Scanner Reviews

I ordered the first 5950 scanner from Page Computers. It arrived in two days. I couldn't get it to work after several hours of trying and working with the software setup. Called Tech Support at Microtek & they said the glass was warped on the scan bed & to send it back to retailer. I had to pay for return shipping & requested a replacement scanner. Took one month to process the return & get me a replacement scanner. Replacement scanner had the same problem. Now I'm having to return the replacement as well and pay for more shipping. Sent letter and email to Microtek asking for help and didn't receive any reply.

I purchased this scanner to scan documents into PDFs. I rarely scan high resolution color photos so I can't comment on how well it does with those. With black and white documents at 300dpi, the scanner is fast and the images are sharp. The automatic document feeder is quiet and fast too. However it left 3 slight creases on the top half of each and every sheet of paper I fed through it. The creases are located in a 1.5" wide area at the center of the top edge of each sheet. I looked for burrs along the paper path, or any other obvious defect, but everything looked fine. The only thing I noticed was that Microtek used two separate paper rollers instead of one long roller. This 1.5" wide area exactly corresponded to the gap between the two rollers. Since I don't want my original documents damaged, I sent this scanner back.

As a Realtor, I have used a scanner for years to digitize, fax, and archive my documents. Until I came across this scanner, automatic document feeders were too expensive and the scanners extremely bulky. I have now had my Microtek 5950 scanner for some time and can't figure out how I lived without it. It is simple to use. It says that it will automatically feed and scan up to 50 pages at one time; I have found that with any more than about 20 or 25 pages causes it to for some reason stop after scanning 2 or 3 pages. Regardless, the scanner works perfectly for black and white and color document scanning, saving multiple pages in a single PDF document which is easy to save, email, or print to fax.

I used to an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner. The quality of high-resolution color photo scans on the Microtek cannot compare to the quality on the Epson. The colors are not sensed well on the Microtek, so very similar colors on a photo come out as the same color. Also, diagonal edges, even at resolutions of 720 dpi, come out pixelated and stair-stepped where on the Epson it will not. Therefore, do not purchase this scanner for the purpose of high-resolution photo scanning if these issues will be of a concern to you.

Nevertheless, for what I use it for, to scan multiple documents for the purposes of archiving, faxing, and printing, I could not ask for the Microtek. I have not had any of the problems with the automatic feeder (except the issue when more than 25 pages are loaded) that the other reviewers have talked of. I should also note that at the time of the writing of this review, I found the scanner cheaper at Best Buy, but I'm sure that prices can vary with time. As with all electronics purchases, do some price shopping. Just make sure you do buy it from somebody with a good return policy like Amazon, so that if you do get a lemon you can return it. Scanners do have a high-percentage of lemons. I hope this has helped.

If my sister askes whether to buy this C755 Multipass, my answer is, "Darn forget it." Yest it prints, scans, faxes and photo copies. But that's it. Quallity of printing (whatever it is black, color, faxing or copying), is almost tragic. There are very notable thinny line between one horizontal ink spread and another. Another agony is popping up when you leave it out for a relatively long period of time. Ink or nozzle (I don't know what actually cause problem) are sticking up and it produces jagged letters or images which is very unsmooth. Scanning quallity? It's even no better than today's digital cameras which many cell phones arm with. Last pitfall is it needs on-memory utility software turned always on. Considering the large memory size of today's computers, the on-memory residencial utility program could not be a big issue. Yet, it makes lots of problem such as scarry blue screen and reasonless system stop with certain applications. I manually dragged the utility out from my start-up list for trouble shooting and reenter it when I needed printing. All in all, I gave it away to somebody and I'm so happy about it.

We purchased this printer while still running windows98. It has NEVER worked correctly. We have since upgraded to windowsXP and the problems are even worse. The print quality is terrible. The top of page one of nearly everything is a mess. This machine is NOT user friendly at all so if you are the least bit intimidated by copying, faxing, scanning, etc, then DO NOT buy this. I wish that I could give it zero stars. I would recommend this only as a "hand me down" to a preschooler who doesn't know or care about the quality. Then again, maybe not.

