Rating: 
Summary: Remorseful buyer here!
Review: Bought the so-called Mac compatible scanner last year and it worked with OS 9. I went to do this years batch of scans using OS X and no go. Image Capture doesn't see it connected via USB. An Apple Support document indicates that the 1660 Photo driver is NOT a built-in driver in Mac OS X. I downloaded most the recent software (epson11208.sea) from Epson website, installed it...the scanner app won't even startup!
Rating: 
Summary: Great, especially for the price
Review: First of all, I have a Mac, so that plays into any computer equipment purchases. You'd be surprised how many peripherals still don't work with Macs. That said, Epson has always had excellent Mac support. They provide updated drivers soon after Apple releases new versions of OS X. This is definitely not true of other scanner manufacturers (like Microtek).
Anyway, this is a great scanner. It offers plenty of resolution (1600 dpi optical) and does a good job with slides and negatives. Slides scanned at 1600 dpi come out with slightly more resolution than a two-megapixel digital camera. If you need more detail than that, you'd be better off buying a dedicated film scanner. But for the price this one does an excellent job.
I really like Epson's TWAIN software. it has three levels of complexity: Home, Office, and Professional. The first two give simple options and make all the choices for you. Professional provides a surprising amount of control and dispenses with all of the assistants and helpers (which I find maddening).
Rating: 
Summary: Don't use this for scanning diapositives!
Review: A few months ago I finally made the decision to digitalise alle the travel pictures I'd ever made (mostly on diapostive film) and bought this Epson Perfection 1660 Photo with diapostiive layer (6 at a time), which looked very good and had a good reputation. But the Twain software doesn't do its job properly on scanning diapositives. It cuts borders, decides on its own where to cut a darker zone in a picture (shadows, contrasting colors) with the result that it sometimes splits pictures in half, or cuts away a part of it. Especially pictures taken in the evening or at night are a nightmare to scan.
And then, after I reinstalled the software for a third time, it suddenly cancelled the install procedure, and now for some reason it's impossible to install the Twain software again. The helpdesk hasn't been very helpfull (motto: help yourself), so after three months' use, I find myself with an unusable scanner. Thank you, Epson!
Rating:
Summary: Inexpensive to Buy - Quality is Better than Most
Review: I bought this scanner in a hurry to complete a project. In turned into being a better scanner than my expensive one.It installs quickly and the software that is provided with it is adequate or you can use your own software easily. If you are planning on scanning mostly text you may want to get a better OCR software product. The scanner does a great job and then it is up to the character recognition software to finish the job. If you scan a photograph and print on quality paper it it does the job of a photo scanner. Everything I have scanned with this scanner from text to photographs is high quality. I am considering buying a second one at the price that is offered. It's a DEAL.
Rating:
Summary: I will never ever buy EPSON again
Review: I've had this for over a year now, well over a year, and I am still amazed at how easy it is and what great results I get. For the past six months, I've been waiting for it to keel over a die from overuse. I've been working on a project, scanning and archiving family photos, and I've scanned so many photos, paintings, family documents etc, that I fully expected this scanner to surrender. If it stopped working tomorrow, I've already had more than my moneys worth from this scanner. I highly recommend it. Great little scanner!
Rating:
Summary: Installed in less than 10 minutes!
Review: I read the reviews concerning the installation of the Epson Scanner and I didn't have any difficulty at all. Great scanner for the price.
Rating:
Summary: Unsatisfactory XP installation
Review: I was not able to install this properly on my Windows XP PC
after many hours trying. The installation CD supplied by Epson generated numerous errors, so I went to the Epson support website. The site directed me to a third party website. I followed the instructions there (uninstall XP patch, install software, install another XP patch), but the 'Smart Panel' software still would not run. I finally got it to work by runnning it under Windows 98 compatibility mode. Some XP users have gotten it installed easily, but in my case it was a big hassle! Too bad, since the scanning quality is good.
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