Rating: 
Summary: Scanjet 3970
Review: After 2+ hours with a technician on the phone, we have concluded that it will not work on my PC for an unknown reason. Probably an incompatibility issue. My Pc is a Dell and operating system is Windows ME. The scanner hardware seems to work fine and the software seems to be working, but together they are not working. It is being returned ASAP. I like HP products, but this one is not working. Beware.
Rating: 
Summary: High Quality but a bit slow.
Review: All the quality you've come to expect from Hewlett Packard in an affordable package. After running a few benchmarks of my own, I found this scanner ran exceptionally with very high quality results... up to a point. Using a stock Dell Deminsion 2350 (6 months old) under Windows XP I tested the various resolutions offered with excellant results up to 1200 dpi. At 2400 dpi the system bogged down and would not scan any higher without a memory upgrade. Speed is another consideration with this scanner. It takes a bit of time to warm up for old-fashioned paper scans, but be prepared to wait for as much as a minute or more for the transparency lamp to warm up. Further, I could not configure the software to scan directly from Jasc's Paint Shop Pro ver. 8.0, leaving me to scan, save, exit and then edit. A tedious routine if you have much to do. The built in OCR though is this scanners true saving grace. Best OCR I've used yet, allowing you to scan printed material directly to a Rich Text Format (such as Microsoft Word). I encountered no problems at all with the transparency adapter, testing both negitives and slides (with the sole exception that I did fail to slide the slide all the way down the adapter track on my first try.) Scanning Roll Film (35mm Microfilm) was an adventure, but with a bit of creativity, I was successful in obtaining several legible census records. My only suggestion to the manufacturer (other than reducing warm-up times) would be the addition of a horizontal cross channel for the use of 35mm Roll Film. All in all, if you are willing to overlook a few minor inconveniences, the HP Scanjet 3970 offers a great deal for such a low price.
Rating:
Summary: Worthless for slides/negatives!
Review: Despite some reviews, I took the chance that the slide and negative scanning abilities of the HP 3970 *might* be ok... they are NOT. Whatever the specs may say, you can only scan up to 2 negatives or 1 slide at a time. The lamp DOES have to warm up AGAIN after each scan session, even if your last one was just moments before. This makes just waiting for a preview excruciating! Next, the scan time to actually scan a negative at only 300 dpi is about 45-60 sec.Long and short- this scanner was set up and tested and now is going back to the store... all within about 1 hour. I didn't even bother trying the regular image scan functions, as all I'm really interested in right now is scanning negatives and slides. I'm sure the basic functions are good, as HP does have a decent rep for flatbed scans. The software installed easily though in Windows XP Pro. It did seem a bit clunky, but I didn't bother playing with it enough to let it bother me.
Rating:
Summary: pretty good scanner
Review: For the price of $70-100 there are about 6-7 scanners. I picked HP for a simple reason -- proven durability. We have a couple of HP scanners at work and they've been used heavily for the past 3 years with zero problems. I've talked to many people who had Epsons and they all had problems of various kinds.
For the good: It scannes the old pictures very well. I come from a very "old" family and we have lots of pictures from 1800's. They turned out very good and easy to restore with editing software like the photoshop.
For the not-so-good: The software is a bit "clunky". Seems like it has too many tools that do the same job. A simple all-in-one program would have been just fine.
For the strange: Where's the power switch? You will need to physically unplug it if you'd like to save a couple of KWatts. One star taken off for that.
Otherwise a solid product that does the job.
Rating: 
Summary: Dreadful support
Review: Had trouble with the software from day 1. HP folks were of no help. Junk in my book. Next time I will stay clear of HP.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh! 3 Am Madness!
Review: HP reliability, quality and a good price were my guides in making the unfortunate choice to purchase the HP3970. The scanner looked good, was a snap to set up and worked beautifully with my HP Pavilion (Windows XP) on a test run and at a special event when I scanned about a hundred photos. Was I impressed! Not needing to scan frequently, I put it away and got it out again a few months later to use for another scanning project. This time the scanner wouldn't scan and I began to get wonderfully vague error messages. I checked the manual and followed the troubleshooting instructions, I visited the HP website and followed the instructions to the point where it seemed that more expertise than I have was required. I contacted HP technical support and was given instructions to try everything that I had already tried. I gather there's an XP software compatibility issue that develops after the scanner software has been installed and used--if it's fixable, I haven't figured out the fix and HP has not helped me do so. Until this event I was a loyal supporter and customer of HP--thought of HP first when I shopped. I've taken them off my list after this experience. A previous reviewer suggested that before buying you check out compatibility issues at the HP site. I second that suggestion and add the caveat--don't buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disapointed
Review: I agree with scrappy. I couldn't get my negatives to scan properly either. The quality of the photo scanning was adequate but I scanned in the same picture at the same settings (300 DPI) (4X6 to 8X12) with both the HP and my Epson Perfection 610 (it's at least 4 or 5 years old) and I was hard pressed to see the difference in quality. I'm returning the HP ASAP. Update: Since returning this scanner I have purchased the EPSON Perfection 2400. For the extra 50 bucks I got incredible results with scanning negatives. I think even Paul would agree that if you are going to spend a hundred dollars it's worth spending a few more to get a truely superior scanner.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh! 3 Am Madness!
Review: I am going to burn this thing! I have spent 5 hours messing with this stupid thing and nothing works! I have downloaded every driver update etc. HP just sucks...
Rating:
Summary: Could not get software to work
Review: I bought this scanner to replace a piece of crap UMAX scanner that I got free with a Dell PC purchase. This scanner was not much better. The only way I could get it to scan is by using XP scanning. First of all, the box was missing all software and instructions. I tried to download the appropriate software online and it would not install properly. I called customer support and they sent me a CD in the mail 5 days later that was supposed to have the correct software on it. It was the same crappy software that I downloaded a week before on the internet. Calling customer support again, I became frustrated when the individual, barely speaking English could not help me. I am returning the scanner and buying a better quality product. For all you people who had flawless installs, I don't know what you did but I don't have the patience to put up with this piece of crap anymore.
Rating:
Summary: Check system compatibility FIRST
Review: I chose HP 3970 assuming it was good quality for the price, and that it would be easy to use with my HP Pavilion PC. It is a nice scanner, although a little slow, + does a decent job scanning, BUT the drivers/software is incompatible with a large number of systems. I learned this too late (after my 30 day return period), for i had only done test scans of photos and transparent materials, and a RESTART of my pc, not a cold boot. My pc will not cold boot with the scanner software installed, as there is a conflict with the NVIDIA video chipset which came with the HP pc. So, now i have a new scanner i cannot use without great pains. The next shopper should be forewarned to go to www.hp.com and search for the 3970's known incompatibilities BEFORE spending money. Good luck! :)
| 
