Each hardware manufacturer has a ?top model?among its product nomenclature. The engineers endow this model with best qualities and it comes out proudly with the widest functionality and at the highest price. This review is about one such model ?the top-end Scanjet 8200 scanner from Hewlett-Packard. This model isn't exactly new, but the company hasn't yet produced a replacement. I will compare this device to the scanners from Epson I have tested in our labs and reported about on our site.
Hewlett-Packard's scanners line-up, like any serious company's, is divided into tiers by their functional purpose. HP has four tiers: entry-level scanners, midrange scanners, photosmart scanners (for users interested in photography), and high-performance scanners.
The device I?m going to talk about today ?the HP Scanjet 8200 ?belongs to the most expensive series of high-performance scanners. The series is comprised of three Scanjet 82xx models and is advertised for small and middle-size businesses.
The HP Scanjet 8200 is the basic model, and the Scanjet 8250 and 8290 are adjusted for high-speed duplex scanning. In this article I will take the high price of this top-model and put it on one cup of the scales and will see if the useful qualities of the device can counterweigh it. For a starter, here's a table of technical characteristics as declared by the manufacturer.
Specification
* Regrettably, Hewlett-Packard never declares the maximum optical density of the original
for its scanners. They may be not very proud about this parameter, or they may
just think this information unnecessary for the end-user.
The package contains:
- HP Scanjet 8200 scanner;
- Adapter for transparent originals (35mm negatives and slides);
- USB cable;
- External power adapter;
- CD with software for the PC and Mac;
- User manual.
