Rating: 
Summary: Technical Support is Terrible
Review: I purchased the Perfection 1650 Photo about a year ago. I have been waiting for a driver for the Mac OS X ever since. None in sight yet. If you attempt to contact Epson Technical support you are referred to a *snailmail* address. Unbelievable!! I tried it and got no response. I am sorry I bought the thing.
Rating: 
Summary: Customer Service at Epson Appears Seriously Lacking
Review: I purchased the previous model Epson Scanner Perfection 1640SU Photo. Had an HP before that and it failed in short time. The 1640 was the best of the litter and worked magnificiently until I upgraed to Windows XP. Now it doesn't work at all and I haven't been able to contact Epson for an answer. Epson promises in their web site, an XP driver in 'early' 2002. It's no longer early in 2002 and I have been unable to use my 1640 for two months. All I can do is read about the updated model and wonder how many customers will be dissapointed when they upgrade, trying to find a driver for their EPSON product. Didn't have an problems with my Epson printer for a long time but didn't change operating systems while using it either. It also...is no longer in my posession. It was replaced by a Lexmark Z52 and has been a work horse. Will I purchase another Epson scanner, so I can get on with my life? Probably not, unless I can locate an XP driver solution for the Windows XP OS...
Rating:
Summary: Hmmm..... I can't think how it COULD be improved
Review: I really like this machine.... It warms up in less than 20 seconds and prescans in about 5 seconds -- so it doesn't take long to get started. The Epson TWAIN 5.51A software offers 10 choices of image type: Color Photo (48-bit), Color Photo, Color Document, Black and White Photo (16 bit),Black and White Photo, Black and White Document, Illustration, Text/Line Art, Text (Background Removal) and Copy and Fax. One can preview the prescanned image in each by simply selecting each in the dropdown menu. It is simple to preselect the area to be scanned, and the file size under each image type shows on the "target" line. If the file size is too large (or you can handle a larger than indicated file size), you can adjust the DPI in the following increments: 50, 72, 96, 150, 200, 240, 266, 300, 350, 360, 400, 600, 720, 800, 1200, 1600, 3200, 9600, and 12,800 dpi. (Again, these options are all drop-down so they don't clutter the interface.) Changing this option dynamically alters the "target" preview file size. --- Scanning is a one-click process, and when finished one is taken from the TWAIN to a preview screen where one can rename the scanned file, and either scan more documents or exit into a third screen where one can (if saving to a drive) select the file path, and type of image file format: PCX, TIF, BMP, JPEG or PCT. If you save to JPEG you can select the image quality (high, medium, or low). This is my first scanner, but I can't think how it could be easier to use. I am still exploring the more esoteric features (aka bells-n-whistles), but the operation is simple and the quality of the images is fantastic. Between this scanner and my Paint Shop Pro software, I've been able to do anything I can imagine in the way of imaging. I'm not surprised at the high rankings that this machine has earned in a number of publications.
Rating: 
Summary: Great little scanner
Review: I really like this scanner. It scans quickly and the images look great. The software is easy to use. The only complaint I have is this: I batch scan... so I was using the Smart Panel... (their software). Once done scanning a bunch a photos, I hit "launch" to launch the program of my choice (Photoshop). There wasn't enough memory to open Photoshop, so I quit out of several programs. Upon returning to the Smart Panel all my scans were gone. I called tech support and they said that that was how it works.
But other than that, I really like it.
Rating: 
Summary: No Better Than 1250 I Returned
Review: I returned two Epson 1250's, figuring anything by Epson couldn't be lousy (I have owned many Epson printers over the years...all were great). Then I bought the 1650. I found only one difference - no dust under the glass, Otherwise, it was the twin brother of the 1250. Poor color match, slow & noisy, awful software. Called Epson more than once and nothing improved. My 4th scanner was a Canon N670U. I've had it for a month now and it has been excellent. Perfect color and much faster than the Epsons.
Rating:
Summary: Poor software
Review: I was disappointed with the software provided with this scanner. As a software developer I have a high tolerance for bugs, but a few issues were particularly bothersome:1) My wife installed and uninstalled the scanner before she gave it to me as a present, just to make sure it worked. It did. When I received it and tried to reinstall the software, it would not work. Apparently the uninstaller does not work properly. After following technical support's 15 step instructions on how to get it working again, the scanner was still not being recognized. 2) Epson does not make their own scanner software - it is produced by a company called Newsoft. That means if you have any problems with the software, you have two companies to deal with. 3) The scanner is not compliant with WIA (Windows Image Acquisition), so it will not seamlessly integrate with other applications that use the WIA standard. In addition, it is not plug and play on installation; the directions specifically say to cancel the Windows dialogs that try to install the scanner for you. In other words, it doesn't seem to play nice with Windows XP. I returned it and purchased the CanoScan 5000F instead. Completely plug and play with XP, scans at a higher resolution, and the software has been flawless.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous little scanner for the money!
