The HP Scanjet 4890 comes in an initially impressive desktop-eating form factor. But favourable first-impressions didn’t last long. This was the noisiest unit we tested and on default settings scan results were oversaturated and too light, requiring a fair bit of post-processing to get decent results.



As usual, HP’s unconventional scanner control software is easy for newbies to use but gets frustratingly fiddly to use when you want more custom control. Perhaps the 4890’s best asset is its generous film scan capacity of up to 16 mounted slides or 30 film strip frames per batch. But as so much work is needed to knock the scans in to shape, this positive feature is rather blunted.