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Photograph: Rick Rizner
HP SCANJET 5530 PHOTOSMART SCANNER 4800DPI 48BIT USB 2.0 (HP (Hewlett-Packard)-Q3871AA2L)
| Scan quality (color/monochrome) | Good/Good |
| Performance | Very good |
| Average 1200-dpi color scan speed | 38 seconds per document |
| Average 300-dpi BW scan speed | 18 seconds per document |
| Features | Very good |
| Max optical resolution | 2400 by 4800 |
| Scan area (inches) | 8.5 by 11.7 |
| Color depth | 48 bits internal; 48 bits external |
| Connection interface(s) | USB 2.0 port |
| Removable lid | Yes |
| Transparency adapter | Included; up to 6 by 1.75 inches |
| Automatic document feeder | Photo feeder |
| Bundled software | HP Photo and Imaging software, Adobe Acrobat Reader, ArcSoft Collage Creator, I.R.I.S. Readiris |
| Overall ease of use | Very good |
| Installation | Outstanding |
| Design | Outstanding |
| Documentation | Good |
| Support quality score | Very good |
| Support policies | One-year limited warranty; 10-hour toll-call support weekdays. |
HP Scanjet 5530 Photosmart
March 30, 2004
The HP Scanjet 5530 Photosmart has the same automatic photo feeder as the Scanjet 5500e model it replaces. The feeder holds a stack of up to 24 prints (either 4-by-6 or 3-by-5 inches). New to this Scanjet model is ArcSoft Collage Creator, a software application that can be used in tandem with the photo feeder to organize scanned images, to add creative effects, and to provide predesigned layouts for printing. Another notable enhancement is an automatic photo restoration feature, which did a respectable job of correcting faded photos and improving the lackluster color of our test images. This time-saving feature is added to the HP Scanning driver, which provides a basic interface for beginners and easy access to advanced features, such as color and tonal adjustments. Making such adjustments during the actual scan generally results in a crisper and cleaner-looking image than what you might be able to accomplish using photo editing software to correct a post-scanned image.
The photo feeder on the lid contributes to the scanner's total weight of 12.1 pounds (it's 7.2 pounds without the feeder), which is a little on the heavy side compared to most of the small-office scanners we've reviewed in the past year. Like its predecessor, the 5530 comes with 10 shortcut buttons for quickly launching common scanning tasks, and with a transparency adapter that can scan up to three 35mm slides (or a single filmstrip) at once. In addition to common quick-start buttons such as Scan, E-mail, and Share-To-Web, it also offers photocopier-like controls for scanning directly to your printer: You can choose color or black-and-white, plus the number of copies (via a two-character LCD). These features contribute to the 5530's somewhat high price of $230.
The USB 2.0-equipped 5530 placed first overall among our May 2004 batch of small-office models for scanning speeds and performed almost identically to HP's $299 5550c. It scanned a 7.5-by-10.5-inch, black-and-white document at 300 dpi in just under 18 seconds and handled a 4-by-5-inch monochrome photo at 600 dpi in 22.50 seconds--trailing only HP's Scanjet 8200 corporate scanner.
Our image-quality jury awarded the Scanjet 5530 a rating of Good for its overall image quality. It earned high scores for its printed version of a 600-dpi, 4-by-5-inch black-and-white photo. It did a fine job of reproducing the original's contrast, brightness, and shading. But other test results, including prints made from the 5530's color and black-and-white line art scans, were judged average or below average, due to the lack of detail.
Upshot: The Scanjet 5530's easy-to-use software and photo feeder will suit people who have scads of snapshots to scan, but occasional users may prefer a less expensive model.
Richard Jantz
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User Reviews From Around the Web
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Reviewed by: ionrunner
Strengths: Good scan quality
Weaknesses: Photo feeder does not work right. HP Software is atrocious. Photos run through feeder always cropped wrong--apparently unfixable.
Overall: Other reviewers who gave this scanner a one-star rating got it right. Read their reviews for a detailed description of problems. My experience pretty much dittos theirs. Let me start by saying that I am a really big fan of HP products, and had high hopes for this scanner. I didn't mind the size or weight of this unit at all. The problem is is that the primary reason to buy this scanner is for the automatic photo feeder, and it plain just doesn't work! Fuji paper photos don't feed at all. The photos that do scan are always cropped incorrectly: part of the image is cropped, always on the same sides, and part of the scanner is included as part of every scan. According to HP's support site, their is no remedy for this problem.And the HP scanning software could have been written by 12 monkeys during their lunch break...it's horrendous! There is no excuse for a company with the expertise and experience that HP has to produce software with such a poor interface, and it doesn't even work right. I don't know how many times I spent an hour baby-feeding photos through the scanner, only to find out it didn't save a single, solitary image. Where the @%$!* are they??? It somehow managed to rename some of my other images, though, that I had saved on my hard drive...what the **!?? I searched all over the web for reviews and comments on this torture device, and anybody whose actually used it for any length of time and tried to get help from HP got bupkis! This thing is defective and HP should step up to the plate and give buyer's their money back or something that works like it says it will on the box!
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Reviewed by: erbug
Strengths: Excellent just as a flatbed scanner. Quick, nice scans of pictures and documents. Easy setup. But...
Weaknesses: The HP software really makes the scanner useless for it's intended purpose.
Overall: This could really be a great product. HP needs to update the software for this scanner. HP's own "explorer window" which by default tkes you to the "MY Pictures" folder, does not allow you to creat a new folder. You have to go in the backdoor by using My Documents and create your own various folders for your pictures. Then reopen HP's program to scan the pictures. OK. You could use XP's scanner wizard which seems to work fine on the first batch of pictures but after the first bacth has run through the scanner the second time the wizard can't detect the pictures in the feeder tray. The only way I've found to get around this is to restart the ocmuter. All-in-all, I oculd have scanned the photos individually with just a plain flatbed scanner quicker.
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