A decent, durable scanner
Written: Mar 16 '07
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Great text and line art scanning, good picture quality and speed.
Cons: Software leaves something to be desired for; hard to clean underside of glass.
The Bottom Line: This scanner is a workhorse. It comes in handy all the time and never rarely disappoints me.
|
|
|
| wvhokie55's Full Review: Hewlett Packard ScanJet 5300C Flatbed Scanner |
I purchased this scanner from Dell along with a laptop. As I remember, it cost about $200 back in 2001.
Setup
I used the USB connector, though I think there may be some other types available on the back. Installation could not be any simpler, and it was up an running in a few minutes.
Features
The 5300c has a nice-sized bed that can accommodate a variety of different media (single sheets, books, pictures, etc.) It scans in color, of course.
This scanner comes with software that lets you use the scanner like a copier or fax machine. To do this, you simply push the buttons on the front of the scanner corresponding the function you wish to use. Copying works especially well - sometimes it's hard to to tell the original from the copy, especially when you're copying handwritten stuff. I have never used the fax function, though, so I can't vouch for that.
There's also an e-mail button, which is nothing more than a scan-to-PDF program. This feature works okay, though the files tend to be very large. You also can't edit the PDF files once they've been created unless of course you have the full version of Acrobat. This can be a problem, because sometimes the first scan or two doesn't turn out right and you have to back and scan each page over again, which can be a huge hassle. If you scan a lot of multi-page documents, you should probably invest in the full version of Acrobat or something similar.
Like any scanner, you can scan pictures and save them or import them directly to your favorite image editing program. I've had a couple problems with this, mainly because the PrecisionScan software thinks it knows better than you what you're trying to scan. Sometimes you have to scan something an extra time or two to get it right.
Speed and Quality
You can scan a full page in about 20 or 30 seconds (at whatever their default resolution is - I don't know off the top of my head.) The image quality is quite good...sometimes too good. I've scanned in pictures to discover scratches that I didn't even notice on the prints themselves.
Durability
I've had this scanner for nearly six years now and it still works great. I've never had to adjust the brightness level or anything. I've moved several times in the last couple of years and the scanner hasn't complained at all.
Gripes
When I upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP, the scanner would do this strange thing where the first scan of the day would come out completely black. Once I got a new computer with XP, this stopped happening. HP could never figure out why this occurred.
My scanner has some sort of buildup or dirt on the underside of the scanning surface. While this doesn't seem to cause any problems with the image quality, it is annoying. HP provides instructions on how you can fix it, but they're pretty involved and I've never gotten up the guts to do it.
This scanner is also supposed to be supported by Linux, however the particular model that I have does not work (apparently it has slightly different firmware than the ones that are supported).
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200.00
Interface: USB
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
wvhokie55
|
|
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.