I've used this scanner for 2 weeks and it replaces an HP 4850 8.5 x 14 on an XP PC. It does come in a rather large box but it is perfectly protected for shipment. Actual footprint is what you'd expect for this size scanner. I mainly use this to scan high school yearbooks and it does a fantastic job. Most of my scans are B&W books with some color photos. After experimenting with scan options, I settled on the Professional setting, 300 dpi, checked the reduce moire patterns setting, and medium sharpen image. The sharpen image really works well and is an improvement over not using it. A 10.5 x 16 image scan takes 1 minute 40 seconds. The scan finishes before the control panel frees up for a subsequent scan, don't know why. I am using the USB 2.0 port. As a comparison to the HP, a scan of both pages too, well over 3 minutes at similar settings which includes the time to reposition the book. Big time saver! I would highly recommend this scanner to any medium duty user.