Rating: 
Summary: Hardware Great/Software Poor/Tech Support/Non Existent
Review: Bought a 3170 in 12/04. Hardware works as advertized. However, could Not scan pictures larger than 4" x 5" at dpi greater than 1200. Sent E-mails to Epson, used their hard to find E-mail/Tech support form. After a detailed series of questions that should discourage most, found their system clocked out after 5 minutes of air time. Second time thru was successful in submitting a E-mail request. Results, no return from Epson. Tried 3 more times over a month. And YES they don't give a phone call in number!! No return ever!
Found a young sales rep in our area. He thought my questions were good enough for further investigation. He got the run around by higher ups for a month. Final his persistance paid off. Epson scanning software has a memory management problem. The recommended 512 Meg requirement is NOT enough. Their software does not do disk cache. As a result, you can have many gigs of hard disk space, but RAM will severely limit high resolution scans. For lower resolution scans or smaller areas, the system is fine. With the advent of scanners greater than 2000 dpi I suggest you verify that the system (HP, Epson, or whoever) will meet your needs for higher resolution scans and for the size area you want to scan.
Rating:
Summary: Hardware Great/Software Poor/Tech Support/Non Existent
Review: Bought a 3170 in 12/04. Hardware works as advertized. However, could Not scan pictures larger than 4" x 5" at dpi greater than 1200. Sent E-mails to Epson, used their hard to find E-mail/Tech support form. After a detailed series of questions that should discourage most, found their system clocked out after 5 minutes of air time. Second time thru was successful in submitting a E-mail request. Results, no return from Epson. Tried 3 more times over a month. And YES they don't give a phone call in number!! No return ever!
Found a young sales rep in our area. He thought my questions were good enough for further investigation. He got the run around by higher ups for a month. Final his persistance paid off. Epson scanning software has a memory management problem. The recommended 512 Meg requirement is NOT enough. Their software does not do disk cache. As a result, you can have many gigs of hard disk space, but RAM will severely limit high resolution scans. For lower resolution scans or smaller areas, the system is fine. With the advent of scanners greater than 2000 dpi I suggest you verify that the system (HP, Epson, or whoever) will meet your needs for higher resolution scans and for the size area you want to scan.
Rating: 
Summary: Hardware? Software horrible
Review: Don't want to get into all the details here but suffice it to say I have spent about 12 hours trying to get the bundled software to recognize the twain driver. Third party software vuesoft and silverfree work fine. A search of newsgroups and photo sites shows that I am not the only one with this problem.
You buy a scanner and are dependent on the software working (just like a printer or computer). Scanner drivers are propriatary so if they don't work you are out of luck. Epson outsourced driver and software programs to a company called Newsoft. Horrible online support from both.
I have spent numerous hours loading and removing software. Running "clean up software" from Newsoft and removing files (every twain and twunk on the system) and directory values. I am not a programmer but neither am I a computer novice. I have come to the conclusion that the only way I will get this scanner to be recognized under Win2K is a complete clean Win2K install. I am unwilling to do this right now since the computer serves as a home network host.
Apparently when installed this is a relatively good scanner for the price (that's why I bought it last week) but be prepared for the possibility that the software might not load and if you have WinXp may corrupt the OS. Do a google search for "twain problems epson" before purchasing this scanner for either Windows or Mac based systems. Alternatively seems to work with third party applications Silverfree or Vuescan however those twain drivers do not automatically link to other software such as Photoshop or Copy apps.
My system is Win2Ksp4/2.8P4/1gigDDR/USB2
Update on 10/14/03
Sent support request outlining my software installation problems to Newsoft via their web site support request form on 10/5/04. 9 days later i still have not received a reply.
Rating:
Summary: Does not support USB 2.0 in Macintosh
Review: Expected it to work with USB 2.0, so ordered USB 2.0 PCI card when I ordered the Scanner. When the scanner was delivered and tried out, I found it did not support USB 2.0 on the Mac...It states this on the box, but nowhere did I see that it was not supported when I ordered it.
Also, much of the software does not work with Panther(OS10.3.5). I finally found it could be used by ignoring the buttons on the scanner front. Turning the power on the scanner and waiting for the light to glow steady, then launching the Epson Scan application by double clicking allowed me to scan.
The scanned results were very nice and I scanned a bunch of old 35mm slides with excellent results. I hope Epson upgrades its software to make all of this scanner's features work with Panther.
Rating:
Summary: Software stinks!
Review: Having never owned a scanner I'm am quite impressed with the quick and beautiful job this thing does of putting my old photos into the computer. But the bundled software really leaves alot to be desired. A really elegant piece of software is usually immediatly comfortable and intuitive. Epson's "Smart Panel" software leaves me cursing and gritting my teeth. I've figured out pretty much how to quickly do whatever I want (except right now I cannot even figure out how to quickly change my default save folder), but after using this program I almost feel dirty. It is that sloppy. It's too bad. I guess I never thought about what scanner software would entail. I just figured it would be something simple, something like 'select your resolution/settings, choose your destination, scan.' It's amazing how convoluted the programmers made the interface.
