My Scanner Died

[jvgig]

My Epson 3170 scanner will no longer wake up, so I am in the market. I have done as much trouble shooting that I can think of. The indicator lights do not signify that anything is wrong and I do not know how to open the case, let alone get everything back in with the correct alignment, so, unless anyone has an idea, I may have to call it dead.

With that in mind, I need a scanner mainly for digitizing artwork (600dpi @48bit color), but it will occasionally be used to scan film (35mm), documents, photos, etc. I would like to stay under $500, but less is obviously better.

I have been doing some research and it seems as though HP and Epson are given the highest ratings. The models that I am currently considering are the Epson V500 and V700, and the HP G4050. From what I have read, the V500 seems to be a solid all around scanner, but nothing special, basically what is expected for $180. The HP G4050 seems to have buggy drivers and only scans to sRGB, but otherwise produces solid scans at the lowest price of the three. Then the V700 is ranted and raved about all over the internet, the main differences between it and the V500 seem to be its optical density of 4.0 (what does this mean? it seems to have something to do with dynamic range, but I am unsure), and DigitalIce for negative scanning. It also has a firewire connection which should be faster than USB 2.0.

Based on my initial research, the V500 seems to be the best bang for the buck with the least potential problems, but due to my limited understanding of scanner technology, would the additional features of the V700 be worth the extra $275 for my uses?

Thanks