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CNET editors' rating:
3.0 stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating - Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 45 reviews
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Product summary
The good: Built-in transparency backlight is less cumbersome than HP's previous external backlight; integrates software tools; creates attractive opaque-media scans; reasonable price.
The bad: Produces mediocre transparent-media scans; somewhat slow; unintuitive slide holder.
The bottom line: The Scanjet 3570c's lackluster transparency scans won't meet the needs of serious shutterbugs or professionals, but its top-notch opaque-scan quality and low price should satisfy many home users.
Specifications: Type: Flatbed scanner; Optical Resolution: 1200 dpi x 1200 dpi; Scanner interface type: USB; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 08/15/2002
Although Hewlett-Packard's new Scanjet 3570c's $149 price is good for a high-quality consumer-level scanner, this product delivers mixed results. It generates attractive opaque scans from paper-based documents, including photographs, magazine pages, and text from books and business documents. But its scans of transparent media, such as slides and film, are low quality, and its performance is slow, making it suitable only for family snapshots or other casual use. If you want to digitize your vacation photos and slides, save money and get the 3570c. But keep shopping if you seek a bargain scanner for your business or for other high-capacity tasks.
Cons and conveniences
We must commend the 3570c for its cross-platform compatiblity. The 3570c connects to both Macs and PCs over USB 1.1 or 2.0. It supports all Windows versions starting with 98 and Mac OS 9.1 and up.
The Scanjet 3570c's design also offers some real advantages over that of many other scanners. To accommodate thick documents, the scanner's lid slides up on strong hinges or comes off completely. Better still, the backlight, which illuminates transparent media from above the glass, turns itself on automatically when you initiate a transparent scan; other scanners make this process more complicated. A grooved plastic strip above the backlight holds 35mm film carefully by the edges. Unfortunately, it isn't as careful with slides: it forces you to push the slide down into the same grooves, then hook your fingernail under the lip of the frame to pull out the slide, thus risking leaving fingerprints or scratches on the film.
Software on the side
Like all scanners, the 3570c comes with software that helps you run the scanner and manipulate your scans. HP's Photo & Imaging (P&I) software comes with the 3570c to provide a soup-to-nuts toolkit. Its Director module lets you launch a scan, then send it to a printer or directly to another application, such as Microsoft Word. P&I's limited Image Editor also performs basic photo-editing tasks, such as adjusting color balance or brightness and contrast. Send your scans to the Gallery module to produce banners, sticky labels, wallet-sized prints, and other projects.
The jury reaches a verdict
Here's the good news: CNET's image-quality jury found the Scanjet 3570c's opaque captures to be quite attractive. And now the bad news: its transparency scans don't look so hot. The opaque color scans display sharp focus and perfect geometry, though colors look a bit less saturated than they should. The 3570c also captures opaque grayscale images realistically and preserves contrasts well but introduces slight pixelization on fine detail. Slide scans, however, take on a slightly beige cast and soft focus; negatives also appear noticeably out of focus, with distorted colors, almost like ink wash graphics from before the days of offset printing.
In CNET's speed benchmark tests, the 3570c delivered average performance at both low (300dpi) and high resolutions (600dpi). It captured a full page of color at 150dpi in 23.6 seconds; by comparison, CNET's slowest recorded score this year was 43.7 seconds (from Microtek's ScanMaker 4800), and the fastest was 14.4 seconds (from Epson's Perfection 2400 Photo). On a full page of 150dpi gray, the HP scanner performed at the fast end of the scale: 19.5 seconds, compared to the Canon's CanoScan D1250U2F's poky 38.2 seconds and the Epson 2400's speedy 12.4. The 3570c took an acceptable 24.5 seconds to make high-resolution slide scans, compared to 44.4 seconds for Microtek ScanMaker 6700 and 15.1 seconds for Microtek ScanMaker 4800. But on high-resolution negatives, the 3570c clocked a relatively slow 79.3 seconds, compared to 21.9 seconds for Microtek ScanMaker 4800 and 96 for Epson Perfection 2450 Photo.
Cheap support
If you run into trouble with your Scanjet, you'd better hope it happens soon after purchase. The Scanjet 3570c comes with only a 90-day warranty and 90 days of tech support, available through a toll call, Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. MT. Once your time elapses, tech-support calls cost $25 per incident, and you'll have to turn to the 3570c's thorough online manual for inexpensive help. We're disappointed by these meager assistance offerings; Hewlett-Packard once led the industry in technical support but has since pulled in its wings.
If you need to digitize mostly opaque documents, the Scanjet 3570c will provide ease of use, good-quality captures, and reasonable speed for a decent price. For slides and transparencies, though, consider the 3570c a pinch-hitter only, not the scanner on which you'll rely every day.
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Scanner speeds Time, in seconds, to scan in image (shorter bars equal better performance)
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| In CNET Labs' color-negative, color-slide, and color-scan speed tests, the HP Scanjet 3570c kept pace with the speedy Microtek ScanMaker 4800; it even outran the ScanMaker in the color scan. The 3570c also beat the Canon CanoScan D1250U2F by a safe margin. But it fell way behind both of those rival printers in the color-negative scans. As for output quality, the Scanjet 3570c delivered lackluster results with color-slide and color-negative output. We recommend the 3570c primarily for opaque-media scans, such as photographs and text documents. |
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 45 reviews
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