan as different images, but in one scanning pass. So for my negatives, I can scan 4 negatives into 4 separate images. Very nice.

Image resolution and color reproduction are top notch. Digital ICE is great for images and saves some post-scan touch-up time. It would be nice to have it for film, but I consider it to be a bonus even for photos.

My only complaint: The USB cable is way too short. The power cable is nice and long though. If this were fixed, it would get a 5.0.

After using ASF's software for a while I was very interested in this product. I saw that it only worked on reflective images, not slides and negatives which was disheartening at first but the actual product more than made up my initial percieved shortcomings. The scanner is very fast when you do not use the digital ice feature. When you do use it you need to give it some time to work its magic but it does work wonders. If you have old pictures that are torn up or scratched then this is what you need. It's suprising to see a product today that works as advertised. Edit: I should re-phrase that it does scan slides and negatives, just not with the digital ice function (restoring ability). I will keep everyone up to date with my progress with the 6800 but so far so good!!

Pros: USB 2.0 and Firewire connections for both my PC and Mac. Fast scanning when not using digital ice. Excellent photo reproduction capabilities!

Cons: No ice function for negatives

I CANNOT FULLY RATE THE QUALITY OF THIS PRODUCT YET. I AM STILL TRYING TO GET THE COMPUTER/SCANNER INTERFACE HARDWARE TO RUN IT AND I DO NOT HAVE A CHEAP COMPUTER. I HAD TO CALL THE MINOLTA SERVICE OFFICE IN NJ TO GET THE CORRECT INFO AND WAS TOLD IT TAKES A SPECIAL CARD AND CABLE (SO FAR) TO HOOK IT UP. BEWARE OF THIS BEFORE YOU BUY. I RECOMMEND GOING TO THE MINOLTA WEB SITE AND CHECKING THE REQUIREMENTS PAGE FOR THIS ITEM TO SEE IF YOUR COMPUTER IS COMPATIBLE BEFORE YOU BUY.

I've been using this scanner for the past several months with mainly color transparencies and have been very happy with the results. The Digital ICE feature is invaluable, saving me hours of time retouching. The software is easy to use and works well. If you want to do a full resolution 16 bit scan with ICE, it can take about 20 minutes, but everyday scans for web use are quick and clean. The few B&W and color negative scans have turned out nice too.

My only complaint is that once in a while, maybe every 10 times I use the scanner, it seems to scan poorly, like it's missing whole chunks of color. Restarting the machine and the scanner takes care of that though. All in all I'm very happy with it and saved a lot of money compared to a scanner like the Nikon Supercoolscan, it's nearest competitor.

Happy scanning!

I did quite a bit of research before deciding on this scanner, so I'll sum up for you what took me many hours. I also considered a couple of the lower end Minolta Dimage scanners, as well as the Nikon Coolscan and the HP Photosmart S20.

Essentially, they all promise to scan 35mm film, and with an adapter, it can also do APS. However, promises are just that - empty for most of these scanners. This one however does it all:

- Digital ICE (you absolutely need this for cleaning images after they are scanned in - do NOT get a scanner without this, you'll be sorry!). - 2,820 dpi resolution (you always want to scan as high as possible. You can always sample down and lower resolution, but you can't go the other way without quality degradation) - Fast scanning speeds (with the exception of $2,000 models, this is the fastest scanner around. On my Windows PC is takes around 30 secs. On a Mac is takes 10 or so per FINAL scan.)

The problem with the Photosmart 20 is that it doesnt have a proper ICE image cleaner and film scans poorly. The Nikon coolscan doesnt have a good dut guard, and you end up with dust on your negatives/slides, which scans in horribly! UGH!

This one has virtually no weakness. SCSI connection makes it extremely fast! Get it and you'll be happy you did.

I use this in a law office/buiness setting with an IBM laptop running Windows 2000. The problem is if I do not scan something for about an hour, the scanner loses its connection and you have to turn it off and back on to get it to scan. A royal pain in the you now what since the power button is on the back. I called Visioneer support and they said "That is the way it works - if you do not use it it loses connection." I think that is BS. My HP did not. If someone else has problem and a fix, let me know. Otherwise, our office just nixed buying 50 more of these since I was the test case.

Thia is a great scanner. It is quiet, fast, and the document feeder works flawlessly. Be careful during installation. After installing Paperport, it continues on to install the driver without pause. The last screen tells you to connect the USB cable before selecting the 'finish' button. If you are not reading the screens, you could miss this and have to uninstall and reinstall which is messy. Other than that I highly recomment this. I have gone through 3 HP and one Canon scanner before finding one that fits the bill perfectly.

