I have always been a huge fan of HP equipment. So much so, that even though I tend to do a lot of Internet research on most of my purchases, I skip this step when an HP product is my target. Lesson learned. I returned my Scanjet 4070 today for another product.

The ScanJet 4070 was a huge disappointment. After doing everything possible to make it work, including 2 customer support calls, I determined it a lost cause.
I bought this primarily for scanning slides. The innovative cover which allows for ease of slide/negative/photo scanning is what caught my attention. The next item of interest was the claim that when loading the special holder with 4 slides, the scanner will automatically recognize the individual slides and give four individual images--a huge benefit when scanning many years of slides! However, this critical feature didn't work--and I'm not sure that HP even knows if it ever will.

After several attempts to get this auto recognition feature to work, customer support gave me a manual way to accomplish this, but it was time intensive. Further to frustrate me, customer support stated on one occasion that although the advertising, the box, and the user's manual all suggest this feature is part of the product; it really doesn't exist. And, he was somewhat snotty about it. ARGGGHHHH! Another customer support rep that I talked to after this agreed with me that the product should do what the manual says it should. At least we know what should do. To his credit, while he couldn't solve the problem, he did at least raise it to his supervisor.

So, why not just do a replacement for another 4070? Easy. This beast is slow. Way slower than any scanner I had used previously. Lots of features, but 2 minutes to scan a couple slides seems extreme. Also, there was a driver download from the web site. A 300MB download! After downloading this monster (fortunately I have high speed) the file was corrupted and wouldn't run anyway. Finally, the last nail in the coffin was a casual review of the product on some of the computer web sites. What a dog. Clearly, there were many many people that were not recommending the 4070. It didn't seem as though any had the exact same problem as me, but it does appear that many are having many problems.

I sure hope that this doesn't mean that HP is losing track of their quality. However, my lesson learned is that I can't go into a store to purchase a product and have the confidence in HP that I once did.


Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 129
Interface: USB