The HP Scanjet 8200 can readily handle documents, photos and film, and is well suited to workgroups.

For document scanning and the like, the 8200 excelled, but the limited support for multiple transparencies (a paltry maximum of just three mounted or four unmounted originals at a time) and the problems with banding (please see the sectional enlargement of a scan from an old family slide I’ve scanned to restore) on all my scans leaves me worried indeed.

Now, I realise the 8200 has good networking capabilities not the preserve of your “normal” consumer led flatbed scanner and it has a suite of excellent (though flawed) software, which is good too.

But I cannot see why the 8200 has that whopping, on the way to £500, price tag.

If you buy the additional auto document feeder, you’ll pay even more as well, £787.25 for the 8270 variant. Ouch!