HP L1910A#B1H Scanjet 5590 Digital Flatbed Scanner
by Hewlett Packard
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List Price: Our Price: Calculated in a shopping cart Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of HP L1910A#B1H Scanjet 5590 Digital Flatbed Scanner
Customer Review: A very good all round scanner
Summary: 4 Stars
I have read some of the negative reviews, but I disagree with many of them. We've been using this scanner and several similar models in our offices for more than 2 years and think it does a very good all round job. It's hard to get a scanner that does all of the things this one does. It even has a duplex paper feed scanner which works pretty well and has saved us heaps of time (just put the document in the scanner and come back and it's done). Occasionally documents do get caught - you need to ensure that the paper path is kept clean. Some of the documents scanned had sticky edges that were binding to the rollers and to the paper path. There is a cloth you can pass through or use glass wipes carefully to remove the residue. Also we have had problems with unusual paper types such as glossy and thick. Scanned photos and slides come out above average. We did have problems initially with the software freezing up - which turned out to be system utilities (System mechanic etc) removing a .tmp file during their activities. After we excluded the directory with the .tmp files (in program files for HP), the software has been working fine. HP could improve the software provided and make it more seamless. We would also suggest that you use software such as ABBY fine reader to supplement the below average software bundled with the scanner. Overall, this scanner is perfect for a small office or home. It does need a little configuration and tweaking and we would not recommend that beginners buy it. We're very happy with it and recent low prices mean good value for money. HP's onto a winner with this genre and if they can iron out some of the quality issues regarding the paper feeder, the next generations should be even better.Customer Review: Terrible, terrible, terrible scanner
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this scanner refurbished, my first document feeder scanner for home use. All of the problems that these other users have had I am having in abundance also.
SOFTWARE PROBLEMS--INSTALLATION
After installing the software onto my IC power laptop and my e-machines home computer, I noticed that both computers were terribly slow. After tinkering with both computers, I finally erased the HP software from both computers--problem solved. It was the HP software which caused my IC power laptop to be so slow--particularly the IRIS software. I then reloaded the software onto my laptop, without the IRIS program. Problem solved.
Later, I wanted to re-install the IRIS software onto my laptop. I can't. The CD won't let me. It freezes during installation. I have unistalled the HP software and I still can't install the CD. The HP software will not allow you to scan existing PDF files on your computer, the IRIS software will. It would have been nice if HP would have had one program not several to take care of your scanning needs.
Because of the terrible CD buggy problem, I now only have the HP scanner software on my home computer, and I can't reinstall it on my laptop.
SOFTWARE PROBLEMS--CRASHING
On my older emachines home computer, if I document scan (ORC) more than 100 pages, the software freezes up. This means that I have to unplug the scanner, or restart my computer. Sometimes I lose all of the scans, sometimes I don't. But this freeze happens 95% of the time, which slows down my scanning ability.
HARDWARE PROBLEMS
This is the worst problem.
This is my first document scanner, so I can't compare my experience to owning other document feeders. I am pleased with the document feeder itself--as long as the paper is clean and unwrinkled in anyway. If the paper I feed into the feeder is wrinkled or creased in anyway, the feeder will jam up, and jam up badly.
With copy machines, you can lift all of the mechanisms to pull out the paper, without ripping the paper--not with the HP 5590. Often the piece of paper that gets stuck, is wrinkled, or worse yet--gets ripped in the document feeder.
Type in "paper jam" "hp scanjet 5590" in google and see what the results are. Horror stories from hundreds of dissatisfied customers. Particularly interesting is the complaints on HP's own website, entitled "Scanjet 5590 ADF paper jam"
Excerpts:
"...The employee in charge of the scanning process was very patient since he was able to scan 34000+ documents with an average of one jam per 20-25 documents. I phoned HP Support and they sent me another ADF but that did nothing to solve the problem. In the end, it was either buy a new scanner or get used to this one...."
One book I was scanning (both sides) was not cut properly, and their was still glue on some pages--the scanner would eat and ruin the pages.
The second book I was scanning (both sides) of a book with slight water damage on the bottom--one page got stuck. I printed out how to remove a blocked page. I then attempted to remove this page, as the instructions explained.
Type in google:
"HP Scanjet - Clearing Jams from the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) for the HP Scanjet 4500c and 5550c Series"
Instead of having rollers which can be lifted, like copiers, the HP scanjet 5590 tightly holds onto the paper, which means you rip the paper or wrinkle it when you remove the paper.
Well, I ripped my paper, and a small piece, about 1 inch by 1 inch, remained stuck inside. I have had the scanner for less than a year, and the refurbished scanner is warranted for a year--just like a new scanner. But I didn't want to wait for weeks to get my scanner back.
