Superlative quality is let down by slow scan times and unintuitive driver software.

Buying a dedicated scanner for home usage is not very feasible these days, considering the great deals currently available on MFDs (Multi-Function Devices, Scanners+Printers+Copiers).

For pure picture quality, you'll have a hard time finding a consumer-friendly scanner with this level of performance. It includes six-color, 96-bit scanning to ensure your images maintain rich colors and deep blacks even at very high resolutions.

I bought a G4050 and tested it on an iMac using Mac OS X version 10.4.11, and a PC using Windows XP (SP2). On both systems, photo scratches on a scanned 4x6 photo that were barely discernable were very accentuated as light noise in the digital images.

Durable

Bad Value; Low Quality; Poor photo scans

HP's G4050 flatbed scanner employs a novel two-pass technique to extract maximum detail.

Build quality; fundamental scan quality is good

Speed; poor control software; large design

I bought myself this to scan various things (old photos, documents and some sheet music ) and this does the job pretty well. It was a bit on the expensive side but I needed something that would give me good quality and I could trust that it would work well so I went for HP as they are well known for...

good quality scanning

software is rubbish; can take for ever to scan an image

According to HP, the main problem with conventional scanners is that the white light leaves significant gaps in the colour gamut, creating significant colour distortions. The company's solution is to add a new light source that fills the gaps.

Better colour accuracy; Reasonable looks; Good range of supported slides

Dodgy drivers; Very slightly soft focus; Can be slow

Hot on the heels of the Epson Perfection V700 and V750, which lured customers with the promise of not one but two lenses (reviewed by PC Advisor 's sister website Digit here and here ), comes this ambitious six-colour scanner from HP.

The theory is that the usual source of white light used for scanning doesn't offer full-spectrum illumination, so a separate pass with a separate light source and some extra sensors can fill in the gaps and produce a more accurate result.

Pros: Good colour quality; reasonable build quality; decent support at the price for a wide range of different slide formats

Cons: Can be slow at higher resolutions; slight softening on both paper and slide scans; drivers and software need to be streamlined and simplified

You may be wondering why HP's Scanjet G4050 costs almost £200, especially as there's not a lot of technical difference between it and the G3010. The key difference is that it supports six-colour, 96-bit scanning. This involves scanning each item twice with two different light sources.