I Love My Really Impressive Flatbed Scanner (HP Scanjet 5300C)

Member Name: sfarmer76

Product:	HP Scanjet 5300C
Date:	01/03/02 (1061 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fast, Easy to Install, Great Accompanying Software

Disadvantages: A Little Expensive

I have long been a member of the HP fold, and I love evangelizing for their products on my job. My ardor for this company can be attributed to one thing - their products work. And when I say work, I mean, they work all the time. I know this for a fact, because I worked for a printing company for 4.5 years, and I used a HP scanner on that job the whole time I worked there.

I can't remember now the model number I used then, but that's not important. The important thing is that during the whole 4.5 years I ran the DTP operation, my HP scanner stopped working only once. Once. And we fixed it that one time by talking to HP Technical Support on the phone. When was the last time you were able to fix anything by talking to someone over the phone?

The new HP ScanJet 5300c is no exception. I just went out to purchase one at Big Yellow Tag on a recent weeknight. It's a good thing I already knew what I was looking for, because the people in there are certainly not well-informed about the products they carry.

When I arrived back home, I took the ScanJet out of the box, and had it set up in about 15 minutes. It's a USB scanner, so it was easy to hook up to my laptop. The thing that took the longest amount of time was loading all the software that came with the scanner. Adobe PhotoDeluxe Business Edition v1.1 and Hemera Photo-Objects Gallery for HP, were included in the box.

I love the Adobe software! It only took me about an hour to figure out how to use it. Now I can scan in all the great b&w Lomo photographs I've been taking, and tweak them to my hearts content. The Extensis Intellifix feature in Adobe PhotoDeluxe is excellent! I just finished using my 5300 for about five hours in a row, and it was hardly even warm when I got finished. Other scanners that I've used in the past have had a very warm lamp or have even overheated under similar usage conditions. Not my ScanJet...

The 5300c is a workhorse of a scann
er. It can take practically anything you throw at it, and do it extremely well. It hasn't messed up a single scan, or gotten hung up on anything. I've never had to unplug it, disconnect it, or restart it due to any glitches while in use. This is my dream scanner, I can tell it's just as good as the one I used at my old office!

For starters, this beige wonder has 36-bit 1200 dpi color scanning, and it can generate OCR text files. There are four ergonomic "one touch" buttons on the face of this model. You can also use it like a copier or send scanned files straight to e-mail, printer, or fax.

I like the fact that they put a little style into the design of the scanner. It's not just a box with a flat bottom and a lid on it. The front of the scanner looks like the graceful prow of a ship. It has seductive curves at the top and tapers down to a slender foot at the bottom. The hinged lid features a curvilinear niche that acknowledges you might constantly be putting your hand into the image area while aligning photos at the bottom of the flatbed, or while sliding papers in and out of the flatbed area.

The usual HP thoughtfulness can be seen in every aspect of the design of their product. There's even a lock that you have to unlock while your setting up the scanner. They realize that while the scanner is being shipped it may be tossed, bumped, shaken, or rattled repeatedly. All the vital parts are locked down for the protection of the scanner during shipping, that way you can also be assured nobody else has opened or used the scanner. If you unpack the scanner and find the lock already unlocked, I'd take it back and demand a refund from the people that tried to sell you something someone's already returned once.

For all my pleasure and satisfaction with the hardware aspect of this purchase, however, I am equally vexed at HP over one thing. While I was completing the rather lengthy online product regis
tration, I encountered a glitch. This was extremely annoying because the software kept telling me about all these nifty extended benefits I could receive by completing the registration process online. So, okay, I normally hate filling out registration things like this... it's not like I'm Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory, but registering a product is something I generally dislike.

But here's that carrot, "extended benefits", and they're holding it right out in front of my nose, and they're waving it, so I go for it. Then, at the very last step of the registration, they prompt me for a phone number. Ten digits. What the hell, I key them in. Then bam... nothing.

Then a message pops up, "number must be at least seven digits plus area code", Hello? I think I can count. I have a valid area code and phone number. I tried registering this product online repeatedly (7 or 8 times) to receive the touted extra benefits, but to no avail. The scanner just can't seem to be registered online.. in fact I've given up on that. If some morally responsible person from HP can explain why I encountered said difficulty in registering your product online, I'd be happy to revise this opinion and remove this one little complaint, because I really wish I could get those d@!* extra benefits you kept teasing me with.

Reaffirming my position, I am 99.9% happy with this scanner and my HP buying experience. I just wish HP could work a little harder on that other .01%, since I encountered an annoying installation and registration problem like this while installing the Win98 driver for the HP PhotoSmart P1000 I got a few months ago. (Same said problem which I got to repeat at a friends house while installing their just out of the box PhotoSmart printer too.) But these installation and registration difficulties are minor quibbles in comparison to the performance of HP's products.

I have used other models of sca
nner in the past, and I have never really been satisfied with any of them. If this ScanJet 5300c holds up like the last one I was using, then I'll probably always buy HP for the rest of my life. Now how's that for a product testimonial?

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