HP Scanjet 5590 Document Scanner

All I can say is WOW. And I mean WOW! Where do I start... well first of all I had no problem hooking it up which is nice. I downloaded the drivers and software off hp website instead of using the cd because I always want to get the latest versions. I was iffy about buying this thing because of the reviews but I mean I almost cried when I used it and saw how much time it saved me. I run a business out of my house, insurance to be exact, and I each application I write has about 10 or so pages give or take. Usually I dreaded scanning the pages and have actually been putting it off for a long time because it would take so long for with my old flat bed scanner naming this page flipping it over etc etc. I would use spend long nights doing it with a glass of brandy. I hooked this thing up and with the automatic feeder and the ability to default it to .pdf like the company prefers and even the ability to scan front and back without having to do anything extra accept have a box checked is amazing. I literally just finished scanning two policies in less than 5 minutes and took the time to get up and go tell my wife how happy I was during the time. I have done several policies since then and have not had a single problem with the auto feeder like most people have, maybe I am just lucky. Or maybe it is because I only put about 10 sheets in at a time I not sure how many the other people are putting in but I absolutely love this scanner. It is my second favorite business item I have now next to GPS. I don't even want to think about business life without either one of those things.

Nice piece of hardware for the price, but no tech support whatsoever to correct problems: 1. Five buttons on front have no labels. Either that or the back lighting doesn't work. 2. Scan software insists on appending sequence numbers to file names with no way to shut off. 3. Typical software for a hardware company: geeky and hard to figure out.

I have owned an earlier version of this same scanner for 19 years and the duplex feature stopped working. I expect this one to work another 20 years.

Sorry for the juvenile review title, but there's really no other way to put into words the frustration that I have experienced from trying to work with this stupid thing. The interface is cumbersome and largely unnecessary. I bought it because, at the time, it was just about the only reasonably-priced multi document feeding scanner I could find. I don't need this multi document feed for office work, like most people; I need it for animation. If you're at all familiar with the process of animation, it requires that MANY MANY MANY pictures be used, and I was looking forward to cutting down on my work time by having the scanner do most of my paper loading for me. Oh, foolish little me! Not only does the paper jam 60% of the time, but the scanner always wants to scan it into the stupid software that came bundled with the scanner. So even if I'm trying to scan an image directly into Adobe Photoshop, I first have to go through the "HP Gallery" or whatever, copy the picture, and bring it in that way. I set it so that it automatically scans into Photoshop, but when I turn off my computer, it forgets its new instructions and goes back to uploading everything in the HP Gallery. It eats up time, desktop space, and PATIENCE. Oh yes, and the TWAIN drivers that it supposedly comes with won't work on my Macintosh. Sure, it specifies that NOW, but back then when I was doing tireless research on the product, it didn't tell me that you can only get the drivers on a PC, so I basically wasted $500.00 on a piece of machinery that isn't compatible with my platform, my animation program, nor my sanity. HP wasn't much help; they advised me to download some free software from their site that would install the TWAIN drivers that I'd need to work with my animation program, even though the software was originally for a digital camera and not a scanner. "It should still work, even though it's not technically for that hardware," says the guy. Well, no, quite frankly. It does not, in fact, work. All that it does now is confuse my scanner for a digital camera and refuse to upload anything into Photoshop or any other program for some bizarre reason. In uploading the digital camera software, by the way, it completely wiped the existence of the scanning software that I already had on my computer so that I had to manually upload it again. I can't wait to sell this thing and get at least a portion of my money back. This thing is such a headache, please don't waste your time with it.

This is the 2nd unit I've owned. The 1st one I had for many years until the lamp started going bad, and the ADF was damaged a couple years ago. This brand new unit works great! I couldn't be more pleased. Not only did it cost way less than the 1st one ($300+ vs. $80), but it was cheaper than having the 1st one repaired.

This is really not a horrible product. HP claims on its site that this scanner is compatible with Mac OSX 10.6 Not until after I got the scanner and tried to download the software that I discovered HP did not plan to release 10.6 software til the coming spring. Besides that i'm sure it works great with other computers...The duplex is really truly slow... unlike other duplex scanners that scan both sides of the page at the same time, this scanner scans one side, then flips the page around, scans the other side, flips it around AGAIN to spit it back out the other end....quality was decent, scans were typically straight, and clear...file sizes were larger than normal, but that was HP's software... Instead I decided to use my brother All in one laser copy fax to scan everything in using the Automatic Document Feeder....It was only $99 compared to HP's $259, its faster, and produces smaller PDF sizes....PLUS...works PERFECTLY with Mac OSX 10.6-

When it worked it worked, but so often it didn’t work. Turned the pictures sideway. Made them blurry, etc. A real citron. I tried 2 of them and they both gave the same results

This is pretty poor, I'd advise you to stay clear of it. It's bulky, it's slow, it jams, it's just awful Get a Fujistu ScanSnap instead!

I have a HP Officejet 7000 printer and decided to upgrade my HP scanner to one with a ADF. The Scanjet 5590 is a nice piece of kit BUT the associated software sucks. I am running Windows XP. The software would not load from the CD, contacted the technical department, they linked into the back of my system to sort it out. I had been on the phone 7 hours over three day while they acesssed my computer, when enough was enough and returned the scanner to Amazon. I was eventually told by HP technical that the scanner driver would not load because I had loaded the FULL printer software?? Same company products and incompatable software??? It was a nice paperweight.