After years of good work. With Windows 7 however this scanner will not work. Benq does not plan to make drivers for Windows 7 as they told me

High quality and robust. Easy to operate. Durable.

It is not clear if BENQ is continuing to support the product.
Comparatively small number of preselected film types.

I am using the scanner for more than 8 years. Transferred in computer format all my color slides, color negatives and black and white negatives (I estimate the total number at six to seven thousands pictures). Dont have any serious problems except those with the slide holder (discussed in detail by many other reviewers).
After some trials I perceived specific way of combining MiraPhoto and PhotoShop – using MiraPhoto’s histogram tool mainly (and the curve tool in rare cases) and performing brightness, contrast and color corrections in PhotoShop.
I never printed the scanned pictures but used them in slide shows at computer or TV screen. So I cant appraise the printing quality of scanned slides or negatives.
To keep the size of picture files moderate I used mainly ½ of the scanner maximum resolution. In rare cases I notice grainy results but the originals were grainy too (ASA 400 negatives in dark situation.

Customer Service

Fortunately not used.

Similar Products Used:

None.

Superb optical quality, low price.

Painfully childish TWAIN software.

A terrifically good scanner for the price ($290 at ImagingWorld). I've made about 1 GB worth of scans so far, and the quality is outstanding. Even on consumer-grade slide film (EliteChrome 100) the results have been breathtakingly good. It does exaggerate film grain (a common problem among <4000 dpi scanners), but frankly, if you want 11x14-printable results, you shouldn't be using crappy 800-speed film anyway. This scanner's only major drawback is it's poor software, which, despite being deceptively colorful and infantile, does not make scanning easy. Advanced users shouldn't have much of a problem manipulating the curves tool to get accurate color reproduction and midtone levels, but it's not intuitive or user-friendly. However, if you're prepared to spend a little time tweaking your scans for color accuracy, this scanner is a terrific bargain.

Customer Service

I've had no need of it.

Similar Products Used:

Various flatbed scanners.

* Very good scan quality. * Low price. * Low CCD noise. * Bundled with Photoshop LE. * Well built unit. * SCSI card included. * Quiet operation.

* Exaggerates grain on high speed (>400) films. * You have to be careful when inserting the film holders. Sometimes the scanner won''t grab them properly. * Slide holder difficult to use. The tabs which are supposed to steady the slides break easily. * MiraPhoto 1.x scans slides way too dark. Make sure you have MiraPhoto 2.x. * MiraPhoto preview and controls are too small.

The Acer ScanWit 2720s is capable of excellent scans under the right conditions and settings. It works best with slow speed (ISO 25-100) professional slide film, though very good results are achieved with any good, properly exposed / developed / handled film in the 100-400 range. Prints from ScanWit scans are very good to excellent at 8x10, and good to very good at 11x14. This scanner is not ideal for high speed film as it tends to exaggerate the grain. Sharpness is excellent. Any scanner will introduce some softness to the original image, but as long as it''s not too much it can be easily corrected with an Unsharp Mask without emphasizing grain. The ScanWit falls within this range. Color balance is excellent with certain films. I find little need to adjust the color or saturation with films like Provia F, Velvia, NPH, etc, assuming the image itself doesn''t need a color adjustment due to light source. Other films require color tweaking, but this is a fairly straight forward step. (Make sure your monitor is balanced!) Dynamic range is good. Naturally a low end scanner won''t extract all the detail from film. Some shadow detail tends to be lost with this scanner, especially on slide films. Fortunately CCD noise is very well controlled, so you can push your levels pretty high without introducing heavy noise into your image. This scanner starts to exaggerate grain above ISO 400. It can be very difficult or even impossible to get printable scans of high speed film like Royal Gold 1000. I must qualify this by saying that I haven''t yet experimented with the full range of high speed films. It''s possible Kodak Supra 800 or one of Fuji''s pro 800 films would hold up better. Lack of ICE is not a problem so long as your film is developed at a good lab and you use compressed air to blow dust off prior to scanning. If your film is developed at "Xmart" or "Joe''s 1-hour bargain photo", where it can and often does end up on the ground, then you need ICE to manage the scratches and dust. Complaints? MiraPhoto isn''t very useful for image manipulation. Scan with its settings at neutral and adjust in the bundled Photoshop LE instead. Scans tend to come out dark, but adjusting levels in Photoshop corrects this (and a levels adjustment is necessary for pretty much any scan or digital shot any way). The film holders are a bit akward. The scanner sometimes

Customer Service

Not needed.

Similar Products Used:

Various.

- Set-up and use. - Scan performance can be surprisingly good in skilled hands. - Cost.

- Documentation - Slide holders (WILL break)

Unit purchased didn''t work. Acer sent me a second unit that works perfectly. Unit construction is solid, set-up is easy and operation is simple and quick. Very user-friendly. MiraPhoto software is a bit disappointing for a seasoned graphics person like myself. I scan slides exclusively and the results are better than I expected. BUT, you have to know what you''re doing with manipulating the image for scanning. The slide holder is fragile. The plastic spring holders were designed to break. Luckily, it will still hold the slide. For the results, the value is excellent.

Customer Service

Generally, helpful and friendly. Tech staff couldn''t solve problem with first unit and referred me to Cust. Service. They were courteous and service was very fast. Had new unit within 4 days. Sen

Similar Products Used:

MicroTek Scanmaker X6 w/slide adaptor

Hi speed. Quiet, dependable. Dynamic range in actual use seems higher than manufacturer claims. Absolutely no problem with noise when scanning my images. Has good levels and curves tool. I wish the Mirascan interface had a larger preview window. The interface is good and works well. Would be nice if Acer would add more film profiles. I also used scanner with Vuescan but I'm not a fan of Vuescan with slides. It is good with negatives as Vuescan does allow you to do multipass scans with the Acer 2720s.

