Plustek Opticbook 3600 Book Scanner

Thanks to Plustek's patent pending SEE Technology, any book can lie completely flat on the scanning glass. The result is a perfectly scanned image with no annoying book spine shadow and no distorted lines of text.Whereas professional book scanners are targeted mainly for large libraries, archive museums, and corporations with big budgets, OpticBook 3600 is an affordable solution for all libraries, copy rooms, students, teachers, universities, SOHO, law offices, publicists, and work groups.
Customer Review: No Longer See the Light
Yes, as a reviewer wrote, negative reviews are easy to write. Still, I rarely write one--but in this case I am quite frustrated. Like another reviewer, I used mine off and on, and it is the first scanner I have ever had in which the lamp burned out! And though it seems you can find anything on the internet nowadays. there is no place selling replacement lamps--not the Plustek website (which offers no parts, nor suggests places to buy parts), not even Ebay. It is as if they just expect us to chuck it and buy a new scanner. The scanner was fine when it worked, but $300 for a few hundred scanned pages is a bit pricey. Yes, this negative review was easy to write. What was difficult was toning it down. I would not recommend this scanner if I had to choose between it and a hand held Brownie camera (that dates me, I know).
Customer Review: Great book scanner
I liked this scanner so much that I bought a second one. I've had both for more than three years. I've installed them on both Windows XP and Windows 2000 (English and Japanese versions). I have never had a scanner install and work so flawlessly. Despite what some of the other reviews say, I have found the software to be stable and totally crash-free. Previously I have used Epson and HP scanners, and in my opinion the OpticBook 3600 offers comparable scan quality with software that is more innovative and less intrusive, if primitive looking in spots. The software does what it's supposed to. Most notably, it allows you to scan each page of a book with just a touch of a button on the scanner, automatically rotating every other scan if you so specify in the settings. My scanners came with a light version of Abbyy's FineReader OCR software. I purchased an upgrade to the professional version (for which a free trial is available on Abbyy's web site), and I have found it to be excellent (well worth the price of the upgrade). I chose Abbyy over OmniPage because Nuance doesn't provide a trial version (to my knowledge) and its software activation policy struck me as too intrusive. One issue that I've had is that occasionally the scanner lamp inexplicably fails to turn on after the warm-up. This usually happens when I haven't used the scanner in a while, and the lamp always comes on after a reboot (once it took a couple of reboots). Scary the first time it happened, just a minor annoyance thereafter. Overall, a very well designed product. If you have any need to scan books, I think you will be impressed with the innovation that went into this scanner and its software. There's nothing comparable available that I've been able to find. One word of warning. After I bought these scanners I bought an HP Photosmart all-in-one color printer/scanner/copier. When I installed the HP, I found that the OpticBook no longer worked. I eventually figured out that I could use the OpticBook again if I disabled the HP under Imaging Devices in Device Manager. However, even when enabled under Device Manager the HP will not work as a scanner with the OpticBook installed (it only works as a printer). I really only needed a printer anyway, and I've found the HP software to be so intrusive, bloated and annoying that I've vowed to avoid all-in-ones from now on. As soon as I get a chance, I'm going back to my trusty HP LaserJet, which has the added advantage of not prompting me to buy color ink cartridges every time I blink.

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