Review: I was looking for a low-cost decent-quality scanner to replace the two-year-old Umax Astra 1200s that I was very frustrated with (the quality of the scans was OK, or so I thought, but every time I tried to scan anything over 600 dpi the scanner software and Photoshop would quit, even after numerous clean reinstallations). After reading many reviews of many different products both here and on computer Web sites I decided that this one sounded like the best bet for the very reasonable price. (I'm spending the big money on a Nikon slide scanner, but that's another story.) I use the flatbed scanner in my desktop publishing business, mostly for small grayscale photos and line art, and for personal use as well (arcane projects, postcards, etc.). I had some 600-dpi scans of old movie posters (with lots of vibrant color and high contrast) I had made on the Umax from some very high-quality coffee-table type books. Just for comparison I re-scanned some of the same images on the Epson 1650. To put it bluntly, the Epson scans blew the Umax out of the water. The color fidelity and saturation of the Epson is greatly improved over the Umax scans, particularly in the reds, yellows, and fleshtones. The overall sharpness is also much improved, even when utilizing the automatic de-screening feature. Though the Umax scans were also de-screened, when I put them side-by-side in Photoshop at the same resolution and magnification, the process dot pattern of the originals is much less visible in the Epson scans than in the Umax scans, even with the increased sharpness. Very impressive. Overall brightness and contrast of the Epson scans is also better. In short, in no area were the Umax scans superior. I am very pleased. The prints off my Epson Stylus Color 880 (another terrific, inexpensive macine that also influenced me to buy this scanner) look fabulous, especially when printed on Epson photo gloss paper. (Printing to, for example, Xerox brand ink jet glossy photo paper still yields a print which would look great without anything to compare it to. However, placed side-by-side with the original, a print on the Xerox paper has a noticeable magenta cast and undersaturated blues and cyans while the Epson print is virtually dead-on.) A perfectionist with an exceptional eye may be able to spot some technical flaws with the scans produced by this machine (I can't and I'm pretty picky myself), but then they should be spending [lots of money] for a professional-level scanner if that's their wont. And yes the OCR bundle leaves a lot to be desired, but anyone doing lots of OCRing should just spring for OmniPage anyway. For this kind of money, the scans produced by this little box are terrific; even without color management and with minimal Photoshop tweaking they come off the printer extremely close to the originals. What else can you ask? My only caveat to a buyer is to make sure to read the installation instructions carefully and not interrupt the relatively long and unnecessarily confusing installation process. I'm a reasonably proficient (12+year) professional Mac user used to one-click installations and I somehow interrupted the installation before it was done. The scanner was unusable until I did an uninstall, reread the instructions carefully, and did a clean reinstall. After that the scanner software has worked flawlessly (it even dumped a Photoshop plug-in into the correct folder for me!) and it allows me to calculate reduction/magnification percentages online (hurray!), something even Umax's cheesy "professional" mode didn't allow. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed!
Review: I'm a graphic designer, and I did a lot of research, including "professional" sources such as photography mags & websites, before choosing the Epson 1650. I've found this scanner disappointing -- it consistently clips the shadows and highlights so that very dark areas scan to muddy gray while the brightest areas come out about 25% darker. Tweaking the Twain settings to expand the range pulls more black into the shadows but still misses the c,m & y and vice versa on highlights. So on color scans, there is a lack of richness at both ends. I also use the scanner for OCR, and the bundled OCR software is horrible.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT for XP Pro...
Review: I'm very happy with this scanner - most photos scanned only require some basic dust and lint correction in PhotoShop or similar. Can scan negatives or slides, though the interface to do this is a little less than ideal and it's easier to scan prints if you have them. Software provided is flexible, allows scanning to files or scan to printer (copy feature). TWAIN interface allows interaction with PhotoShop or other software directly - easy to acquire new images. When I bought this scanner, a lot of folks were complaining about the dust on the backside of the glass, but I didn't really see much of that with mine. It is a little difficult to keep clean, though.
Rating:
Summary: Easy to use, good quality, fast enough
Review: I'm very happy with this scanner - most photos scanned only require some basic dust and lint correction in PhotoShop or similar. Can scan negatives or slides, though the interface to do this is a little less than ideal and it's easier to scan prints if you have them. Software provided is flexible, allows scanning to files or scan to printer (copy feature). TWAIN interface allows interaction with PhotoShop or other software directly - easy to acquire new images. When I bought this scanner, a lot of folks were complaining about the dust on the backside of the glass, but I didn't really see much of that with mine. It is a little difficult to keep clean, though.
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