Epson Perfection V850 Pro A4 Flatbed Scanner with ReadyScan LED Technology - 6400 x 9600 dpi

Having read other reviews I was concerned about build quality, software etc. I needn’t have been.Yes, it is a plastic construction but is robust enough. It is not designed to be thrown around in any event.The speed of scans and quality of scans is impressive. I have boxes of photos going back decades and the handling of these and the output resolution with inbuilt colour correction is outstanding. I had photos that were completely red in cast. The software made them look brand new and natural. So impressive.The only minor gripe was getting it to join WiFi. More convoluted than it should be in this day and age. Using the phone app and connecting direct the scanner to change the settings worked the best. The instructions were not very clear to my mind. Minor quibble. Totally recommend this scanner.

With boxes of old prints of all sizes and from cameras of different quality that I wanted to scan to preserve for posterity and ease of viewing and sharing, this was the only option as scanning on a flatbed would take a lifetime.I was sceptical and it was not cheap but decided to go for it.Well, more than 15000 prints later I am still amazed by this machine.It was easy to set up, is easy to use and gives good results. Even scanning at maximum optical resolution (600 dpi) it is SO quick. A 36 print pack goes through in not much longer than it takes to get the next ones ready and pack the previous ones away so you really can digitise a lifetime of prints in a reasonable time.Feed jams are rare and only caused by prints with album glue residue or being lazy and trying to get different print sizes through in the same run (and to be fair the instructions say not to do this).The option to scan the back at the same time is a real bonus where information has been written on a photo. As the process of scanning is so quick I moved on to prints inherited from my Grandmother, the oldest being early 1900's with a lot of family history recorded on the back which has been automatically captured.The auto correct works well for most prints, and of course further editing can be done in Photoshop or Lightroom. It is very impressive on old, slightly faded prints (see examples). Black and white works as well as colour, and the option to create 2 copies of the scan - the original and a corrected one - automatically means that if you are not happy with the auto corrected version you have the original to work on as you wish.With the volume of scans I have done, and the age and poor storage of some of the originals I have had a few issues with lines on the scans that have been easily resolved by a quick clean of the scan area which is easy to do and good instructions are supplied.Really recommend this scanner if you have a lot of prints to digitise - the old photos have been looked at more on the computer by the family then they ever were in the boxes in the loft ! I have disposed of all the prints, saving quite a bit of space, but kept the negatives just in case.

The hardware is called fastfoto and to be fair it is, scanning lots of photos in a very short period of time. However there is a huge fundamental flaw in the fastfoto software, it doesn’t matter what settings you select for the scanning of your photos it will always use high compression JPG format as the output, resulting in really bad quality scans. Any dark areas of the photos show all sorts of ghosting where the jpg compression has taken place.I contacted Epson who have confirmed that this is how the software works and there is no plan to update it. The issue doesn’t manifest in smart scan which is the document scanning software that also comes with the kit. However scanning photos with this is a much more laborious process.As a result I would strongly suggest that no one touches this with a barge pole, shame as it has the potential to be so much better.

Had hundreds of photos to scan which would take a lifetime to do on a flatbed. This scanner is very fast and easy to set up and use. It has the option of scanning both sides if you have memos or info on the rear. There is an auto correction feature that gives you two scans. One original and one corrected. The correction copy I found In most scans was good and deleted the original. Very dark underexposed photos it struggled with,but doing manually on a photo editing software didn't improve them either. Very happy with the scanner and I am now using the document scan software which can also scan both sides to archive documents that have built up over years which can be saved in various formats. I originally purchased the epson v600 which was dead out of the box and sent it back hassle free. Now having this although bit more expensive I think this is the better choice.

The bad:Software looks very dated, basic features only at this price point.You only get to see thumb nail images after scanning.There's no touch up features.Scanning not the fastest.Old fashioned micro USB instead of the more robust square Type B USB.The good:Small and compact scanner which can be stood upright to save desk space.Fits in a laptop bag, great for students.Lid can be removed if needed, good for scanning books.There are some useful scanning options such as grey scale, black and white, good for scanning sheet music, books, etc.Multiple pages can be scanned into one PDF.Scanning quality is excellent.PDF output is also excellent.Much better image quality than the ancient Canon Lide scanner that it replaced.I would have preferred to spend a bit more to get something more premium, but at this price point, I can't complain too much as the scan quality is very good.