HPs High-end Scanner

The HP ScanJet 5470C is a high-end flatbed scanner that can scan up to a maximum resolution of 2,400 dpi (hardware) and 48-bit color depth. Such high resolutions are suited for scanning negatives and transparencies. The scanner supports both parallel and USB ports. It can take a maximum document size of 8.5”x11.7” and be set up on Windows 9x/NT/2000/Me or Mac OS 8.6 to 9.x. 

The scanner has an interesting set of features and supports one-touch buttons for scanning, attaching an image to e-mail, printing, faxing and sharing an image on the web. The scanner also has a 16-character LCD panel that can be used to select and launch programs. Before you start scanning select the application where you want to send the scanned image to. The scanner ships with HP PrecisionScan Pro software to adjust scanned images. 

We tested the scanner on a P41.6 MHz processor with 256 MB RDRAM, ASUS P4T-CM motherboard, Seagate 20 GB hard disk, and an AGP card based on GeForce2mx chip with 64 MB video memory. The scan quality was excellent with crisp and sharp scans at different resolutions. Scanning speeds were also quite fast, with a preview scan being done in just 11 secs. Scanning a full-page color image at 300 dpi took 27 secs, which is again good. The same image at 1200 dpi took 6 min 14 sec, better than many other scanners we have seen. The scanner’s software has integrated OCR capabilities, which work very well. 

The scanner ships with all the necessary equipment to have it up and running in no time. This includes a USB cable, parallel cable, an external power adapter and two CDs with the necessary drivers and software. The accompanying software bundle is also pretty rich. Besides the PrecisionScan Pro scanning software, it has the HP ScanJet Copy Utility, HP Share-to-web software, ACDSee, Corel PrintOffice 2000, HP Photo Printing, Net Objects Fusion, Arcsoft Photo Printer, IRIS ReadIRIS OCR and NetObjects Mat. 

Two optional components are also available which include the HP ScanJet Active Transparency adapter for scanning 35 mm negatives and slides, and the HP ScanJet Automatic Document Feeder. 

The bottom line: Overall, a feature-rich scanner with good scan quality.

Neelima Vaid at PCQ Labs