I've used HP for years, primarily because they are supported well in Linux, but the particular model I had been using was mechanically unsound, the scanner had delicate parts that broke frequently, so I replaced it with an epson. The epson was flaky at best under Linux but what really pissed me off was that after a firmware update, it would no longer accept third party ink. The scanner also would not work without ink so guess what, FUCK YOU EPSON, got a newer model HP that was twice the price of my old one but constructed MUCH more robustly, in fact I accidentally dropped it from about four feet onto a hardwood floor and it just bounced, no pieces broke off and it continued to function. The older unit though had a cool mode where if you ran out of black ink it could fake it by using all three colors of the colored ink, the new one lacks this nice feature.