I upgraded to this printer from an older Canon multipass machine that a few years ago cost me more than 2x as much and did much less. This printer has black and white and color copying, scanning and printing. It is a good size, easy to use and has ink tanks that are seperate for each color, so you just replace what you need. I have had mine for about 2 months and haven't had any problems with it. Pictures print quickly and are pretty sharp. I think this is a great printer to use at home as I do for my basic household computer printing, and I make many copies which is great too.

Avoid this scanner if you own a Macintosh. The scanning hardware is quite good, but the software is truly awful.

As near as I can tell, it is largely incompatible with MacOS X 10.3 at any functional level. TWAIN scanning into Photoshop CS is not functional. The "HP Director" software barely works, it is often unsuccessful attempting to launch other applications to do its bidding, especially when trying to set preferences.

Using the copy machine functionality to scan and print, doesn't appear to work with my HP printer, as the scanning software complains about the image being too wide (before it even starts scanning) which isn't the case.

I'm still trying to get it to reliably scan a document without "surprises" and I haven't even looked at the other features.

I'm a power user, and know my way around OS X.

The HP software is horrific.

I bought this scanner because it has the features I was looking for, including a built-in transparency adapter and support for both Windows and Mac OS X.

It works reasonably well on Windows. If you scan on the higher resolutions, of course, you'll need lots of memory, disk space, and patience. At lower resolutions (300 dpi) it's fast and quiet.

The software is somewhat lame... you can adjust the settings at the preview pane before capturing the scan -- but if you want to adjust settings and capture a new scan, you have to start over on the preview pane (it won't remember your last settings, size, crop, etc).

Transparency scanning was kind of disappointing. The automatically adjusted image was way too dark, and the entire negative strip showed up as one image (I was hoping the software would be smart enough to detect the individual frames... no such luck.)

The greatest disappointment is the lack of Mac OS X support. The box says it supports Mac OS X 10.1.2 "or higher", but after fooling around for a while and not having any luck, I discovered on HP's web site that OS X 10.2 is not supported. One can only hope they'll eventually fix the problems and support the latest OS.

I have used the 4570C intensively for over a year and have had no problems whatsoever. Why there are so many complaints about the software is a mystery to me. It takes ten minutes to install and off you go. The only problem I've encountered is that when you scan a photo from a book but have scanner set to slides (which I also scan), you get lots of horizontal lines until you fix the problem. The troubleshooting technique in manual resolves this issue, irksome though it may be, in just a few minutes. My picture files take up about 14 gigabytes on my hard drive so you know I have been using the 4570 intensively. I would buy another one for my lab but Best Buy quit selling them.

I purchased this scanner 16 months ago. I thought I would use it to scan in pictures of my son and print out Christmas cards, etc. Since I don't have as much free time as I would like I probably used it 3 times to scan in photos and 2 times to scan in documents that I needed a second copy of. I recently tried to scan in a family picture for a friend at work and the photo had horizontal lines all over the left side of the picture. I went to microtek support online and tried the two procedures they suggested in their FAQ's. When that did not work I emailed them with my problem. After 3 days I received their response. I seems that after spending $120.00 on a scanner and using it 6 times that my scanner has to be repaired. Their repair facilities are located in Southern California or Canada (since I am in Michigan that does me alot of good). Oh, and since I am beyond the 1 year warranty period I will be charged $80.00 per hour. What a joke! I would recommend never buying this product.

This scanner works well for me. I'm using it to scan documents and images for web design and it does the job nicely. I haven't tried the slide attachment but since that's a freebie I couldn't complain if it didn't work well. Scanning photographs is simple and the resolution is plenty.

The buttons on the front are very nice for doing things like sending a document straight to your printer, or to an e-mail. There is even a button that you can configure to perform a certain task when pressed, like turn the lamp off. THE BAD NEWS: I must press this button every time I start up my computer, unless I unplug the scanner, because the software fails to turn off the lamp after so many minutes of idle time (like it is supposed to do). If I run the software, then it works. After 10 minutes or so the lamp shuts off.

I contacted Microtek and told them all about it (It's windows XP, blah blah blah) and they said they can't replicate the problem and have a nice day.

Probably won't buy another Microtek when this lamp burns out, which might not be too far away unfortunately. A nice scanner except for that, however.

