Customer reviews from hp.com
HP - Scanjet Flatbed Scanner - 4800 dpi Optical - Gray/Black
Average customer rating
3.8
(93 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 93 reviews
5 Stars
45
4 Stars
18
3 Stars
13
2 Stars
4
1 Star
13
72%of customers recommend this product.
(
67 out of
93)
Customer Reviews for HP - Scanjet Flatbed Scanner - 4800 dpi Optical - Gray/Black
Customer Rating
3
Scanjet G4050 Photo Scanner
on September 27, 2007
Posted by: Historian
Gender:Male
This scanner provides very high quality scans of printed photos - excellent color and detail. Unfortunately it handles slides poorly and the driver is clunky.
At resolutions of 1200dpi or more, which are necessary for slides, the scanner is excrutiatingly slow. The driver does not permit you to set up for batch scanning of multiple prints or slides - requirements for each photo must be set individually.
One other problem. The scanner is inconsistent in recognizing more than one print at a time. Sometimes it recogizes only one, sometimes more than one, and the scan must be set up from scratch for each scan.
I would be willing to pay considerably more for a scanner that would handle batches of prints and slides with a single setup for each batch, that was reasonably fast at resolutions of 1200dpi (no more than five minutes per scan), that provided faithful color, and that could handle 16 slides at a time.
In summary, this is an excellent scanner for one printed photo at a time, not bad for multiple prints on a page, and not very good for slides.
At resolutions of 1200dpi or more, which are necessary for slides, the scanner is excrutiatingly slow. The driver does not permit you to set up for batch scanning of multiple prints or slides - requirements for each photo must be set individually.
One other problem. The scanner is inconsistent in recognizing more than one print at a time. Sometimes it recogizes only one, sometimes more than one, and the scan must be set up from scratch for each scan.
I would be willing to pay considerably more for a scanner that would handle batches of prints and slides with a single setup for each batch, that was reasonably fast at resolutions of 1200dpi (no more than five minutes per scan), that provided faithful color, and that could handle 16 slides at a time.
In summary, this is an excellent scanner for one printed photo at a time, not bad for multiple prints on a page, and not very good for slides.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
3
Performance
3
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Posted by: harrydog2000
Gender:Male
I have to admit that it took some time to complete but now all my old photos, negatives and slides have been digitized thanks largely to this HP G4050 scanner. That's over 6000 files in total. For the most part this scanner was very easy to use and the quality of the images where excellent.
And it was all worth while when I see my mom's face as she sees photos from over the past 70 years blown up on a 28' monitor. The details in the photos are amazing. Everyone in my family now has their own set of all the photos....no need to every worry about them being destroyed. They will now live forever.
What really helped the process was that I was able to literally put on as many photos that would fit onto the scanning surface and the software would automatically pick them out and save them to individual files.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Customer Rating
5
Great Scanner
on February 19, 2007
Posted by: Oldmann
The G4050 is my 3rd HP scanner. I upgraded from the 1st and "wore out" my 2nd. I mostly scan photos; thousands. As with any new software, I had to get use to the new software with the G4050. The software has many more features with it that I have yet to try out. I have a seperate leading photo software program and I use that for organizing. But the HP seems to have a nice progrom for that. What I particular like is that you can scan more than one photo at one time and the G4050 automatically crops each picture and it does a great job at automatically cropping. Then it re-scans and automatically gives you individual scans. Before you "Accept" the scan, you can manually adjust the cropping of each picture if you have to by just clicking once on the scan that needs adjusting (rarely required). Great feature. (The older models did not do such a good job at automatically cropping.) The "Auto Straightening" leaves a slight bit to be desired. I also like the fact that it gives me a choice for 48 dpi or 96 dpi. I mostly use the 48 dpi for snapshots, as it is faster, and the 96 dpi for portraits, which is a bit slower. And certainly not least, I really like the lid handle that HP put on this one. It makes it much easier & quicker to raise the top. You will like that. (If you get one, don't forget that HP put an off/on switch at the back of the G4050.) The only thing I miss from my last HP scanner is the automatic photo feeder. (HP no longer makes a low end scanner available for auto photo feeding.) This was really great for scanning lots of 4 x 6 photos. However, once I have completed scanning my thousands of photos, I suppose the auto photo feeder option would not be so important with digital camera these days. Overall, I give the G4050 very high marks. I strongly recommend it.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
5
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Customer Rating
2
G4050 Disappointing
on February 14, 2007
Posted by: Jim B.
Gender:Male
This product was being promoted as a scanner capable of "superior color accuracy, high-definition scans with 4800x9600 dpi" and capable of scanning various photographic formats including 35mm color slides (like Kodachrome) and even negative color film strips.
At first, I tried to copy a magazine back cover to check that the unit was working and to become familiar with the controls. I set it for maximum resolution (there was lots of fine print on the item to be copied) and this would give an indication of its resolution.
Immediately, the scanner indicated the setting exceeded its capacity. Instead, it suggested copying at its default setting of 200ppi. I then tried setting it for a midrange resolution of around 3600. Again, it displayed the over-capacity warning. I tried lowering the setting to 1200 ppi and the copy began, however, the machine had altered the scanned area from a full page to only the lower left quarter of the page, which it proceeded to copy and send to the file folder.
