Rating: 
Summary: purchase if you love frustration
Review: Do NOT buy this scanner! I got it on sale and thought i got a good deal but boy did i get RIPPED!The included software makes the thing useless! Just in case the other reviews on this page weren't enough to dissuade you from making this purchase, let me add a thought or two. I've never reviewed a product before, but here it goes .... The software would be really cumbersome even if it did work. In order to make custom settings stick, i've had to preview my document each time i do a scan. Otherwise, it "autocrops" my pages in half. (go figure...) It's an unbearably slow and painful process to make manual adjustments for every scan, but it seems like i have no choice. Just try adjusting the contrast and you'll find even more problems that can make a grown man cry. It's ridiculuous! I'm adjusting three or four settings to get the effect i want, which is just DARKER TEXT. Even a tv comes with a contrast knob. What's really funny is that having the "autostraighten" setting checked doesn't seem to help much either. Sometimes my scans are downright crooked even though the document is loaded perfectly square with the corner of the window... strange.... (maybe this is a hardware issue). Also, i've been surfing the net for a while trying to find linux drivers but it seems that it's not "SANE"-compliant or whatever that is, and so i'm out of luck. That dashes my chances of finding some open source code that i can fiddle with. On top of all this, my efforts to find better windows software support on the hp website has been fraught with peril as well. The website isn't even working correctly. I can't get to my product's support page. I'm losing my sanity because of this thing, and i'm an EE / CS major! I can't imagine what's going on behind the scenes when they do a product release. I've been using this thing for a few hours and it doesn't seem to do anything right. I purposely bought HP instead of Visioneer because of the stronger brand name. I feel let down.
Rating: 
Summary: Great resolution - poor drivers - short warranty
Review: I bought the HP Scanjet 3500c 2 weeks ago (Christmas 2002) and found it did a great job scanning black and white drawings. The Scanjet driver software looks very similar to the HP Scanjet II software but the implementation of this "modern" release made using the scanner slow and a chore both via the TWAIN interface or the included HP software. This software was obviously thrown over the wall and into production without any thought to making life easy for the user. The major problem with the software is how it will automatically crop black and white (BW) documents incorrectly. I had to hand reset each page after a preview or I'll end up cutting off the upper margin of the page and scanning the cover on the bottom. Yes HP, the auto-crop check box is unchecked. I scan mostly BW documents. I want to set the scanner to scan 8.5x11 every time and simply can't. I have to manually reset the scan area EVERY page. So the software is half baked but at least it didn't crash. I would have kept the scanner if that was the only problem I could report. I was playing around with different originals and stumbled across a serious problem when scanning originals at 600 or greater. The RED color channel is stuck "on" 100%. This causes the photos to have a serious reddish hue to them (or BW scans using the RED channel to be all white). This only happens when the resolution is set at 600 or greater. Is this a HP hardware or a HP driver problem? I don't know but it's serious. The HP web site is no help and has not updated the 3500c drivers in the 4 months since release v1.0 was chucked out the door. The software annoyances, red channel problem, and 90 day warranty made me decide not to chance exchanging the scanner for another HP an being left hanging after 90 days while other manufacture's backup their products for a full year. I returned the scanner and will not purchase anything HP (to include Compaq now that they've merged with HP) that has to do with PC's (I was witness to a bad HP Pavilion computer experience 4 years ago) or photo imaging. Somewhere between the Scanjet II and today HP made their software harder to use, is content to ship products rushed to market, and reduced their warranty to 90 days.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry: I cannot agree with the other reviewers
Review: I pulled this baby out of the box, put the CD in my computer, followed instructions on the screen and within 10 minutes I was scanning pictures. You want to talk about a BAAAAD scanner, talk about Microtek's: HP Scanjet rocks! Quality was great, the Scanning interface that pulls up when you do "Import..." in Adobe Photoshop was very nice and intuitive. All in all, if you have never scanned images in your life, or if you're an expert for all matters and purposes, this is a great bang for your buck. Happy scanning!
Rating:
Summary: HP software and support is horrible
Review: Ok, The scanner says 48bit color. It only scans 24bit. There are no settings anywhere to access the full range of 48 bit. (yes I know there are only a few packages that support more bit depth but photoshop is one of them).
Next, you can't scan multiple docs from within photoshop. The dialog box closes down between scans. It also doesn't remember your scan settings. Everytime you open the software it has some funky default scan settings that trash your image. Every utility included with the package has it's own default settings.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Knock This Unit!
Review: Some people have really knocked this unit in the reviews. I really know nothing about scanners but have wanted one for some time. I literally pulled the unit out of the box and started scanning after ten minutes of setup up time. I will agree that it probably is not the fastest scanner on the market but it does one hell of a job. I will probably invest in a better photo editing suit but I am definitely impressed. I just scanned a wedding picture and the resolution of the scan is just as clear as the picture itself.
Rating:
Summary: Don't Knock This Unit!
Review: Some people have really knocked this unit in the reviews. I really know nothing about scanners but have wanted one for some time. I literally pulled the unit out of the box and started scanning after ten minutes of setup up time. I will agree that it probably is not the fastest scanner on the market but it does one hell of a job. I will probably invest in a better photo editing suit but I am definitely impressed. I just scanned a wedding picture and the resolution of the scan is just as clear as the picture itself.
Rating:
Summary: did not work
Review: spent two hours trying to get scanner to work including hp help line. simply did not work. complete waste of my time.
Rating:
Summary: Another HP Scanner in the garbage
Review: This is my 2nd HP scanner. The first was the top of the line scanner of 1999. After a year it just stopped working. The bed lit up but then it would say "cannot find scanner." Even HP tech support couldn't figure it out. I got this one for Xmas, used it a handful of times, now I get a strange clicking sound and no scanned product. HP is sending me a new one... Maybe I should just buy a digital camera instead....... I will steer clear if HP scanners from now on...
Rating:
Summary: Works great with MY Mac OSX!
Review: This little scanner is fabulous. I was prepared for a painful installation and start-up process, but it was quite simple and easy. The scans are beautifully clean and clear - far superior to the $800 scanner at my work. I use an HP 940 printer, and this yields high quality scanned & printed pics.
Rating:
Summary: Works great with MY Mac OSX!
Review: This little scanner is fabulous. I was prepared for a painful installation and start-up process, but it was quite simple and easy. The scans are beautifully clean and clear - far superior to the $800 scanner at my work. I use an HP 940 printer, and this yields high quality scanned & printed pics.
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