I've been using the ScanMaker 4900 for half a year on a 400 mHz Pentium II running XP. The scanner has more than lived up to expectations. The hardware seems well engineered, and the software is powerful. Low resolution scans are satisfyingly quick. At the other extreme, you can have as much color depth and pixel density you could ever hope with scan times appropriate to the accomplishment. (One operation that does really seem to slow things down is descreening.) It is unrealistic to expect an inexpensive scanner to accomplish perfect color fidelity, but our scans have done a good job of matching the originals. We haven't tried 35mm slides, partly because of the inconvenience of setting up the attachment, and partly because getting a good transparency scan from an inexpensive flatbed seems like such a reach.

The "standard" interface is appropriately simple, and the "advanced" one powerful. That power comes with a price, though, for figuring out the software logic requires an amount of effort only justified in a production setting. Microtek apparently doesn't believe in power switches, but does provide a power-saving mode that turns off the lamp after a designated time. Since we switch users a lot and often boot up only to check email, the scanner lamp is left on more often than not. The scanning software does not communicate directly with the programming of the push buttons, an inconvience shared with many other scanner brands. The result for us is that we ignore the buttons.

Judging from other reviews, quality control and user support are an issue with Microtek. We got a good one and would buy again.

This is a modified sewing machine.
Slow, frustrating, and poor in quality on all levels, its a staggering achievemnt in poorly designed machinery. I wouldnt recommend this to anyone who wishes to have intelligible printouts, or a machine that can print more than 1 page an hour.

Dont buy this under any conditions!

I was looking for a replacement for my scanner/PC fax software setup, as I was frustrated with missing faxes because my PC was hung or the software had bombed out.

I picked up the Brother MFC 7300c based on the fact that it is a great value for all the features that I needed:

- Automatic Document Feeder, 20 pages. Most multi-function machines I looked at supported fewer than 20 pages in the ADF compartment of the device. I find 20 pages will meet most of my needs.

- Higher than normal print resolutions. As other reviews here have stated, most multifuncion machines operate at the lower end of print resultion, but not this machine. 1200x1200 photo quality printing was the exception for all the multi-function machines I look at in this price range.

- Print speed. My primary printer is a laster printer which is fast. I didn't know if I wanted to live with 6 pages per minute like some multi-function machines. This device works at the 10 or 12 ppm range, must faster than other machines at this price.

- Paper Supply. Many of the alternatives I looked at have 50 sheet supplies, meaning that I'd have to load it up several times a week. This one has 100, above average for this type of device.

- Stand alone fax machine. Most multi-function devices at this price range do not include a separate modem, meaning that they must rely on a connection to a PC to send or receive faxes. The 7300c has its own stand-alone fax modem, meaning it will work when your PC is off, unplugged, down, hung, or away in the case of a laptop.

- Video scanning. This device supports video scanning, meaning I could hook my video camera up to it to print out frames from a video. I did not need this, nor do I know if I'd ever use it. The description here on this site under _technical data_ claims that this will allow you to print directly from compact flash media or smart media directly -- IT DOES NOT SUPPORT THIS -- I believe they've confused the higher model machine, the 7400c. Again, this capability is not available from the 7300C.

I have to add to this review, though, that Brother has a really bad reputation for quality of their printer products. They tend to be cheaper to purchase but much, much more expensive to maintain, both due to high consumable costs (you have to purchase more consumables, like cartridges, more often) and shortened duty cycles (time before the thing must go in for repair or parts replacement.)

What does this all mean? This may be a great deal if you can get it for a discounted price, as I did, and you intend on using it as a secondary machine. I use mine primarily as a full-featured fax machine, not primarily as a printer or scanner or copier. I do use it for those features; I just don't use it a lot for those purposes. If you are looking for something like this for constant daily use, I'd suggest that you look at purchasing individual devices for nearly the same price.

We never Owned a fax machine before, and were saving copies via a SCSI flat bed scanner. This item has worked well for us making copies, faxes, and the video capture function is cool. VERY FAST PRINTOUTS! Bought for Page per min (PPM) and the individual ink carts (which are each reasonably priced when compared to lexmark, etc.) You either pay now or pay through the ink.

The 7700 was a replacement for my years old Microtek X6 that had been a good scanner but was beginning to show its age. The drivers installed without a hitch and I was up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, the image quality of this scanner is terrible. I tried dozens of combinations of the manual settings, trying to get some scans that were acceptable. Even with the full "48 bits" skin tones and color graduatiions were completely unnatural. Add to this the occasional scan that had light verical lines. I returned the unit (thanks Amazon) and subsequently purchased a Canon LiDE 30 that works fine.

