HP ScanJet 4600 See-Thru Flatbed Scanner (Q3112A)

First of all, I have a excellent Epson Perfection flat bed that I use for most document scanning, and the HP4600, though it will work for this is not it's strong point. In fact, the separate base for it is sort of a joke and not even worth using or necessary, for that matter.

The one, huge, advantage the HP 4600 has over flat beds is the ability to scan larger objects and 3d objects where you can see exactly the area you want to scan. I use mine with an inexpensive 10' USB extension cable so when I need to scan large documents, I just plug in the USB and power cable, and I walk across the room to my drafting table to scan sections of large architectural plans, or large drawings, or paintings. I can see exactly the sections I want to scan and then I can easily stitch them together in Photoshop. I usually scan at 300dpi for printing to 11"x17" paper and the HP is is pretty quick, not as fast as my EP, but fast enough to get the job done quickly and the scans are excellent, I was surprised at the quality.
I had two of these scanners at different work sites. I'm selling one right now. The only problem I had was the USB/power cord on one went bad, but HP mailed me a new one and they are inexpensive.
Great scanner for specialty scanning!

My scanjet had worked just fine but suddenly cannot communicate when I try to start it up. I just installed it on a new computer and get the same error. HP never follows up on my request for support.

I've had mine since 2004 and haven't had any problem except trying to remove that Scan-to-the-Web icon from my desktop. I'm currently using it from both my XP laptop and new Vista laptop and no problems. The Vista driver is a basic, just make it work driver though and that's all I require. In all fairness to the many terrible reviews here, I've only used it as an ordinary scanner to make copies of things to print or save to a file, etc. No photo tricks or anything like that so perhaps I'm avoiding what others have complained about. It has worked well 100% of the time and my personal feeling is that, bad software or not, its the best designed scanner I've ever seen. The storage possibilities are excellent...on the desk, on a shelf...small footprint and so much more attractive than those flatbed tanks. Mine is stored on a shelf above my desk and I just either scan from the shelf or take off the front and scan on my desk...how more convenient can you get than that. I'm the exception here but I've never had a single problem with this scanner since 2004. I truly dread the day when I'll have to replace this vertical scanner with a huge, ugly flatbed monster one day.

I bought the HP ScanJet 4600 because I need to scan material from books. The see-through concept is perfect for teachers like me. However, the scanner warms up very slowly. The HP software is astonishingly bad. (Only install the basic driver. Skip Readiris.) The scanner only does simple black and white text scans reliably. After about a year, the hardware stopped working. (More toxic waste for the landfill.) Thank you Carly Fiorina, HP chairman, (given a going away present $21 million when canned in 2005.) I really like spending my meager salary on trashware.

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.