Hardware

Scan Away: HP ScanJet 7000

This scanner proves itself a workhorse that's easy to use and super reliable.

Jason covers desktop applications and help desk utilities, including reviews geared toward the IT end-user support function. Jason is the PC infrastructure manager for Harcros Chemicals, a worldwide leader in chemical manufacturing and distribution.

The Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 7000 scanner offers many features and value-added enhancements for the money: a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, the ability to save acquired documents in multiple formats and scanning resolutions of up to 600 dots per inch.

Advantages

The beauty of the ScanJet 7000 lies in its simplicity. Only six buttons adorn the front of the scanner, along with a backlit, two-line LCD display. Menu navigation on the scanner is straightforward and reminiscent of most laser printer interfaces, using up and down arrows for navigation and an OK/Select key for data entry.

Scanning is easy to configure and even easier to operate. The 7000 comes with several presets, called profiles, that support most common tasks. Users can tweak these settings to create their own custom presets. Common options are available in the Profile Properties dialog, as well as useful enhancements, such as auto-straighten, auto-orient, resize page, erase edges, delete blank pages, and detect barcodes and digital stamps. Even when all of these options were selected during testing, the scan speed was not noticeably affected.

Why It Works for IT

It’s simple: The 7000 is easy to operate and can handle most day-to-day scanning tasks right out of the box. The user-friendly interface makes quick work of finding the settings a user needs, leaving more time to tackle the tasks at hand.

It’s fast: HP’s advertised 40 pages per minute is no exaggeration when scanning documents at a 200dpi setting. It handles double-sided pages just as quickly as single-sided, all in one pass. Unlike some of its competition, the 7000 has a paper tray that collects originals without letting them buckle or fall out.

It’s reliable: The scanner’s roller assembly is a clamshell design, which allows easy document retrieval should you encounter a paper jam (but that almost never happens). I crumpled several pieces of paper into balls and unfolded them just enough to go through the feed, but could not get the printer to jam or misfeed. More amazing, these pages scanned just as well as their pristine counterparts. The scanner did an excellent job of removing wrinkles and imperfections. I could not tell any difference when reviewing the scans.

It’s cost-effective: The scanner is competitively priced and comes bundled with a generous offering of software, including Visioneer PaperPort 11, Presto! BizCard 5, and Readiris Pro. Even without this software, the included HP scanning utility is capable of accomplishing most scanning tasks and can natively scan directly into an Adobe Portable Document Format, eliminating the need to purchase Adobe Acrobat separately.

Disadvantages

Although feature-rich, the HP Scanning Software could use a few improvements. I had to cancel one job partway through, and after hitting the cancel button, I lost the ability to invoke the scanning software by pressing buttons on the front of the scanner. The fix required a reboot.

Also, the scanner’s copy utility is a separate icon from the scanning software. This gives the suite a disjointed feel.