I love the idea of this scanner and when it works, it works great. I had one for use in a journalism lab at a univesity. At first it was great. Then lines started showing up. Small lines soon became big black bars. Numerous calls for assistance resulted in little help. I wanted a replacement and finally after much effort got one from Visioneer. The replacement did not include the USB cable, software or manual. And guess what? It scans with lines in every other scan. I just haven't had the energy yet to fight for a replacement of the replacement. Be patient when calling for help. Visioneer must have one line and it is always busy.

I got the scanner from Amazon on sale! It took me about an hour to get it to work with Win XP (Installed the so-called XP certified updated driver from Visioneer web site). Still every time I start the PC, the driver works on a randomly fashion!

Apparently, this problem is very common and their customer support receives a lot of complaints about their drivers.

If you have WIN XP and you dont mind re-installing the driver every once a while, it might be a good scanner for you. The scanning quality is just fine.

I bought a Visioneer 7600 USB One Touch scanner and have yet to be able to scan anything! The install goes smoothly or so one thinks. You connect and it appears to be fine. I attempt to scan an image and it only scans a black dark image. I do my leg work and research to find updated drivers and do at the Visioneer support site and the update crashes my computer! I've tried install fixes per other forums and message boards and nothing works. I can install just fine and it LOOKS like it's going to work lovely but still - just the black dark images. Oh btw - I am running Windows 98 SE - seems to be the key here. Wondering - was this scanner only made for one operating system - Windows 98!?! Not a wise choice for your money.
P.S. Would appreciate anyone emailing me if they know the fix for this problem of mine! TY gypsyfw@prodigy.net

I tried to install the scanner on my computer which has Windows 98 second edition. The scanner software does not have the appropriate driver for the newer edition of Win98. The website does indicate that there is a problem. Even with updating the driver, installation was unsuccessful. I am returning the scanner to the store.

Anyone buying this scanner should make sure that the installation software will recognize the updated Win98 drivers.

Ram

can you send me or help me with the installation with my visioneer7600 scanner.Is there any software oe any download I can use .PLEASE see what you can do too help me fix my problem!! Thank You !!

when i bought my cannon c555 i was very pleased on how it worked...but when i cant get the alarm light off and an err keeps flashing that my cartridge needs to be put in when it is in and full of ink..THATS FRUSTRATING....i cant get the alarm light off and cant print....i cant get any tech information over the internet without having to pay for it...thats frustrating...ive had it for about 2 years and this is the first time i cant find tech help.....thank you and good luck

I'm tempted to give this baby 5 stars, primarily because it exceeds expectations. First of all, it's practically half the price of any other manufacturer's competing model as well as half the size and weight. Secondly, the print quality should satisfy all but the most demanding tastes--even the color is more brilliant and and less grainy than what I'm getting from an Epson 740 at fast speed. The only drawback I've discovered so far with the Canon is the slowness, especially when printing color. If this were my only printer, I'd probably lose patience with the 2 ppm speed. And (...) the machine does not appear to be rugged enough to stand up to constant, heavy use. I suspect that few printers can match the "indestructibility" of an HP.

The Canon line of multifunction printers presents quite a challenge to the consumer trying to sort them out. The current models are the models ending in 5--the C545, C555, and C755. The "C" models ending in 0 are no longer being manufactured. The "F" flatbed models are the newest machines. The C755 is incompatible with Mac platforms, and I've had better success matching the C555 with my iMac than the C545, which uses a USB conversion device in the cable rather than in the machine itself. Windows users, on the other hand, will probably find the C755, with its faster printing, sharper resolution and steep discount from retail, the better value. The F models are faster and sharper yet, but at a significantly higher cost.

If you're purchasing a Multipass as a 2nd machine, or planning to use it sparingly, the C555 could still be the best bet, especially given its light weight and compact dimensions. Thus far I'm using it primarily as a stand-alone unit, and it does the jobs I'd formerly assigned to separate copy and fax machines--more efficiently, economically, and easily. Despite the comments of some other users, the black printing is among the most economical of any printer. And the individual tanks, especially by "clone" makers, can be picked up for peanuts from dealers all over the internet. Incredibly, for the price of a single Epson cartridge, I can purchase 10 Canon-compatible ink tanks! In other words, don't be too quick to believe some of the negative reviews of these "low-end" Canon machines.

