HP 4570C ScanJet Scanner

Rating:
Summary: Great Scan Quality, But Poor Reliability
Review: The scanner is fast and it makes great scans of documents and photos. Colors were pretty accurate and detail was excellent. However, I purchased and returned this scanner 3 times in a row for manufacturer's defects. (1) The first 4570 had dirt on the underside of the glass bed (2)the second had a defective power supply (scanner would over heat). (3) The third one developed verticle lines along the edge of every photo I scanned. HP technical support said it was a problem with the internal mirrors. Despite these problems, I think the scanner does an excellent when it is properly functioning. If you are lucky enough to get one without defects, I think you will be very pleased with the scan quality. I recommend buying this scanner from a company that has a liberal return policy. Also, I recommend buying a 3 year extended warranty. HP sells one very inexpensively. HP will overnight express a replacement unit to you under its extended warranty. (An extended warranty is a must for this scanner.) Note: All of my references to great scan quality apply to photos and documents, not 35 mm film. The 35mm film holder was arwkard to use. It was difficult to load 35mm film without getting finger prints all over the film. Also, the 35mm scans were too dark. I would not count on using this scanner for 35mm film. Also, none of the third party high-end scanner software works with the 4570. For example: Vuescan and SilverFast software work with the Epson scanners, but they don't work with the 4570.

Rating:
Summary: What did I do!
Review: This thing eats resources like nothing I've ever seen. Any scan over 600 dpi takes forever (try an hour for 2400DPI). Output files are huge (600M) and even with 130M of free ram it often pops out error messages. Granted I use a PII 450 with 256M but never had these issues with my old 4200c. I wasted 3 days trying to get this useable without success. The best I did was a 1200dpi 5X7 and that took nearly an hour. Neither the latest driver nor Customer Service helped. Don't make my mistake.