Great Quality Scans, Some Concerns
I have had this scanner now for over a year and it has served me very well. I have completed a few thousand scans so far, the unit was purchased to scan my own slides and negatives and I'm now scanning my Dad's slides and negatives. It does an excellent job quality wise and to me the Digital Ice has been a huge benefit. I initially tried blowing off each side or negative with canned air but there is no way to get every dust grain and the program does it better and does not seem to affect quality. It does, however, hugely extend the scan time.

I did initial testing and for me scanning slides / negatives at 2400 DPI resulted in good quality for what I want to do (small prints and mainly display of photos via networked MacMini on large screen TV).

My concerns are with the software. As others have noted, it is clunky but gets the job done (mostly). I have had problems with it not identifying orientation of slides or abnormally clipping slides / negs especially with dark backgrounds. For example, a large number of pictures I have taken of my house in the dark with Christmas lights are clipped wrong. Luckily, I usually take several to bracket the exposure and at least one usually scans correctly. There should be a way to override the scanner's preview scan area.

My other concern with it was that a few months back it stopped working. No blue light on the top, no nothing. I was certain it was a hardware failure and contacted Epson (who actually seemed very responsive) and was given a place to send it for repair. I was using the scanner on an iMac at the time of the failure and on impulse before sending it back I hooked it up to my MacBook Pro which I had used for some initial testing with it so the software was installed already. Oddly, it made some funny noises and then worked. I hooked it back up to the iMac and it has been scanning along fine since. IF YOU USE THIS SCANNER WITH A MAC I RECOMMEND YOU NOT HAVE ANY OTHER ACTIVITY OVER FIREWIRE DURING SCANNING, as near as I can tell that was the source of the problem - when it failed I was in the background copying files from one disk to another. I hope this helps someone.

Fits the bill
I bought this scanner to digatize old photos and slides. I think it does a great job. It's pretty putzie to go through all the steps to get the scans if you want high quality. Batch scan, frame, zoom to get frame exactly right, adjust color/exposure/contrast/repair/etc. and then final scan. The frames for slides works well and you can do 12 at a time. High quality scanner that fits the bill for me.

I love this scanner
I purchased this because I was desperate to scan very old large format negatives from my mom's childhood.
This is an expensive scanner, but the only one that I could find to handle large format film--so I took a chance.
I've had a film scanner before (not an Epson), but it was cumbersome and tricky to operate, plus it could only scan one frame at a time. Since I have
over 6000 negatives & slides to scan, having the trays hold 12 slides or four film strips has been fantastic.
The operation is fairly quiet and very quick, even at high DPI's. Thankfully, the lid doesn't drop down on it's own when you are lining up the film, which is nice.
It comes with great editing software (I have the professional version of Photo Shop, but am now using the included programs instead.)
The trays have not proven to be a problem--it is true you need to be careful, but the film is equally delicate, so I don't see a problem.
I have two other scanners that handle photo's, but now I use this one for all my scanning needs.
Because it is long, it will take up a large amount of desk space, so make sure you have the room for it.
I'm happy that I didn't need to send out my old negatives, as you never know how careful a lab will be with irreplaceable film.
That made the cost bearable, but the product's quality has also eased my concern over the expense.

Terrific slide and film scanner
I purchased this unit primarily to convert our collection of thousands of slides to a digital format. I had initially purchased a "cheapie" slide scanner for about [ASIN:B00264GNR2 Innovative Technology 35mm Negative and Slide Converter to PC]], only to find that it produced very poor digital copies (detail was OK, but color reproduction was awful). After reviewing numerous other options for slide scanning (including sending the slides to a scanning service, with charges averaging about 35 cents per slide), I decided to try this unit, because it had gotten good reviews from others and the combination of price point and features seemed to best match my needs. I have now scanned more than 2000 slides and I am thoroughly satisfied. The scan quality has been excellent - much better than I was expecting from a flatbed. The color reproduction has been extremely accurate and the level of detail is superb. The biggest problem - as with all flatbeds - is dust; it is difficult to keep it completely off the glass, so it often shows up in scans. However, in addition to the obvious option of carefully dusting the slides and the screen before each scan, several other options are available to deal with dust: Digital ICE (which I don't much like, as it greatly increases scanning time and often produces weird artifacts in the scans); a dust removal program in the SilverFast software that comes with the unit (this also greatly increases scan time, but produces much cleaner results); and the "spot healing brush" in the Photoshop Elements software that also comes with the unit. Although I find that Epson's own scanning software is satisfactory for most slides, the addition of the other software (even though the SilverFast is not the "premier" version and the Elements is an older version) makes the whole package very versatile and well worth the moderate price point. It's difficult for me to believe that the much higher priced, dedicated slide scanners would produce noticeably better results or would be worth the extra cost for most people, especially since this unit gives me the ability to scan photographs, filmstrips, and text documents as well. Final point: the scanner arrived from Amazon very quickly - even before Amazon's own earliest estimated arrival date!

It's Ok but lookout for dirt on inside surface of glass
Purchased a V700 from Epson early December 2009. After a few days using it I became aware of dirt and haze on the inside surface of the scanning surface glass.

Contacted the Epson store and they sent a replacement, plus free return shipping for the original purchased unit.

The second scanner had similar dirt on the inside of the glass. There is a section on the scanning surface I avoid when scanning high quality scans.

All attempts, including a written letter mailed to the main mailing address, to contact someone responsible for product quality went unanswered.

I kept the second unit and use it because I do not expect a 100% clean product from Epson.

The scanner produces high quality images.

The only major drawback is the lack of support for many of the popular film formats used in the last few decades.