Visioneer OneTouch 8900 USB Scanner

This scanner is a few models up from the best scanner I ever had. Easy to use, good quality, and long lasting thus far. Even if it breaks in a year, dont be silly... 35 bucks? Throw it out and get the latest model. Keep the USB cable and sell it for 5 bucks... to anyone who has recently bought a USB Printer... they almost never come with the cable. hahah.. Whatver, I have the Visioneer 8100 and its almost exactly the same as this one and it rocks. PEACE OUT.

After installing the factory CD for this scanner I kept getting the error that the optical module is locked when it isnt. I tried everything I could find on the internet and nothing worked. Their Tech support is wothless and all in all the scanner is a piece of junk.

For about $100, I got the Visioneer One Touch 8900 USB flatbed scanner, have used it on my older computer for many years running, and have been satisfied with its performance. My operating system is Windows ME (yup, there are a few of us still around) and Ive utilized the PaperPort Twain software bundled with the scanner. While it takes some getting used to and you may have to repeat the scan several times, by then you know what youre doing without making further mistakes and the results obtained are acceptable most of the time and occasionally downright excellent. A high quality print obtained with film technology is usually not going to yield anywhere near the same result when transferred to digital information because some degradation is unavoidable, but if you up the resolution from the preset level, adjust exposure and color balance as needed, sharpen with restraint, then crop and size carefully, you can do pretty well. In the darkroom, particularly the color darkroom, youll put far more effort into making a high quality enlargement and the results obtained will be eminently superior in several ways, but thats to be expected. In the last few months, I used this unit to scan a number of high quality photographs, several of which were decades old, in order to embed them in the text of desktop published books. In so doing, I achieved pretty darn good results, considering the limitations of the equipment. Im now looking for a dedicated film scanner to scan medium format and 35mm color negs directly, hopefully giving me darkroom quality results, but nonetheless, this workhorse economy flatbed scanner has more than paid for itself over the last several years and I therefore must give it an enthusiastic thumbs up. Ill agree with the critics who point out that Visioneers support leaves much to be desired because I tried to contact them regarding a software upgrade (for scanning film -- obviously bundled with the 8920) and couldnt get anywhere at all, but a bad attitude in the computer world combined with lackluster or nonexistent support is hardly unique to Visioneer.

I no longer have this scanner as I donated it to the church for their use - but when I did have it I used it quite often and had good results, especially for oversized items that could not be scanned by other means.

This is by far, the biggest piece of garbage that it has ever been my misfortune to buy. If everything Visioneer makes is like this, they deserve to go out of business. I cannot believe they can foist off this kind of junk and get by with it. I will never buy another product with Visioneer on it. Period. This scanner was a HUGE waste of money, not to mention a very good source of frustration. It worked long enough to scan about 5 items...but none of those consequtively. It will scan one, then if youre lucky you might get another scan out if after about 25 hours of fooling with it and its pathetic connections, (lots of luck getting any decent drivers or updates) and countless reboots of your computer. Buy a real scanner, send this one to your enemies.

This is a great scanner for the money. Unfortunately the design engineers made one little mistake which I corrected. It took care of the scanner locked problem. Now I love it. The software is great, the ergonomics are great, and it is FAST! To fix it is very simple, and requires no electronic skills. Added 9-12-04 So many people have emailed me re the fix I decided to add it here. Unfortunately the fix did not work with most of those who emailed me. My Scanner works very well with Win98SE. I suspect many of those with problems are having trouble with some aspect of their software/OS. I frequently Format and reinstall my OS when my machines get sluggish. Re formatting is absolutely necessary in my humble opinion, especially when you are connected. Its like the garage, you have to clean it out once in a while. I pressure wash mine. :-) My Repair, given freely, so dont sue me: Remove two screws on left side under rubber plugs. #1 Phillips, thin screw driver needed. 2. Rotate cover with glass up and to the right and pull hooks out of loops. Lay to the side. 3. Remove lock button from base by squeezing hooked ends together, and push out of hole. 4. Grind or sand down protrusions that stick up from bottom of case. They are what the scanner carriage gets wedged on. 5. Check to make sure wire leads to front controls are not pinched to the point of being severed. 6. Clean glass, lube rails with molylube and Re-assemble without lock. This is what I did. It worked great. Jim A