Rating: 
Summary: I made a mistake!
Review: I purchased this scanner on the extremely high recommendation of the sales rep who told me it is the "ultimate" scanner; after installing the software & uninstalling the software a few times, I called the NONTOLL-FREE HP Help LIne. The CSR suggested I unplug and replug in the cords to the scanner's power source, then to my laptop then unplug this cord and that cord yadda yadda yadda...15 minutes later,the same exact error message came up. Finally the CSR told me, without an ounce of surprise in his voice, that my unit is defective!!! Aaaaagh!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: I purchased this so I could save time. I needed to scan in about 50 photos for a project. I often do these type of projects and I often find myself spending alot of time feeding flatbed scanners. So the idea of the APF was very appealing to me. Unfortunately, the product does not deliver. The first unit I brought home had problems with an "unexpected internal error" message. It would simply freeze on about every other photo (I'm running Windows XP on a Dell P4 2.4 GHz, with 512 Megs of RAM). The website had this error all spelled out with four ways to fix it ... none of which worked. I called support and told them all that I did. They sent me an email with the same four items to try.
So back to the store I went and they gave me another unit to try. This one did not lock up, but it would barely feed the photos. It successfully fed photos about 50% of the time. These were 4x6 photos that were in perfect shape. Similar photos fed easily in the previous unit. Beware that feeding a photo through more than five times was not recommended by HP. This is because of the accumlative damage that the feeder imparts on the print. So after many hours of trying to save time, I took the second unit back for a refund and now I'm back to manually scanning. Yes it is slow, but at least it's steady progress.
Rating:
Summary: Scanner good but gadgets disappoint
Review: I would not recommend this product. Setup was easy on Windows XP but the main problems are with the 'gadgets'. The auto photo feeder (APF) is little more than a plastic toy. It left fine parallel score marks (scratches) along the direction of glossy photos as they were scanned. This seems to be a known design issue and could not be fixed by Tech Support. I was told a replacement APF would not help. The multiple scans were not straight and there were too many problems for auto correct. You may as well scan one by one in the first place. As for the capabilities for scanning slides and negatives, my advice is get a proper slide scanner. The software for the 5500c does not handle this task very well and trying to scan B&W negatives is a total waste of time.
Rating: 
Summary: A TIME SAVER!
Review: I've scanned probably a few thousand photographs with this scanner. My wife hates it, and I'd have to admit there are a couple problems with the Photo Feeder. If it gets dusty (almost always) it won't pull the photos through and will stop. However, if you manually push each photo down into the feeder, it works flawlessly. Or clean the wheel (roller) after each batch (which isn't exactly easy). While you have to "attend" while it's scanning, it's a heck of alot faster than using the platten glass. I can sit down and knock out 100 pictures in about 20 minutes. I'd like to see anyone else do that manually!
Rating:
Summary: Not Worth the [money] for APF
Review: If you are interested in the photo feeder, it does not
save time, every 3-4 photos it would show a jam
(but there was no jam) I would have to reset the photos
and start again. Cust support was no help. Luckily I
[was able to] exchange it for another one,
I had the same problems with it. The auto crop did not work,
and when I tried to change the folder to where the image
would scan to, it still would send it to the default.
Picture qualty was great,software was easy to use.
I never got a chance to try the slide adapter. Lid is
also very heavy, become a nausance when scanning
numerous photos. I went back to my [] compaq s200.
Rating:
Summary: Do not buy this scanner
Review: If you're looking for a good quality scanner, stay away from this one. The automatic photo feeder looks nice, too bad it's not functional. Apparently, I'm not the only one who had this problem.
It did, however, work okay for regular scanning of documents and photos. Unfortunately, only after a little over a year this scanner does not function at all. As a result, I'm currently shopping for a new one, and I will not even consider an HP product this time around.
Rating:
Summary: Works fine after replacing the APF
Review: Like others who reviewed this product, I bought it primarily for the APF to scan in photos. Like many others, the APF that came with the unit did not work. It would report a jam when there was no jam. HP technical service was fantastic. They quickly diagnosed the problem (believed there was a problem with the fans that pull the photos through) and sent me a replacement which arrived < 48 hours after I called with the issue. The new APF works fantastic.
Rating:
Summary: Why can't scanner makers write software but
Review: My experience hasn't been nearly as bad as others here. The software ( I am on OS X Panther ) is about as pisspoor as it gets. Even Microsoft would be ashamed (I think). However it has never crashed it is just incredibly un-intuitive and ugly. The photo feeder isn't perfect but it is actually working quite well now. Couple of tips from my experience. 1. Don't jam the photo guides up against the photos. Let them be a little loose in the feeder. This was the biggest single factor on causing jams, skewed scans and reported errors from the software.
2. Try running a few old photos through it several times. I think it eases up a little after a few runs.
3. Don't mix photo sizes. Big APS landscape photos will scan but report an error every time as it is just too big for the mechanism. I have run approx 20 photos through, without error, while writing this review and the scan quality is more than good enough for my purposes. Also who else does a photo feeder at this price. I like the convenience of not having to lift the lid everytime even if I am just doing one or two photos. So recommended for OS X but be patient and careful, it isn't foolproof.
Rating:
Summary: College Instructor
Review: Out of the box...
When I tried to scan the FIRST 2 pictures the second one jammed each time...every time.
I need to scan in thousands of small photos. This is not acceptable. I'm returning it to [local store]...
Rating: 
Summary: pretty good but not perfect
Review: Overall no problems but I did want to state that the photo feeder does leave a small roller mark on the picture (only visible when the light reflects off) and it takes a while to get the hang of the feeder (it tends to jam). Also there is some kind of automatic thing in the software which auto-crops the picture when using the roller...this tends to mess up and distort the picture size (so I have to preview twice). These are the only gripes I have...everything else is great and it sure beats scanning every picture individually by hand.
| 