I've reviewed and used many scanners over the years. Each is inevitably a compromise. However, the Strobe XP450 is by far the best that I've tried so far in its price range. It's fast. relatively resistant to jamming, easy to set up, and has less skewing than most automatic sheet feeders. It's also very compact and reliable. Highly recommended. I use it in a law office setting and it's been one of the major reasons that I have been able to move away from paper based files toward a much more efficient digital law office.

I went with this product because of HP's reliability. So far, this product has been great. Easily receives faxes; quickly copies anything; scans everything - even photos and ID cards; prints perfectly each time. It has an easy set-up, clear directions, and it's fun to play around with. This was one of the best deals I've ever found. I would recommend this product to nearly everyone - undergrad and grad students, especially. Even though HP sorta gears this towards professionals, it adapts to nearly any need.

I was quite surprised to find that this is basically a brand new fax printer with just some minor scratchs on it (no big deal). This works great. Easy to hook up. Quality is as good as any ink jet printer. You can't beat the price either as I have checked around quite a bit.

Well worth the money.

This unit looked great on paper and I was excited at the prospect of scanning my old slides and negatives but the soft ware provided with this unit has serious flaws and tech support is less than helpful (the understatement of the year). I have other scanners and a state of the art PC, but in spite of waiting on hold forever (TOLL CALL) nothing works. The e-mail support is worthless.

I was looking for a dedicated slide scanner to replace a mid range model scanner that I was using before and was glad to find this one affordably priced. It has calibration software that lets me calibrate my monitor, scanner and printer using the same color scheme which is very helpful when you need the color to be as close to perfect as possible. Some of my clients are very picky and since I have started using the 4000tf I have not had any complaints with regards to the work. I would highly recommend this scanner to anyone out there looking for dedicated slide use.

Received from UPS and had it set up less than 45 minute later.
Hardware and software set up is flawless (Win XP + firewire + Photoshop 7.0).
Calibration was a breeze.
Film holder is a bit fiddly but very robust.
Slide holder is robust and easy to use.
Scanned a known dusty and scratched slide at 4000 dpi and Silverfast cleaned up all the defects easily. The scanned result was just incredible.
Siverfast is a bit fiddly but no harder to use than most digital dark room software and is incredibly powerful.
After years of gettting what I thought were good scans from my Microtek 35T Plus I am simply blown away by the quality and ease of use of the 4000Tf

Since I have had this unit it works only when it wants to. I have had it into several CB shops and they all say the same thing. It Sucks. STAY AWAY from this unit.

I have only had a short time, and I am very happy. The features are great, especially the weather channel. I think this is a great value! I do agree with another review do get a good antenna, and you will enjoy it more.

I bought my 77-115 about 5 months ago and it has been wonderful. I also have a K40 5'6" whip on my car and I love it.

This printer would probably be a great printer IF, & ONLY IF, you don't use XP. It crashes my system every time it "self-checks" & only prints about a third of the time and rarely two pages in a row, esp. from the Web. I have spent hours on the phone with tech support & they don't have a solution except to go back to an older operating system. No thanks! I have just disconnected it from my PC & use it only as a (very high priced) fax machine. Buyer Beware!!

After searching for about three weeks I just bought this printer. For the price and my purpose this was the best one. Mainly I wanted a laser printer (for the quality of print and savings on ink) and a fax machine, which could automatically recognize and answer an incoming fax (I didn't want a separate phone line). This printer's print quality is excellent (far better than my inkjet) and I've tested the automatic fax recognition and it works fine. I read somewhere that all-in-one-printers are "jacks of all trades - master of none", so I wasn't too concerned with what kind of scanning clarity I would get (I haven't tested this feature yet) (I figured the scanner and copier to just be a bonus) or the fact this machine isn't a flatbed. I figured if I wanted a real good scan quality of photos I would buy a separate scanner for this. Also, I read another review of this product and the buyer was upset because the version of the printer he bought didn't work with XP (he should have read the outside of the box. The store I went to had a version which on the box didn't list XP as compatible and a newer version which did list XP as compatible) (Panasonic now has the driver for XP on their Website. I assume this is for those who bought the older version). The toner and drum also seem to be a lot cheaper than compatible Brother Machines I've seen.

Sets up easily, print is outstanding, and the jog dial is very convenient. Careful shaking the print cartridge, when it says horizontially, take care to do that, or it will come out of the cartridge. Having it hooked up to your computer is a nice feature as well, and it works very well. I haven't had it long, but it is great so far. Sure like it better than the ink jet set up I had before. Well worth the extra money.