Umax Astra 3400 Flatbed Scanner

...The Umax 3400 works great for us. I love the Copy and Scan buttons on the front of the unit. Color depth and resolution are outstanding. Installation took about 15 minutes and went off without a hitch. The unit is much smaller than the old E6, fits nicely on my desktop.

I've made copies using my Brother HL-1250 printer, and they come out crisp and clear. Much cheaper than buying a personal copier, and I didn't even have to set up software to get the copy function going!

I really wanted to love my new scanner. I had owned a UMAX scanner years ago when I still had a Mac and had no problems so I felt comfortable trying this one. Now with a PC laptop, I was all geared up but found when the Astranet3400 arrived that I had no place to go. The User's Manual contained several errors, including the fact that you cannot use the email function if you have Netscape. The PhotoShop software did not work with Windows 98 but at least I had other software I could use, an option which many folks won't have. The scanner came with 2 cds, one which contains Adobe 3.0, the other Adobe 4.0 and you have to uninstall 3.0 before you can go any further. I did manage to scan for about 3 days and tried to work around the bugs. Then, all kinds of error messages started popping up. Email tech support said I needed to uninstall and reinstall the whole shebang, which I did. The errors continued and then finally, it failed to scan altogether. I defragged, uninstalled, reinstalled, uninstalled, reinstalled... After 2 wks of lost time and energy, it is being returned. Too many bugs, too many conflicts, too many broken promises. It may be defective, frankly I am not willing to reorder. I ended the relationship before either of us could be hurt any more...boo hoo.

The box says Windows 98/2000 or above. After spending 8 hours on installation problems and working with 3 tech support people, the 4th tech support person told me that the bundled Adobe Photoshop software does not work with Windows Me. They had spent a month trying to get it to work, but gave up. I had mentioned to each of the previous tech people that I was using Windows Me. They need to get the message out to their own staff and buyers that it doesn't work with Me.

This is a wonderful scanner. PROS: - USB interface - scans really fast (about 20-30 seconds!) - easy to use push button for scanning, copying, or custom (email, fax, or OCR). - around $90 - $20 rebate = $70. - very quiet

CONS: - custom button only works with certain software for emails. - OCR Presto software to use with the push-button is not accurate . I use the Omnipage that it came with for OCR which is very accurate but it can not be used with the push-button (at least I haven't figured out how to do it).