HARDWARE PROBLEMS--how to remove jammed paper from your printer
There are three screws which you have to remove to take off the scanning hardware from the plastic base. These three screws are specially made so that only techs or those with special tools can do it with ease. (They are not phillips of flat head, but a star shape)
My son and I fought those screws and finally removed all three:
*2 on the side, and
*one holding the silver metal plate in the middle.
We then went to Wal-Mart and replaced those screws with normal screws. [NOTE: You may not have to remove the two screws on the side, only the middle screw holding down the metal silver plate]
There are two pieces of plastic that you have to remove to get into the rollers to remove the paper--there is a black roller that looks like a typewritter roller, and there is a green piece of plastic below this, which arches slightly upwards in a slight loop. You can't remove this green piece of plastic until you unscrew the bolt that holds down the silver metal plate, in the middle of the printer.
One you remove these three bolts (2 on the side, one on the middle) and the 2 pieces of plastic and the metal peice, you then have to get tweezers, plyers, and a sewing needle to remove the paper.
It took my son 20 minutes to remove the paper. His back was hurting. I rewarded him with praise and 5 bucks.
SUMMATION:
The HP ScanJet 5590 is a terrible scanner. The software is buggy and unreliable and the hardware is terrible.
Customer Review: When it works it's great
Summary: 2 Stars
The trouble is it is temperamental.
I've had one of these for nearly two years, first one replaced under warranty - excellent service, running with Mac OS x 10.4.
The problem seems to be with the drivers - last update July 2005 - and every day I have to reset the preferences file as I don't use the defaults and it forgets. Then I perhaps have to unplug unplug it, start again and if you're lucky away we go, usually alright for the rest of the day!
At the moment it will only work on Automatic Feed, not single sheet.
It works mechanically with my Windows xp system but there again I can't get pdfs out of it despite having full Acrobat -so back to the Mac. Not for the first time, I deleted all drivers and prefs & reloaded but no better. Ho hum new Fuji scanner beckons.
Customer Review: Exemplifies the demise of HP quality
Summary: 1 Stars
Buggy hardware and software. Software has multiple patches trying to correct multiple problems, but most of the patches don't correct the problems. Scanner "locks up"frequently. Tech support from India was worthless. Much time was wasted uninstalling and reinstalling software to get the scanner to work. The first scanner stopped working and was replaced by HP, then the replacement scanner stopped working outside the warranty period. My experience with this scanner a dead-on-arrival HP media card reader and the premature demise of my HP 3200 All In One printer have ended my use of HP peripherals and products in my home and office.Customer Review: bad software!
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this scanner to scan my notes in pencil into PDF, utilizing the feeder, possibly in duplex mode. I have not ran into any hardware problems, but have ran into continuous problems with getting images out of the scanner. By now, it is obvious that I cannot get my page images directly into Acrobat (3.0-7.0). It is further obvious that it is not possible to simply press a button on the scanner and get a satisfactory copy out of the printer. However, using different software options it is possible to build somewhat painful workarounds.
The software consists of 4 engines driving the scanner and of different software packages: HP Imaging Director and Gallery, Presto PageManager and IRIS ReadIris. The installation advises to install one of the engines (Commercial TWAIN) only for business purposes. The advice is pretty ridiculous since that is the only engine giving you full control over the scanner and someone buying a scanner of this complexity is likely experienced and interested in having some control over the scanning process. ReadIris is an OCR software and I have not tested it beyond the fact that it can scan an image. I further have not tried to scan negatives.
In general, the software does not function as it should, with the HP branded software being the worst. It is possible that the HP supplied engines are at the root of problems with non-HP software. Different results are obtained for different pairing of software package and engine and some pairings may produce desired results. When trying to scan an image, most pairings produce a streaked output such as if water were poured over an inkjet printout. When Acrobat is paired with the Commercial TWAIN, it cannot scan more than one page. If it is paired with the WIA engine, the scanned darkness cannot be controlled (settings are there - just have no impact) and usually an error, possibly in communication, disables the scanning process. With another engine, the scanning goes into the default mode without any dialogue. I bought the newest Acrobat version 7.0 hoping that it could solve the problems but those appear to be independent of the Acrobat version. I never had such problems using Acrobat with other scanners.
I found the PageManager to interact best with the scanner, through the Commercial TWAIN engine. After scanning, I can print the pages to PDF (free software for the purpose is available) or to the regular printer. The problem with the last is that the size comes a little bit off compared to the original.
The positive of the scanner is that you can stack pages placing them in the feeder and go away.
In the follow-up, testing further software, I found the PaperPort 9.0 to interact well with the scanner, through the Commercial TWAIN engine. On the other hand, VueScan cannot scan more than a page and yields mediocre images.