HP ScanJet 5370C

As a testament to the penetration of PCs beyond offices and homes, scanners not only perform better these days, but also look better. Canon's FB1210U (reviewed issue 71, p178) is a prime example, combining flashy looks and stunning results. HP's new 5370C is a little more conservative, retaining the grey slab appearance of the ScanJet 5300C (see Labs, issue 66, p132). There's a row of shortcut buttons across the front, which are annoyingly easy to press, when trying to reach the rear sockets. These take the form of both USB and parallel interfaces, so it will run on any PC. The 5370C comes with HP's PrecisionScan Pro 2.5 driver, which isn't particularly user friendly. The advanced features are also minimal, but the most surprising failing is that there's no Scan button. Preview, Scan To and Save As buttons are all provided, but if you spawn the driver from Photoshop, the way to scan your image in is to click Return To Application - hardly logical.

Unusually, the driver has limitless interpolated resolution, you just type in the desired resolution. In real terms, the optical resolution of 1,200ppi performed above expectations. The score of 1.11 is slightly under that of the 1.12 from the Acer PrisaScan 1240UT (reviewed issue 73, p188) and the 1.16 from the Canon FB1210U, but is still above all the scanners featured in our last Labs test (see Labs, issue 66, p116).

With an error rate of just 2.91, the colour accuracy is superb. It generally has to be over five for the error to be visible to the human eye, and only the blue's 5.54 error rate fell into this category, which is still reasonable. However, the Acer PrisaScan 1240UT wins in this area with an astonishing error rate of 1.98.

Not only are the HP's scanning results superb, but it's fast too. Even at 1,200ppi, the HP took just eight minutes, 57 seconds to complete an 8 « 10in scan, while the Acer took 13 minutes on the same task. Things speed up even more if you drop down to 600ppi, taking just two minutes, 25 seconds for the same scan, and just 50 seconds for a 4 « 6in photo.

Transparencies were clear, bright and well defined, and were also handled quickly - taking one minute, four seconds to complete a 40 « 40mm scan. The transparency unit plugs into the back and, instead of replacing the lid, sits in the middle of the black transparency sheet.

Where the 5370C started to disappoint was in the signal-to-noise ratio tests. The disappointing ratio of 35.3 places it below all the scanners in our last group test, and gives the Canon FB1210U, with its stunning 225.03, the upper hand for clean scan results.

At £159, the HP isn't the cheapest around. However, it comes with a good transparency adaptor, offers high-resolution results, superb colour accuracy and fast scanning speeds. It's a shame HP didn't work as hard on the driver software and physical design, but if it's good results you want that's less important. However, the disappointing signal-to-noise ratio means the Acer PrisaScan 1240UT is the better buy.

Author: Ben Hardwidge