Customer Reviews

HP ScanJet 4600 See-Thru Flatbed Scanner (Q3112A)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

As an avid scrapbooker and scrapbook business owner, scanning images that are "lumpy and bumpy" is next to impossible and believe me, I've tried every possible scanner out there. One of HP's ScanJet's did the trick for a while but it took up a majority of my desk. NOW I have a scanner that allows me to scan all my "lumpy and bumpy" objects with ease. Having a tough time finding something to scan something larger than 8x10? That's alright! This scanner comes with stitching software that gives PERFECT, SEAMLESS stitching. Awesome, awesome scanner. The best part is that I can stand it upright and store it beside my monitor so that I have more room for .... well .... more junk on my desk! :)

I have just purchased this scanner with trepidation, given the bad reviews it's received here. Yet, it has been highly rated by other consumer reporting websites. After being burned by Visioneer's technical support (2+ hours wait period, then asked to call back the following day), I decided to give HP ScanJet 4600 a chance. Falling prices have made this unit much more affordable.

I had no issues with installation using WinXP, SP2. I found that it scans text, illustrations, and newspaper print (post-edited with bundled stitching software) very well. I use third party software for image-editing and OCR. Therefore, I cannot comment on the performance of included software other than the stitching software, which was very easy to use for obtaining a quality image. This machine is also portable enough to take to libraries to scan materials such as newspapers and books (where the book binding isn't prohibitive). For me, this is a big plus. It's lightweight and much thinner than other bulky scanners, which would be a burden to carry. It scans items face up or face down and is detachable from it's horizontal base. This is a bonus for scanning items like maps or oversized books. In addition, it takes up little space when stored vertically.

I have scanned few photos, as this was not my primary purpose for purchasing a scanner. I found that the scanning surface must be cleaned with lens towels prior to glossy photo scanning to remove all dust particles, which will show up in images. If archiving photos were my primary scanner purpose, I would recommend selecting a different scanner, because post-scan editing is required to return some images to more natural hues.

I will say that while scanning one book, I did see black and white banding at the crease, which is analogous to how loss of focus occurs when photocopying books near the crease. I found that the binding must be pressed such that the book was flush against the scanning surface. If one plans to scan many books where the binding holds the book tightly closed, then you may have problems with this product.

All in all, this product works very well for my purposes as well as appealing aesthetically.

Granted, this is a great scanner and an inventive design. For me, however, the design screams to be used in a mobile fashion. After all, the unit is touted as a great scanner for large or unwieldy items (as opposed to a strictly desktop scanner, for instance). In my case, I was looking to use it for copying from books for use in research. If you have tried copying from a book on a flatbed scanner, even one with an expandable lid, you'll know the difficulty involved. With the 4600, one can effectively crop the book in realtime, eliminating the guesswork. BUT, imagine my surprise to learn that the scanner comes with a wall wart AC transformer! The addition of a power adapter significantly undercuts the 4600's utility as a mobile scanner (e.g.--books in a library). As an owner of a usb-powered Canon flatbed scanner, it didn't even occur to me that the 4600 would be different. Note that the marketing materials leave the impression that the 4600 is usb-powered. It touts a "combination usb/AC cable", a phrase that is certainly open to interpretation. In this case, it isn't even true: at some point, the "combination cable" _must_ split into a piece leading to the pc and a piece leading to the AC adapter. What is the advantage in this??? Also, the marketing materials cryptically list among the contents this line: AC adapter (where applicable). What does this even mean? A big thumbs down to HP for crippling a potentially great scanner, and attempting to hide its true identity. It's great as a desktop scanner, but there are loads of competitors that are cheaper in that class.

Scans of various drawings and paintings done with the HP Scanjet 4600 exhibit alternating light and dark bands parallel to the direction of the scan. The bands vary in intensity depending on the color or value of the area being scanned. This problem showed up on two samples of the scanner. HP has been of no real help in solving this problem and I have returned both samples. The design is ideal for scanning large items but, unfortunately, the bands make the product useless.

