Visioneer Strobe 400 Mobile and Desktop Flexibility Duplex Color Scanner with 600 DPI USB VRS Image Enhancement and One Touch Technology (STROBE-400)

This scanner is a huge disappointment. The quality of the scans are very poor. Can barely read things that were originally computer generated and printed. Will not take paper in. Paper gets stuck 95% of the time. have to shut down program constantly and reboot. Second, third, fourth, and often fifth time, it still wont take the pages in. Huge waste.

I bought this scanner and immediately noticed that one side scanned great while the other side scanned fuzzy. I tried to adjust the settings all day long but couldnt focus the scanner on the one side, since I purchased a dual sided scanner it is important for me to be able to scan both sides as best as possible. So, I returned it and exchanged it for another one (same model) thinking it might have been an issue with that particular scanner. When the new one arrived it was worse. The one side still scanned fuzzy, but the good side now scanned with a lot of lines. I tried for hours to make the lines go away and nothing. I am now sending this one back too. I will consider other scanners since this one disappointed.

I have had four of these models. Two have worked well and have had a good life span. Two were trouble from the initial installation. Seems like you have a 50% chance of getting a working model. I am unhappily waiting for authorization to return my latest purchase.

Easy to setup, easy to use. I am now scanning and storing all paper correspondence on my hard drive instead of in piles.

Ive had Visioneer products going back to the late 90s. Back then, they were black and white, and ran through the parallel port (remember those?) This latest in the evolution produces good images, quickly and is less prone to jam than any of its predecessors. It would have received a 5 except for the wonky One Touch software bundled with the scanner that sometimes gets a mind of its own and refuses to work. Still, one of the best sheet-fed scanners around.

Im keeping this scanner, only because its lightning fast and works great with Twain Multiple Acquire. However, if youre an inexperienced and easily frustrated Windows user, you may end up throwing this against the wall before you get it working. I only thought about that, three different times. But since Im a propeller head, I kept trying. Firstly, the quick start instructions were printed on one of those Huge 20 x 30 sheets of paper, folded so that each fold makes up a page. As you open the first fold, it says Quick Start. I figured those two pages were the quick start part for impatient owners. So I followed it, where it ends with Now turn on your scanner. Win7 failed to install it. Page 3 says DONT TURN ON YOUR SCANNER UNTIL TOLD TO??? I then opened up the entire instructions, noticed my 2nd page was actually the 2nd step, and who ever designed it intended you to read across the top pages and carriage return to the 2nd row of pages. I thought it was like a Newspaper (top to bottom). REALLY BAD DESIGN to save money. Next when I did follow the instructions in the right order, I put in the CD and it went to install the drivers, and just ended and said failed to install (first thought to toss it against the wall). When I said Cancel, it said Are you sure you want to Cancel?. YES. It went on and installed the rest of the software without the drivers (second thought to toss it against the wall). I immediately jumped to their web site figuring the CD is old. I did find lots of software and drivers for Win7. I started over with it, including a Hidden Devices EXE. They dont explain what that is or when you need it, but I went through and manually deinstalled all software from them. Ran Hidden Devices, which looks around for some of their drivers, then takes you to Device Manager for your do delete any hidden versions of their drivers. I then tried their Web installs. It installed everything OK but wouldnt feed in the calibration sheet (bad sign). I figured Id try it anyway. Every time I inserted a document it said Scanning. Then said User has canceled Scan (I didnt). (third thought to toss it against the wall). Being wise and patient, I deinstalled everything. Visioneer has had a LONG history of poor installs and they continue to seemingly be unable to even deisntall their own software properly (same experience on a Strobe XP 100). It got so bad in the old days, you had to use RegEdit and delete keys. Well, hidden devices worked OK in this regard I think. Im still puzzled because MANY other companies know exactly what to do to remove their old software, and install their new, right from within Installshield? Rookies. After about 8 years, they still havent figured it out and had to write that Hidden Devices kludge. At this point I rebooted and decided to try the CD again. Now it worked fine and went all the way through all installs and read the calibration paper (good sign). However, the One Touch from the old days was clear, set your size and auto feed scans to that size. I couldnt get it to do a very good job and I had to press scan to start a scan. I wanted to just start feeding sheets and it takes care of scanning and writing it to a file. I cant stop with both hands trying to feed my paper, just to click SCAN with my mouse! My old strobe would scan on insertion? This is really bad, but it WAS scanning finally. I killed their program and fired up my fav Image software and tried a Multiple Twain Acquire. You have to kill their OneTouch systray program or it will put you in a deadly embrace with the Twain driver, and youll be forced to kill your imaging software. (Ill look for a setting to not start it at Start up) FINALLY........ by using Multiple Twain Acquire, I got to where I wanted: a panel that let me easily scan via auto feed, sheet after sheet after sheet. It autosized each scan, stopping at the bottom automatically, cropping accordingly. It did duplex about half the speed but was easy to switch back and forth from simplex, at the click of a button. Deskew worked good. 200 dpi was fuzzier than the my old Strobe XP 100. Higher dpi might be better. Also their duplex times are deceptive, they claim only a fraction of a second more for the reverse side. They make it sound like its 5 secs for simplex but 5.3 secs for duplex. But its really both the front and back times added together for 10.3 secs. It seems almost faster to flip the document over. But duplex DOES work. It has convenient controls for exposure and such right on the Twain control panel. If you try to feed your next doc in too soon it says scanning page 2 but if you pull that page out, it never gives up waiting on it, and your only option is cancel, which tosses your first page. HOWEVER, it is so darn fast I could hardly keep up with it. It also does a great job orienting your image and trimming it. I did all my scans in half the time, just the first night. So Im keeping it. But only because I had to fight this puppy to work the way I wanted to. OK for Win7 64-bit. I recommend Twain but will continue to test their mysterious, non-intuitive One Touch software. Oh yeah, you know where they say Use A/C power *OR* USB Power? Well you know what that REALLY is?? They give you a SECOND USB cable with a power plug on the end. So to go without A/C you have to use up TWO USB ports. Why does everyone else know how to get power out of USB, but these guys couldnt figure it out unless they use a 2nd USB port? Caveat Emptor.

This scanner is great for managing your home office paperwork and some pictures. Is not a great picture scanner but does an OK job for emailing stuff and Facebook type stuff. I would recommend a flatbed scanner for saving higher quality pictures. The software packaged with the scanner is top notch. You can scan a document and add it to an existing document stack with no problem. The stack can be a pdf document too. The software adopts the My Documents structure (not sure if it does so automatically or if its a setting) and allows you to scan directly to particular folder. Just scratching the surface of this product but so far I am very satisfied.

Ordered for a friend and unfortunately it was not compatible to her software. It had to be returned so im really unable to give a helpful review.