Since 95% of my reason for purchasing the G4050 was to scan, and save on CDs, my collection of around 3,000 Kodachrome color slides, I proceeded to install the slide holder device and placed 16 slides in position for copying. Note that being able to copy 16 slides at a time is a great feature. I have used another brand of slide scanner, and the process of loading no more than 4 slides at a time made for a tedious and labor intensive operation, since each scan cycle required around 20 minutes.
I set the scanner at its maximum definitiion and once again encountered the warning about exceeding capacity. For the record, my CPU is a one year old HP Media unit with a 200GB hard drive with 172 GB free space. The scanner recommended its default definition of 200 ppi as an alternative. I worked my way down the definition scale from 9600 ppi trying to find a point at which copying would commence. I don't recall at what point that happened, but soon after scanning began, the G4050 indicated the size of the resulting file would be 44.9 GB ! I canceled the process. I lowered the definition setting down to 1200 ppi, overode the repeated advisory to use 200 ppi, and proceeded to have all 16 slides copied which took about 30 minutes. For each slide copied, the resulting image file size was around 9 megapixels. That pixel count is more than adequate for sharp prints up to 8.5 x11 inches, so I was optimistic. However, when I made test prints at 4x6 inches, they were not very sharp. Needless to say, the 8.5x11 size prints were far worse. I should mention that the color, brightness, and contrast were all very true to the original slides.
I have returned the scanner for a refund. I do not believe that images with 9 megapixels should produce anything less than a very sharp result. I have 40+ years of photography experience, beginning with home-processed and printed black and white. My Kodachrome slides were all taken with Leica cameras, known for their very sharp lenses. I can project my slides to images that are 10 feet wide and their sharpness is indisputable.
I do appreciate HP's efforts to provide a device that can assist in efficiently converting slides to digital images. I also apprreciate their willingness to accept a return of their merchandise.. Unfortunately, the G4050 does not meet my requirements. If a person was limiting print sizes to 4x6, then results provided by the G4050 might be acceptable.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
5
Performance
2
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Customer Rating
3
Software does not work with Windows Vista
on September 21, 2007
Posted by: 2frustrated
Gender:Male
The scanner works great, but the software package included does not work with Windows Vista. The upgrade download is very large. The HP Photosmart Premier software is very good, but a revision for Windows Vista is not available and apparently HP does not intend to provide one. The replacemet, HP Photosmart Essential is a poor replacement. I lost many hours of work when I had to replace my computer with a new HP laptop and upgraded to Vista.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Features
3
Performance
4
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Customer Rating
5
Very Impressive
on March 8, 2007
Posted by: PattyP
Gender:Female
I have been scanning all my negatives from 1990 until 2003 (which is when I finally broke down and bought a digital camera) and this scanner has surpassed my expectations. It is simple to use, yet very powerful. The image quality is sometimes even better than the printed photograph I got from the developing place at the grocery store!
If there’s one area I could improve (I am an engineer, and constantly looking for things to improve), I would consider redesigning the film tray (and the photo/slide trays). The negative strips usually come in lengths of 4 pictures each. The film strip takes 6 per slot. I find myself either having to cut film strips in 2, to add to the 4 that are in the slot, or leaving a space open in each slot. If the slots were arranged vertically instead of horizontally, you would be able to have the exact strip size, and you would be able to fit the same number of film negatives in the tray. Same with the other 2 trays, the more pictures that can be scanned, at the same time, the better!
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
4
Performance
5
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Customer Rating
4
The 2nd Time Around
on April 14, 2008
Posted by: Lou13
Gender:Male
The Missus bought me a G4050 for Christmas.
We had been using an old HP 3570 Scanner which would do 2 slides at a time. We have over 2500 slides to scan. Thought we might speed things up a bit with the new device.
I installed the G4050 on my Vista HP. WRONG!!!
Such a hassle I uninstalled and returned the product to the store. It would have been nice to have a discliamer prominently displayed on the box, that all features weren't available on Vista machines..
After a couple of months with 2500 slides still waiting for us I had an epiphany. I have 2 HP's running XP and all the reviews I read after the fact on this site said the product ran well on XP machines.
We are now approaching scan 450 and the project ismoving along nicely. Actually the best part of the whole thing is that we have actually only fired up the device about 30 times. i.e. 16 slides at a time.
We have used a fairly low resolution (bpi) and I'm very satisfied with the results. We are making DVD's which tell a story of our kids as they grew up. As each DVD is ready we make 5 copies, one for us and one for each of our kids.
It's nice to see a project which has been on the books for years finally start to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I'd like to think that HP will at somepoint do what need to be done so that the G4050 is fully compatible with VIsta machines.
I'm happy now that we are moving in the right direction. So should HP.
Lou S.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
5
Performance
4
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com
Customer Rating
4
Scanner G4050 Slides
on May 7, 2007
Posted by: gotexan
Gender:Male
Loading the software is very slow. The slide quality was compared to several commercial services and the G4050 was as good as all services. This is a very good scanner to save old slides and negativies.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Features
4
Performance
4
Written by a customer while visiting hp.com