This is the best scanner I have used so far. Though I have only used it for scanning in book pages (with pictures) and documents and not photographs. It is very easy to use and the software worked fine on my XP SP2. I like the see through feature, you can see the area that is being scanned. Also it is much easier to handle than other scanners so you'll scan much faster. I just place the scanner over the book pages I need to scan and not the other way round. Overall I was very pleased.

I have owned several scanners, including some solid Agfa scanners and wanted to use this scanner to scan some old books without harming them, so the fact that I could place the scanner over the book was the deciding factor.
I was surprised at how fast the scanner works for OCR, compared to my Agfa scanners, but then I havent compared it to many other recent scanners.
It worked well for my purposes. I use Omnipage 14 which is superior to Read Iris 8 (supplied), at first impression. Still Read Iris did reasonably well on an old book with yellow pages, but failed miserably on my income tax notification. Omnipage did a *lot* better.
There was banding when the scanner is not perfectly flat on the subject and I noticed that the depth of field is very limited, especially at high resolution, but this is unavoidable with this kind of technology. Scanners with a lens like the Agfa avoid this kind of problem, but you can't put them to the same use. They are bulky.

All in all I am satisfied.

Allow yourself to consider this wretched product only if, like me, you can promise yourself to use it solely for simple text scanning, you can find it for under $30 or so, and you have ready access to a scanner that actually works. Otherwise heed the many warnings from other reviewers. If you rely on this thing to scan graphics or photos, the banding and generally lousy image quality will induce the kind of regret normally reserved for those who allowed themselves to be photographed wearing those fluorescent legwarmers back in 1983.

I know a bit about scanners, I've used two of these HP see-throughs for thousands of scans, and I don't expect the software that comes with peripherals to be five-star stuff. But the software with these HP scanners is just astonishingly bad. And I don't mean the extra photo-editing software, but the basic driver stuff that you can't easily avoid. I wrestle and wrestle to get a kinda-works solution. It takes an amazing amount of fussing around, and then it doesn't do what you just told it to do. The hardware is fine, but the software is just unbelievably incompetent. A very shoddy, bait-and-switch, rip-off kind of product. Its designers should be replaced with professionals.

This is a competent scanner although a bit awkward to use and not nearly as easy to use as a Canon. BUT I like it since I can store it on its side next to my tower computer. It scans well, is very slow to warm up and the OCR software with it is worth more than the scanner itself. The HP software, like most all HP software is the weak link with all their products. I only install the basic driver on their products to avoid all the bloatware that is totally unnecessary. For the price this is a fine scanner.

It's worth the price - that is, it's worth about an eighth the value of a regular HP Scanner. The only advantage I've found to this cheap model is when you lay it flat on a table without the lid, it's somewhat less awkward to scan pages of bound books. Since it's laying relatively flat, it's easier to keep the book positioned straight. With my older, bigger HP scanner, the book would move out of straight too easily, you'd have to anchor it or weigh it down. The Scanjet 4600 is not perfect for this either, just 50% less awkward. In every other way it's a lower quality scanner than the old ones. You can't scan small objects at high resolution; for instance, on my old scanner I could lay a piece of jewelry or a coin on the scanner, set to 600 dpi, and the result looked like a close-up photograph with perfect focus. I tried that with several things on this Scanjet 4600, and it can not handle it, so it divides the image into strips that aren't even aligned, with the edges out of focus, so the resulting image is useless. Also, it generates a far more severe scanner pattern than any scanner I've used. You need pretty good software to clean that up (I use a very old program called PhotoMagic which has a "Remove Pattern" effect; you probably can't get that any more). I'm very disappointed because it sure looks cool, just doesn't do the quality job you need for hobbies and goofing around, let alone any sort of serious professional work. What ever possessed HP to market such a piece of junk when they have old products that work 8 times better? Could they have manufactured a huge surplus of them before they knew anything was wrong? Or just decided to start selling junk?