HP ScanJet 5590 Digital Flatbed Scanner

Rating:
Summary: I returned mine
Review: I have been looking for a reasonably priced duplex ADF scanner for some time now, I want to scan a file cabinet of documents and shred the originals. I thought this HP was it, it isn't. I spent several hours over a few days giving this guy a workout. I scanned stacks of bank statements (30-35 pages at a time) (8.5 x 11) and mortgage documents (8.5 x 14) both single sided and double sided. Several times the ADF jammed (roller slipped and eventually gave up) and I had to man handle the stuck page out, I could find no way to release its grasp of the paper. These were not glossy pages, just typical bank statements. Other times one or two pages of a stack of 35 would scan in only a third of the page. It cannot scan duplex pages longer then 12 inches, I don't know why. Duplex scanning takes more then twice as long as simplex because it has only a single scanner and must flip the page (I think it does this flipping twice). The software wasn't smart enough to handle scanning mix length pages, if I had a document (for example: mortgage papers) with a mix of letter and legal size pages I had to tell the software that all the pages were 14 inches long otherwise it truncated the legal size to 11 inches. It all boils down to a lack of trust for me. Before I go shredding originals of these documents I need to be able to trust that I have good electronic copies and this scanner/software didn't establish that trust.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, Heavy Duty, Will do the job!
Review: This is an excellent scanner. The device itself is heavy duty and the document feed behaves like it - solid and a good performer. The software's user interface is a little difficult if you want to do custom scanning and there are 3 twain drivers installed, so which one do you use? But, the quality of the scanner and it's great ADF (the roller assembly is even replaceable instead of having to replace the whole ADF) make it well worth a 5-Star rating.

Rating:
Summary: I returned *two* of these scanners!
Review: This scanner was appealing because of the low cost/features combo. The first one we received worked alright for about 100 pages worth of scanning then the ADF started to pull more and more to one side very quickly resulting in jamming every page into a little ball. We called HP, they called it defective and took it back.

Second scanner, I had only half-unpacked the unit when I realized that the 'cancel' button on the front panel had been crushed down into the chassis. Called HP, they called it defective and took it back.

I'm looking at the Xerox DocuMate 510 now, hopefully it won't fall apart.