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

Though the world and its mum have moved from film to digital photography, there's been some innovative launches for creative pros in the scanner market in the last six months. Epson's Perfection V700 and v750 included two lenses – one for film and one for reflectives – and now HP has introduced...

Six-colour scanning; Excellent colour capture

Slow; Mediocre dust-&-scratches/anti-fade technology

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).

Home scanners have shown little technical innovation over the past few years. However, HP's Scanjet G4050 has broken the mould with the first so-called six-colour scanner, using two lamps to provide RGB feedback plus extra colour information.

The HP Scanjet G4050 is a solid dual-lamp scanner that could use a driver overhaul and a better means of handling slides.

Excellent scans; especially of very saturated originals; Very nice industrial design

Only supports sRGB colour space; Random colour registration problems on slide scans; Weak driver; Many operations are very slow

Bottom line, do not use with the included program. It's horrible, and will cause no end of problems. With a 3rd party program like Vuescan ($40) its an entirely different scanner and can give great output. Be ready to wait though because at maximum resolution this thing is SLOW!!

Looks good; 4 buttons work quickly

Big; takes lots of deskspace; Included program is terrible!!!; SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWW; Does not scan Black and white very well

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

Because we liked the features and performance of our first one purchased in 2012, we purchased a second unit for a spare. This new unit was fully tested for functions and passed before storing. We plan on rotating use between the older and new unit in our commercial business.

Overall function is excellent. It is a great replacement for my HP 4800 series, which is not Windows 10 compatible. My only complaint is the loose connection between the upper scanning lid, which is designed to accommodate 3D objects. It shouldn't be that easy to disengage.

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.