I have had this machine for 1 year.
-Very reliable and easy to use.
-Omnipage comes free and is the best OCR program I have used yet.
-Printer works fine in OS9 and classic. I have not used the Scanner or Fax in classic.
-Paid [item price]. This is same price for a standalone Fax machine...which this can be.
-Printing is slow for any higher quality. But this machine is designed to print text, which is does fairly fast.
-Scanner can easily get dirty. So clean the scan white surface often.
-Eats ink cartridges in high quality, but cheap replacement ones can be had for $1-2.

I love this machine, but I need the OSX print driver to give it a 5.

I bought this printer in April 2003. For the price, the printer packed a lot of features. I've never purchased a Brother printer so I figured I'd give it a try. Well, after getting the printer, the quality of print was so so. But for all the features and the price, well, couldn't complain, until about 13 months later (1 month after warranty expired.) Got an error, machine error 22. Called Brother and they said it needed service and they wouldn't cover it since it's out of warranty. Reading other reviews on internet now, many people have gotten this error and the cost to fix the printer is almost as much as just buying a new printer. Last Brother printer for me. Going back to HP or Epson.

I bought this printer about a year ago and have been reasonably happy with it. I use it in a home business where i do print alot so it gets alot of use. I hate it that if you run out of one color it wont print black and white until you change the color ink. It prints pretty fast but the ink is really light sometimes. The tray on it broke right away with minimal use also.

If you're getting a multifunction, I personally think it's important to get one with a flatbed scanner. A copier that can't copy or fax pages from a bound book isn't of much use to me. I've tried quite a few multifunctions out there - lexmark, canon, HP, you name it. HP was the best of the lot in terms of speed, quality and life of the cartridges. I had almost made up my mind to get HP-2210 which was also appealing to me because it can print directly from a Sony memory stick.

Then I came across Brother MFC-5200 and it didn't take me much convincing to go with this one. Not only does this have great printing speed (I agree with the first reviewer that you can't go by the advertised speed, but that being said, it does print pages with text pretty fast), the copying and faxing is excellent. Moreover, this printer also has the PC-Fax feature that lets you fax a document directly from your PC rather than having to print it out first and then faxing it. That way, you save a lot of ink by not having to print pages you want to fax. The printer has a full-fledged photo-capture center that also accepts a Sony memory stick and a compact flash card as a direct input. What can beat this?

The installation was a breeze on my Win 2000 machine. The literature is extremely well documented and product packaging was very well organized. It comes with separate cartridges for each color - cyan, yellow, magenta and black. You can replace each cartridge separately as compared to some other cartridges where the colors are contained in one unit and you have to pretty much discard it when one color runs out.
I needed to hook this printer up on a LAN so it could be used by the other computers in my house too. This unit was advertized as being network enabled. But the problem was that the LAN board must be purchased separately and costs a fortune. So I connected it to one of my PCs and made it a print server. Serves the purpose.
The downside is that this printer is pretty big and shakes a little when printing, so make sure it's on a sturdy stand!!

DO NOT buy this scanner for anything other than light, casual use! I am a graphics professional and will be kicking this scanner to the curb as soon as my new one arrives.

For a few months now, every picture scanned looks like it has had Pepto-Bismol dumped on it. (This problem has existed since purchase, but has gotten steadily worse.) Picture contrast is muddy and awful. The color-correction sliders built into the scanning software do diddly-squat, and whatever filter it comes with that theoretically removes dot-screen from printed material is a joke.

I spend so much time in Photoshop fixing what the scanner did to the originals that it's actually become more efficient to drive to a friend's house, scan the pictures, upload them, drive back to work, and download them.

That's sad.

I've had this unit for almost 3 years now and it has given me GREAT service!

This is one of the best scanners on the market for the money. I have scanned fammily photo's and printed them on my epson 740. I challange you to tell the difference. you almost can't. Of course the scan was done at 32 bit 1200 dpi. The file was over 100 meg but it was near perfect. Using this scanner requires some knowlage of scanners and some homework to learn what settings to use for certain images. I can tell that most of you probably took it out of the box and expected a perfect image. Sorry it doesent work that way. This is a great scanner for home and small bus. use.