Rating: 
Summary: Forget HP and Microtek. Epson is THE BEST for negatives
Review: Having used Microtek and HP in the past, both are of so-so quality, especially Microtek as I exchanged 3 of their model of the time and had 3 unique problems. And doubly-especially HP because of the ridiculous prices that hinge on their petty namesake (and the problems that developed were pretty bad too)... but before I digress...Epson's 3170 scanner is of solid build, has a head lock so it can be transported with reasonable assurance it won't become misaligned. Just be sure to install the software, shut down, connect the scanner, reboot. That's all. I often scan negatives because (a) the photo developers can't alter their appearance and (b) negatives are going to be sharper than prints. At 3200DPI, I can easily make 13x19" prints that look astounding, especially after using 3rd party noise removing software (it was made for digital camera images, but it works great for film as well!) Can't say the name, but if you searched google for a neat image noise removal software, you'll find the product(s). I'd also mention the printer I use, but then I'd sound like a ringer for Epson, which I'm not. But it is a very high end printer... :-) I will say this: HP's TMA device for scanning negatives made it easier to put in negatives (though not remove), and extra care is needed to remove negs from the Epson module because the shutter-like edges have a wavy appearance. (WHY?!) That aside, one should always take good care of handling negatives so I won't take away a point. Maybe 1/2 point. Quality counts. And it's not called "perfection" for nothing. This is worth every penny.
Rating:
Summary: Good quality scans, easy set up
Review: I bought this after returning an HP 4670 and I'm really impressed. It gave good quality scans with the out of the box settings, and with a little tweaking started giving really high quality results. I mainly scan photos, negatives and transparencies. The HP 4670 showed granularity and banding. The Epson has none of these problems. The software installed with no problems. I like that you can easily use the predefined settings, or change to the more advanced settings. My only minor quibble is that it is noisy and a little slow at high resolutions. But this is a small price to pay. Operating tip for hi-res scans: change the file format to JPEG before you start the scan unless you have a lot of RAM.
Rating: 
Summary: Mostly great scanner with some minor issues ...
Review: I bought this scanner mostly for restoring old photos and scanning old negatives. The scanner was a breeze to install and set up with my system running Windows XP with 512 mb of RAM. Image scanning is very quick at the default setting (300 dpi) and with excellent image quality. The photo restore works fairly well, but on some photos, it actually changes the color of the dust and scratches on the photo. Overall, this is an excellent scanner, but there are two issues that annoy me that I think I need to share. First of all, it doesn't come with a manual. Yes, it does come with a quick setup pamphlet with a basic "get started" guide, but if you're like me and absolutely HATE sitting there at the computer reading the operating manual, you'll be just as ticked off as I am about this. I'm one of the few who actually likes to get the manual for whatever I buy and sit down and read it first before setting the thing up. You have to wait till the software is installed and the scanner is set up before you can actually see how the complete system and software work.
The other problem I've found with this scanner is that when you scan a negative in the "thumbnail" mode (which is supposed to recognize the negative and preview it in a full page format), the negatives almost always get severely cropped. I scanned a picture of my parents wedding day and both the top of their heads were chopped off. After going into the annoying help file, I found that Epson says that it's normal for some negatives to get cropped severely if the background is very light. Just this alone almost made me pack this back up and ship it back to Amazon ... but then after digging around the help files endlessly, I found that you can scan the negative in a "full preview" mode (which actually will scan the negative, template, and anything else on the glass), and draw a marquee around the negative which will give you the full image. After finally figuring this out, I've found that the scanning quality of the negative is outstanding! I can't believe the quality of the pictures I can print from a negative that was taken over 60 years ago! If those few negatives are minor to you, I think you'll find this to be an excellent all around scanner. Picture quality is fantastic and the software that comes with it works well. I'm very happy (now that I've figured it out) that I made this purchase and would highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A good and highly capable scanner
Review: I bought this with a common expectation to have real good scans of my 4x6 photo prints. I was initially not fully happy with it's shadow-area performance, but after a bit of tinkering with settings I got the results I wanted.The scans are coming very good now.
My 2c advice for people who scrutinise scans deeply: decrease contrast 10-20%,increase brightness 5-15% for better shadow performance
It is very speedy and quiet.
The OCR s/w is really good.
The help system is only text-based(which is bad) and there is no toll-free # for tech support.
One of the things that I found after spending some time on net and with this scanner is, you may not need these 3200dpi etc resolution for scanning 4x6 photos.
12/18/03 - I tested Canon 5000F(2400dpi) and compared.
By default the epson scan has a higher contrast than Canon. This causes the scanner not to perform ably in dark areas,but the colors look punchy on first look.
On the other hand although the Canon captures greater detail under shadows by factory setting default, it adds a slight warm(reddish) tinge by default. The Canon build & s/w are worse(It's a much less sophisticated beast).It's much much slower & horribly Noisy.
Per my evaluation,this scanner is much more sophisticated and better value-for-money.
Rating:
Summary: The Worst Scanner on the Planet
Review: I have found overall the Epson might possibly have the worst products. I am in the computer programming business and have had the opportunity to work with several different models. I recently purchased the 1670 which I returned to the store within 24hours - the software was so unintuitive and the scanning was pathetically slow. I then tried the 1370 thinking if I spent more money I would get a better product -WRONG. The software crashed so many times on my computer (Mac OS X 10.3) that I also returned it 24hours later. I haven't found a scanner that I love yet - so good luck with your search.
|
