As a technical consultant i used many scanners the last fifteen years. I'm also using them for my work and home needs. The latest HP 7400 scanner is very interesting as it replaces the well known model 6300. 7400 has real ultra high resolution (2400 dpi) and an extra second CCD (600 dpi) for fast previews and lo-res scans. I really like the extra color depth of 48bit though not useful for everyone or day to day work.
PrecisionScan 3.0 is the new version of the well known HP scanning twain driver/application. Nothing special here. It just works without many problems (it crashed twice on my win2000 installation) I have no more to say on that as i really cannot understand why HP offers this huge (80MB) PrecisionScan driver/app while other scanners like Epson come with a simple small (4MB) twain driver that work better, faster and is downloadable from their web site.
HP has a support site too but it's useless as they offer no updates for most of their software. You can only call them for replacement CDs etc. Those people in HP must be from other planet. Last year i asked them for precision scan pro 2.01 update. I had version 2.0 which was non compatible with Windows 2000. After some months (!) they answered that they cannot put the updates online and i must call their UK sales dept for a new CD. What support !!!
As i know they still have the same support policy...

The worst thing on 7400 scanner is its build quality. Their last model (6300) was build as usual, metal chassis and plastic frame. 7400 is just plastic without any metal. Even motors are fixed on simple plastic cones. I really hate those plastic expensive bricks.

And the worst news now...
Although 7400 is a very large scanner (A4 + legal size) it uses an external AC power supply pack (!!!) Yes that's true, an external (quite small Delta) PSU, just like your old small tape recorder.
Sorry HP but this cannot be your high end business scanner, it's build like a toy... I checked latest Epson scanners as well as HP's older models (6000) and all of them have internal PSU.

Anyway that's it folks.
Scanjet 7400 scans very well and very fast and produces excellent photo copies. If you don't mind HP's support policy, build quality or external PSU then you can try it, it really scans very well...

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 470
Interface: USB