HP ScanJet 4670 See-Thru Vertical Scanner

I would have given zero star in this rating - but the minimum is 1 star. Anyways! I bought this scanner without checking users review because I was so confidence with the quality of HP products - I've used some and was pleased with them. But this one product turned out to be a great disappointment! I really should have checked users review first; I regretted buying this scanner.

Vertical banding always appear whenever I scan something that are: not bright/white colored, not 100% flat against the scanner glass - even something like a page of a thin magazine. This is a fatal, unforgiveable flaw in a scanner - especially at this price. What good is a scanner when the only thing it can scan well is a single sheet of paper with white background - it can't even scan a page of a thin book or magazine well. Banding always appears.

And what a misleading advert they give on the brochure: that this scanner is capable of scanning "books on the bookshelf and paintings on the wall". I tried both, and the results were just black blurry things...

I contacted HP customer support, and their answer was that the thing to be scanned has to be totally flat against the scanner glass. This is ridiculous; how people are supposed to scan books on the bookshelf or a painting on the wall if those things have to be flat against the scanner glass.

So, if you're looking for a good quality scanner, better look for other products. This one looks cool, but doesn't deliver at all. Plus, it's more expensive than other products with similar specs.

another reviewer said don't use this scanner for anything other than docs - mine won't even do docs consistently - more than one page is asking too much - even if the preview indicates it scanned the entire page, when you go back and check the pdf file, it is missing pieces of the page - and getting the image at all is hit or miss - I've had 8-10 scans in a row show up with nothing but a black screen - UNBELIEVABLE!!!

I loved the design of this scanner and needed to be able to scan both large items and negatives. Unfortunately, the scanner doesn't work properly. Negatives come out greenish yellow where there should be blue; light colored pictures come out with banding -- dark and light bands across the picture. Tech support seemed very aware of both problems and told me to return the scanner to the store where I bought it. Both phone and email support did not indicate that there was any fix for these problems. Too bad, as I really wanted this scanner. I hope HP fixes the problem; if they do, I'll buy it again.

*Very* ugly "banding" lines. Ordered a replacement..same thing! Determined to be defective by objective party. (I use Mac 10.3.)

Let me just say this is the worst piece of technology I've played with in some time. I work in IT and purchased one of these because I love new technology and design ideas. I was replacing an older USB scanner, but one thing the 4670/4600 would not do, is DO NICE SCANS! Kind of amazing, eh? Try it for yourself. If you have this model, scan in a night-time or darker photo...a black piece of paper...anything that isn't bright (like a B&W document). Then, zoom in and look at the scan quality. You'll see bands of lighter/darker lines and if your item had lines or graphics, the same place you see these light/dark bands of light, you'll also see the lines don't match up 100%. It's distorted. I was scanning in cartoon art, and it looked like someone was drawing on a fault line during an earthquake. Someone else noted the light/dark bands in their review. I spoke with HP for close to an hour and got a replacement - same problem. Tried it on 3 systems, two different operating systems. After reading other reviews on this, I know I just didn't get 2 bad units. Serious flaw here folks. My older USB scanner never had this, and if you are planning on doing anything beyond scanning in documents, think twice on the 4600 series scanjets.