Umax Astra 1220P Color Flatbed Scanner

Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy, Incompatible with Me, 2000 and XP
Review: Bought this scanner a year ago, Upgraded to XP. Now scanner is paper weight. UMAX does not support any version of windows past 98 for this scanner and according to their web site and tech support there are no plans for support in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Umax will rip you a new one
Review: Buy Umax only if you will never upgrade your software. If you plan on upgrading your operating system in the future Umax is not the way to go. Any time you need to upgrade drivers for say a new operating system or if you lost yours, unlike most other computer manufacturers, Umax will not let you download drivers for the upgrade. Instead they will mail you the drivers for just [money amount]. Real customer service.

Rating:
Summary: UMAX Astra 1220P - Support Issue
Review: For infrequent home use, this is really not a bad scanner for the low price. However, it does not hold up well to frequent use. Image quality is what you would expet from a lowend scanner. After about 1 year, I started to get colored lines through the image. These will disappear if you cycle the unit in preview mode several times. Even with this problem, at $...you can afford to throw it away and get a new one after a year.

Rating:
Summary: Home use of Umax Vistascan Astra 1220P
Review: For infrequent home use, this is really not a bad scanner for the low price. However, it does not hold up well to frequent use. Image quality is what you would expet from a lowend scanner. After about 1 year, I started to get colored lines through the image. These will disappear if you cycle the unit in preview mode several times. Even with this problem, at $...you can afford to throw it away and get a new one after a year.

Rating:
Summary: Poor product
Review: I purchased a 1220P less than a year ago and from the very start it was noisy,slow, and finiky about sending images to the printer. A week ago it finally gave up the and started displaying mult-colored lines through the image. Tried a number of times to get through to Umax to no avail. Scraped it and bought another brand.

Rating:
Summary: burned by umax
Review: I purchassed my umax 1220p in good faith, At the time i was using win 98. Had no problems, was a good scanner and was satisfied with it. but due to computer problems i rebuilt my system and upgraded to win ME. well to my suprise, every time i loaded the software into the puter, my system would crash! I have looked into other peoples problems with umax 1220p.win 2000 and win ME does not support this scanner. umax did not write 32bit programming for it..... so if you have or plan to get either win 2000 or ME do not buy this scanner. Burned to a singe.... Tim

Rating:
Summary: burned by umax
Review: I purchassed my umax 1220p in good faith, At the time i was using win 98. Had no problems, was a good scanner and was satisfied with it. but due to computer problems i rebuilt my system and upgraded to win ME. well to my suprise, every time i loaded the software into the puter, my system would crash! I have looked into other peoples problems with umax 1220p.win 2000 and win ME does not support this scanner. umax did not write 32bit programming for it..... so if you have or plan to get either win 2000 or ME do not buy this scanner. Burned to a singe.... Tim

Rating:
Summary: Worse than a 70's Clunker running on unleaded gas
Review: I've had this "scanner" for about 3 years now. Let's put it this way: I had time to go watch an episode of Friends while this thing completed a 300dpi scan. It has given me nothing but trouble from the beginning, and the other reviews are correct in that there is no support for any new OS's (Win 2000, XP, etc.) short of purchasing new drivers from the manufacturer. Umax is a bunch of daft cretins if they actually think anyone will waste their money on such inferior support. I was fortunate enough to find a pirated copy of their updated drivers (it came from overseas and was in a different language) so I could use the scanner with XP. Surprisingly it worked but that didn't stop the errors and incredible slowness this machine is notorious for. I wish Amazon would add negative stars to their scale.
I hope other potential customers will steer clear of it and find another model, even another company. You'll be much happier.

Rating:
Summary: Great Images, although slow and buggy
Review: I've had this "scanner" for about 3 years now. Let's put it this way: I had time to go watch an episode of Friends while this thing completed a 300dpi scan. It has given me nothing but trouble from the beginning, and the other reviews are correct in that there is no support for any new OS's (Win 2000, XP, etc.) short of purchasing new drivers from the manufacturer. Umax is a bunch of daft cretins if they actually think anyone will waste their money on such inferior support. I was fortunate enough to find a pirated copy of their updated drivers (it came from overseas and was in a different language) so I could use the scanner with XP. Surprisingly it worked but that didn't stop the errors and incredible slowness this machine is notorious for. I wish Amazon would add negative stars to their scale.
I hope other potential customers will steer clear of it and find another model, even another company. You'll be much happier.

Rating:
Summary: Worse than a 70's Clunker running on unleaded gas
Review: I've had this "scanner" for about 3 years now. Let's put it this way: I had time to go watch an episode of Friends while this thing completed a 300dpi scan. It has given me nothing but trouble from the beginning, and the other reviews are correct in that there is no support for any new OS's (Win 2000, XP, etc.) short of purchasing new drivers from the manufacturer. Umax is a bunch of daft cretins if they actually think anyone will waste their money on such inferior support. I was fortunate enough to find a pirated copy of their updated drivers (it came from overseas and was in a different language) so I could use the scanner with XP. Surprisingly it worked but that didn't stop the errors and incredible slowness this machine is notorious for. I wish Amazon would add negative stars to their scale.
I hope other potential customers will steer clear of it and find another model, even another company. You'll be much happier.