Rating: 
Summary: Good idea... too bad it doesn't work.
Review: Purchased for the APF, I thought this scanner would revolutionize my work flow. Little did I know that it would not only NOT revolutionize anything, but it would crash my computer, take hours of installing & unistalling & reinstalling & reuninstalling (you get the picture) both the software and the scanner itself. Then, I had to unplug every other non-vital thing from my computer because of a "conflict error". So, I contacted HP online support only to have them tell me that they needed to "research this particular issue" about 15 times before I gave up. What a waste of time.So, now, I've got a deadline to meet, a scanner that is useless, a computer that's frozen up more times than Lake Erie, and few remaining hairs to pull out. From all of the reading I've done, it seems that at least 50% of the 5500c's sent out by HP are defective, so if you like gambling, go ahead and purchase one of these babies. You might get a good one. I, on the other hand, will be returning mine tomorrow and reinstalling my Epson 2450.
Rating: 
Summary: Great product and tech support
Review: The APF that came in the box never worked. It would repeatedly jam after every photo. Half an hour with tech support resulted in a APF replacement under warranty. I called support on a Saturday and UPS delivered a new APF on Thursday. Now the scanner performs beautifully and gets through 40+ photos at one time. The only reason I don't give it five stars is because the auto crop feature needs improvement. Every photo still needs to be manually cropped around the edges.
Rating:
Summary: Automatic Photo Feed Defective
Review: This scanner is a piece of junk. The automatic photo feeder jams 80% of the time. It also damages your pictures. Get a regular scanner for less money. Do not buy.
Rating: 
Summary: Every 2nd Photo Jams
Review: Well, bought the scanner new. Called HP tech support when it would jam on every photo in the APF. Tech support sent a replacement APF Next Day Air. New feeder works better, but still jams on the 2nd photo (no matter how many are in the feeder) which appears to be more likely a software problem since the photo will feed on the next pass. Color scans sometimes yield yellow bands across scanned photos or 8 1/2 x 11 documents and black & white can have dark streaks (also suggesting a software issue). Most importantly, when the APF jams, it holds the second photo at the feeder, answer <<OK>> to the error message, click <<accept>> for the non-existent photo, then APF feeds second photo all the way through the APF, does NOT scan but obviously had no problem feeding the photo. HP - beware - fix your existing customer problems before they come back to haunt you. Also, scans of thin paper reveals the charcoal gray scanning belt in the scans - HP - please release a white insert to cover he APF scanning belt so that regular scans can look normal and not garbage-like. Otherwise - cool idea just looks like HP should have used a QA process before releasing the product. By the way - HP tech support says that they haven't had any reported problems like the APF jamming or software issues - seems that they are keeping their techs in the dark. HP customers - you need to YELL a little louder to get HP's attention.
Rating:
Summary: Total garbage
Review: Whatever you do- do not buy this scanner!! The photofeeder does not work at all. I can't believe they are actually selling this. I will never buy another HP product again.
Rating:
Summary: A bad product
Review: When I first purchased this product, I liked it - I must admit. After a while though, I realized what a piece of crap it is. The picture feeder is decent, but gets stuck all the time, and to get it to work I had to remove the sticky stuff from the underside of the lid which continues to leave a residue that has to be cleaned. Forget scanning the negatives - the negative scanner doesn't work very well - especially with the software that comes with it. I use the scanner with a Mac with OS X 10.2 and 10.3 - and the software is horrible and difficult to use - even to begin a scan. Now I can't even get the USB cord to stay into the back. I bought the product at a considerable discount as an open box which is the only thing that's keeping me from being utterly pissed off.
Rating:
Summary: Dismal product, even worse tech support
Review: Worked great out of the box and for the first few months, and then it stopped working. Period. Just gave me an error message telling me to call tech support when I'd try to scan. After several emails failed to solve the problem (Reply #1: Try unplugging it and plugging back in. Response #1: Nope. Didn't fix it. Reply #2. Turn it off. Unplug all the cables from it. Wait 5 minutes. Reconnect cables. Response #2: Nope, still broken. Reply #3: Try unplugging it and ...) I gave up and tried live chat. And, they replaced it. Their dime to ship it. Even though it was a gift and I had no receipt. Great service, I thought.
So, fast forward a few months and the new one stopped working. Big white stripe down each scan like there's a burnt out pixel or something. So, I emailed tech support. They have clearly reduced the skill level of their tech support. The number of emails I have traded has been ridiculous. The last one ended with the tech saying he didn't think there was warranty coverage. Frustrated, I tried live chat. After a painfully slow chat (think 15 minutes per response), the guy told me to call their toll-free number. That was it.
I'm pretty upset here. Upset enough to spend an afternoon at CompUSA trying to dissuade people from buying HP products. Amazing how quickly their tech support went from world-class to being a factor which will dissuade me from buying their stuff again.
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