EPSON Perfection V300 Photo B11B193081 4800 dpi 48bit USB Interface Flatbed Scanner

Pros: Short learning curve. Works as expected. Nice output. Fairly quiet in operation. Included USB cable. Straightforward installation. Includes a slide / negative holder.

Cons: Default settings may not be suitable, but they're easy enough to change, so no egg off.

Other Thoughts: I bought this as an early Christmas gift for my mostly non-technical crafty wife. As wonderful as she is, about the only thing that sets her off is when tech products don't work right or are hard to use. This scanner has given her no reason to complain, and she uses it frequently.

Pros: Included jig used for slides or film that has a stash away slot is a real plus. Lid unhinges for bulky items if needed.

Cons: Not much.

Other Thoughts: This is 4th scanner I have personally owned. I have experience with Visoneer, HP and Canon. I liked this Epson the best compared to the others so far.

Pros: All those slides gathering dust can now be scanned and shared! The software is actually pretty good at bringing out the color of old faded or yellowed slides. I have scanned probably 600-700 slides already and at 4 at a time, it is definitely faster than I expected. Even at 1200 res it goes rather quickly. Remember that slides are called film positives with this product. I also like how it will automatically save the scans as jpg files where you selected them to be saved. Definitely saves me some steps.

Cons: The included slide tray fits 35mm, 126, 110 slides but the automatic sensing only works well with the rectangular film 35mm slides. For our old slides with the square Kodak 126 film slides, there is a different process but it still works really well, albeit more slowly since it is more manual. The software doesn't work well for all photos...you really need to just use the effects where they help. I just love how easy it is to turn an effect on or off before you do the final scan. Over time you really get a feel for what to use to get the best picture.

Other Thoughts: I am extremely happy with my purchase and have spread the word.

Pros: A fast, quiet, high resolution scanner for documents, photos, negatives and slides that comes with great OCR software for a low price.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I was using an Epson Perfection 1660 Photo scanner. I recently installed Windows 7 64-bit. There are no 64-bit drivers for my old scanner and I was on the line as to whether to run my scanner in XP mode or buy a new one. The V300 is a much better scanner with higher resolution, it's quieter, faster and comes with an OCR software package that is worth more than I paid for the scanner. I'm so glad that I made the decision to purchase.

Pros: Never got to use it, broken on arrival.

Cons: UPS dropped it off in only the Epson box it comes in. The box is very flimsy, hardly any packaging material to protect it during shipment. Even if I hadn't opened it up and found three large cracks running across the glass panel I still would have called just to complain about lack of proper packaging.

Other Thoughts: I have ordered a computer tower, two monitors, and various other items from Newegg and never had a problem with the packaging or damage during shipment before. I asked for a refund because the customer service agent said there would be no difference in packaging if they sent me another. I won't risk having to deal with sending back another.

Pros: Allows you to scan negatives. Software included integrates with Photoshop well.

Negative trays store on the lid.

Cons: I haven't done any heavy duty scanning with negatives so none that I can think of.

Other Thoughts: I'm a graphic designer. When I was in college back in the 90's- I had a PowerMac & a SCSI Epson Scanner. The PowerMac died before the scanner did & I migrated to a PC & didn't get a SCSI controller since they are expensive.

Instead, I got an HP scanner with the PC that I had bought at the time. This time the tables were turned & the scanner died before the PC.

Knowing my previous Epson scanner still works I went with the same brand hoping to get the same quality that I got with the 1st scanner that I had- which to my knowledge still worked since it was stored with the storage/moving rod in place [yes it came with one where as new scanners don't] in a plastic bag.

Contrary to what others are reporting, it does scan at higher resolutions. Keep in mind that scan speeds at higher resolutions are greatly dependent on your PC configuration- faster CPU + more RAM = faster scan times

Pros: I found this a breeze to set up and use. I have done 600 photos so far and it has been excellent. I have just started doing slides and they come out beautiful on 800 dpi. Works very well for doing multiple photos at once and the built in photo corrections work very well. It is super quiet when scanning. I love that the slide/negative holder stores in the lid.

Cons: I have had a couple instances where, after a couple hours of scanning, it gives me "scanner has stopped working" errors but if I turn it off and give it a break it picks back up fine. As others have said, the slide and negative holder does seems delicate but has not been a problem. It does have an issues with slides where this image is not the "standard" size but it is easy enough to work around if you pay attention to orientation when you put the slide it.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I am very pleased with this scanner and would definitely recommend it.

Pros: at low resolution settings, it's relatively fast

the software interface isn't too bad

Cons: the software interface isn't too good

if you want to scan at high resolution such as 4800 dpi, you will be unable to scan a regular size 4x6 photo. It fails with an error that says "Image Size is too Large. Reduce the Resolution or Scale setting or decrease the size of the selected area to within 21000 x 30000 pixels."

So it looks like this scanner is unable to scan any image when the raw file exceeds about 1.75 GB. I called tech support and they gave me to a nice level II technician who had no solution. I have plenty of free RAM, with even more RAM available via the Windows SWAP file, and my hard drive has almost 1TB free, so it appears to be a hardware limitation of the scanner.

Also, in the preview, you can hit this button to automatically crop so it will scan only the photo or document area without a bunch of white space around the image. Unfortunately, this auto crop function almost never works. It crops way too much or too little.

Other Thoughts: This works great as a high resolution scanner so long as you only scan small postage stamps. If you want to scan a photo or an entire page at very high resolution, this is not the scanner for you because it won't work.

Not a big deal but the lid of the scanner doesn't close tight against the glass so wrinkled documents such as receipts don't get pressed flat and they look very wrinkled when scanned.

Pros: Made great scans of small black and white photos while I had the unit. The unit has been out for repair for about 6 weeks now. Another 60 to 90 days to get new repair parts.

Cons: The optical sensor was defective right out of the box. That wasn't discovered until trying to scan larger photos. Instead of returning the unit to Newegg, I took it to the local Epson repair shop (warranty repair). They replaced the optical sensor, but broke the drive mechanism. They're telling me it'll be 60 to 90 days to get new parts for the repair. The repair shop doesn't seem to have a clean room for doing their repairs. Any dust and dirt floating around may find its way inside the scanner during the repair.

Other Thoughts: Thoroughly test all the product features when it arrives. You're better off returning the unit for an exchange than having Epson repair it.

I heard that Epson has a policy that they won't give you a new unit. They'll keep repairing the existing unit, until ???

Pros: Compact, easy to understand and use, with simple software setup. All the good things have already been said. Considering the scan time, slides have come out crisp and clear. Dust has been a problem for many users but I found a simple way around that. Take a freshly laundered micro cloth and just wipe each side if the slide prior to scaning. No dust!!

Cons: The only negative outside of scaning only 4 slides at a time is the slide holder itself. It's a little on the flimsy side but if you use caution it should be fine.