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HP Scanjet 5590
by Reviewer88
When I joined the company I now work form, back in September, I was somewhat of a techno-phobe, or maybe technologically challenged as some might say! Now I'm no martian, don't get me wrong, I can use my own laptop, printer, scanner, mobile etc...but after many attempts and mistakes! I'm the type of person that can be a complete whizz at ... anything ... given lots and lots of practice.
**Flatbed Scanner**
So as I said, I first met this HP Scanjet 5590 when I began work in my new office. To be honest, I was originally quite daunted because I had just gotten used to the printer and this new task popped up....eek! It definitely struck me first off as being of high quality technology and completely modern. I had only ever come across scanner, printer combos before, which as one would think, are huge contraptions but actually quite simple to use.
The fact that it was a HP brand though, calmed my worries slightly. For those of you who don't know, hp is an american IT company, very well known for their software products. Walt Disney was actually even one of their earlier customers (handy trivia fact but completely pointless here).
**Design**
The scanner, as per its name, is quite flat. Not as flat as it appears in the picturebut sits nicely on the desk and doesnt protrude much. The only non flat bit is on the lid where the feeder is located. I quite like the flatbed design as I was more used to bulky scanners that take up room underneath the desk (because they couldnt possibly fit neatly beside your pc). It is a light grey colour with darker grey areas for the buttons and base. It is quite basic looking when it comes to colour but then again, you don't see many neon pink scanners around (Hmm, maybe I should write to hp.....). As scanners go however it looks great and no complaints on the design front.
**Set Up**
Now I didnt directly set up this scanenr myself, but being a naturally inquisitive person ;), I had to ask. I was assured it was easy enough to set up. And my source is quite like myself when it comes to technology so bear in mind this advice didnt come from a pro!! It comes in the packaging pretty much put together, with the flatbed scanner itself being already prepared. This would be a given I would think as it is a flatbed and can be easily packaged. It comes with a usb cable to attached to your pc. If your pc is already connected to a printer then, it automatically syncs to this and prints to this. It has a power cable, instruction book with directions for each of the buttons etc, a hp manual for thei products as a whole, and a cd rom to set up to either Windows, Mac or Microsoft. We have the windows options and it is a step by step installment procedure.
**Features**
The scanner has an array of buttons on the front panel. Starting from the left hand side, you have the power button for switching on and off, which displays the power symbol seen on most products these days. Then come your five main scanning buttons and screen, followed by a zoom button, then your colour resolution button and finally another power button (slightly confusing...)
Your five main scanning buttons each have a different function and each display a picture on them to make it easier to tell which is which.
-The first button allows you to choose from all five (as I said confusing). It brings a list up on screen of each option available for you to choose from. This is mainly for first time users if your not sure of the buttons. I still use this one and I've been using the scanner for a few months, even consider myself a bit of a 'whizz' but there you go.
-The second button is used for scanning any high quality pictures or images. I have only used this button a handful of times as I rarely scan pictures but for home use it would be amazing as the quality of the image is amazing and it really highlights the picture.
-The third button allows you to scan a document direct to the pc and saves to the desktop for you. This is the most common one when you just need to upload a document for safe keeping.
- The fourth button is the one I mainly use. It scans a document and attaches it directly to an email so you can send it off to someone else. Before scanning you are given a choice of type (pdf or otherwise), can change the base name for which it saves under, enter email address, subject and message. The one negative aspect of this option is that you must enter your email address and message to recipient in this box, it doesnt go directly into your emails. This is awkward sometimes as you have to cancel out of it, go into your emails, get the address and go back.....hassles!!
-The fifth button then just simply scans the document and prints directly, if previously hooked up to your printer.
**Specs**
For those of you who are interested in these things, enjoy the specifications below: (pulled from hp website, I dont randomly know these details)
Resolution Optical: Up to 2400 dpi
Bit depth 48-bi
Grey scale levels 256
Auto document feeder capacity 50 sheets (with optional ADF)
Scan speed ADF (A4): up to 8 ppm (with optional ADF); simplex mode, black and white, 200 dpi, 1-bit
10 x 15 cm colour photo into Microsoft Word: less than 24 sec; OCR a full page of text into Microsoft Word: less than 36 sec; e-mail photo: less than 18 sec
Preview: Up t 10 sec
Scan file format Windows: BMP, JPEG, TIFF, TIFF compressed, PNG, PCX, Flashpix (FPX), PDF, PDF searchable, RTF, HTM, TXT; Macintosh: TIFF, PICT, JPEG, GIF, FlashPix, Plain Text, PDF, HTML, Rich Text
**Tech Support**
We were supplied with a customer helpline number in which to ring if their are any major problems. So far (touch wood) we havent had any major problems. The only things I have noticed would be if you are scanning a large docuement, it might freeze after a while, bring up a scan of a blank document and then continue. Also after alot of use, the lid becomes slightly shaky and loose from being opened and closed too much!
**Price**
As it was a company purchase, I didnt participate in the buying so do not know how much it cost to buy (neither did my source unfortunately). But I have taken the liberty to search this product online to let you guys know and they seem to be retailing at a reasonable price range of Euro340 - Euro370 (around£350)
**Overall**
I would highly recommend this scanner for home use as well as office use. We use ours here every day without fail and have had it for 9 months. Other than the few glitches I mentioned earlier, it is going strong and is very high quality. It sits well on the desk so you can buy one for a corner cubicle and it would fit nicely. Overall I would rate is a 9/10
Thanks for reading, xxx
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Mustek Scanexpress 1248 UB
by mattharris1801
This scanner offer great color depth, and carries out the job effortlessly.
Usability >>>> As stated it comes with auto crop technology, so as soon as you plug it in it starts scanning, and it knows where your images or documents are on the scanner and automatically adjusts the size of the new image it's creating ... to save you time. This is a great feature as, normally, you have to spend even more time removing black areas away from the new images.
It's not the fastest scanner I've seen, taking quite a while to scan, but when you get image quality like you do from this its worth the wait.
Very quick and easy to use as it comes with usb, so once plugged in and you've installed the software you're ready to go. This makes it great for someone who just wants to use it to scan in all those old photographs lying around; a service which can cost around £65
Quality >>>> The depth in colour is very high, coupled with high detail, giving a very professional output.
The scanner is very quiet and so I assume very efficient in its processes. As I have already said, it's not very fast taking a couple of minutes to perform a scan, which means it could take you some time to get through a big batch of photographs.
In summary this scanner is perfect if you don't mind paying that little bit more for great quality scanned documents and images, very good for scanning in old photographs that you don't have in digital format, if you can be prepared for it too take a little while.
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