SCSI 2 is simple to set up. I did not use proprietary SCSI card. I interfaced scanner through my Diamond Fireport 40 PCI SCSI card and did a custom software install not installing the Acer "Acard miniport driver". Scanner worked perfectly first time and has performed flawlessly ever since using Windows '98 second edition.

A very nice feature is the automatic trap door over the film holder opening which keeps dust out of the scanner interior. Straight unaltered 36bit high resolution scans open in Adobe Photoshop 5.5 slightly darker than the original but that is of no consequence since levels and curves are usually applied at the scanning stage first.
Scanner warms up very quickly after timeout auto shutdown of the lamp.

Overall physical quality is excellent. Owners manual is nice quality with a glossy heavyweight cover and the contents are laid out well and simply presented. The manual is not a journal of how to acheive the world's best scans. It is a simple well laid out guide to the product and software.

Slide and film carriers are of decent quality in my opinion. Some other reviewers have stated otherwise because of the small plastic tensioners in the slide holder that securely hold the slides in position. I see no problem with those tensioner/springs if a person is not hard on equipment. My slides are all in glass mounts, Gepe glass mounts work fine in the holder but I have some others that are thicker and make latching the carrier a little trickier but not a problem per se.

The 2700 ppi optical resolution is most adequate for general clients. You would have to spend WELL over $1,000 to beat the quality produced by this scanner.

You will be amazed by what this great little scanner can produce. Anyone skilled with levels and curves tools will be stunned by the capabilities of this unit.

Miraphoto interface could use a little more sophistication, but what interface couldn't. Get a quality SCSI interface card like an Adaptec or similar for best speed. (note: I never used the included SCSI card). Availability is lean right now.

I highly recommend this scanner. I did considerable homework on under $1000 units and this is the one I chose and am not one bit disappointed. This unit is an incredible value. It does not have digital I.C.E. infrared retouch technology but unless you are doing large amounts of scans it is not a big deal. I use the clone tool in photoshop and retouching goes quickly.


Bottom line: Excellent quality, fast, quiet, good support, beautiful scans, apparent higher than rated dynamic range, good interface, superb value.

Includes: Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE, Ulead PhotoExpress 3, MiraScan Driver, Owners manual, SCSI 2 card and cable, power cord, slide and film carriers.

I suggest reading the Cnet review of this scanner for additional opinion. It obtained very high reviews as well.

Customer Service

48 hour "Hot Swap".....Acer will send you a replacement unit in 48 hours if you have scanner failure.

Acer tech support people are very good.

Similar Products Used:

None

First and foremost - price. Nothing else comes close. I bought this for $737 Australian, nearest equivalent spec scanner was Canoscan FS2710 for $1200. Scanner quiet, seems to do a good job, robust build quality, worked straight out of the box.

Lots of film profiles for colour neg film but none for colour positive (transparency). Color trannies come out dark and you'll need to fiddle with curves/histogram to get a decent result. B&W film scans seem a little 'grainy' but this could be a user problem! Images tend to be quite speckly but with Photoshop LE (included in package) the 'despeckle' tool (as well as a bit of smart blur) works wonders and improves image quality no end.

How can you really go wrong for this sort of money? The scanner so far has performed very consistently yielding more than acceptable results when output on glossy paper via my Epson photo-quality printer. Highly acceptable results at a very good (read: realistic) price. Nice website with plenty of tips on getting the best out of this scanner at http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Usingmira.htm

Customer Service

Original scanner had an optically generated line down one edge of every scan. Took it back to vendor who replaced it with a new unit on the spot. No problems since then.

Similar Products Used:

Canoscan FS2710

-fast, clean scans right out of the box.
-easy to set up and to use.
-12 bit color depth
-dust cover on slide/film tray
-included scsi card
-miraphoto easy to use
-lots of software included (Photoshop LE, etc.)
-2700 dpi resolution
-nothing for over twice the money can touch it.
-good enough for low-end professional work (interior magazine layouts, etc.)
-self-feeding film/slide holder
-batch scan an entire neg. strip
-12 month 48-hour exchange if unit fails.

-hard to find except at the Acer store.
-could use more film profiles, or at least have a place on the Acer Web site to download them. Would be minimal cost to Acer but yet would make a big difference in the perception of user support as all other scanner manufacturers also lack updated and current film profiles.

If you're looking to get into archival scanning, professional low-end magazine layouts, or just need something to scan weekend photo-negs to send to mom, this is it. You CAN NOT go wrong at the price. It allows you to see if scanning film is for you without spending a fortune. But with that being said, you'll love the results and they are easy to get. It is a quality-built unit and does not have a cheap feel to it, but rather looks like a serious tool...which it is. I had the Polariod ES scanner and did not get a single decent scan out of it, even using Vuescan. But with the Scanwit I get consistently good results using Miraphoto.

Customer Service

helpful. when my first scsi card seemed to not work, they immediately sent out another one.

Similar Products Used:

Polarioid Sprintscan 2700 ES

Good build quality.
Excellent price for it's capabilities.
2700 DPI Optical!
This is my first foray into digital scanning - never owned a flatbed either - wanted a film scanner to scan nega and slides. And I haven't been disappointed by this scanner at all. For the price, and for my level of necessity it performs excellent. Cannot beat the performance of this one at the same price.
I had eyed the Nikon Coolscan but bought this for price reasons, knew what I might be missing, but never really missed any. Used the ACARD SCSI (supplied) without any problems - I have a dual boot system, it works flawlessly with both Windows 98 as well as Windows 2000.

A couple of gripes about this product.
Miraphoto has a really small preview window.
Lack of manual focussing - the autofocussing works fine, but noticed that for fine grain films like Velvia the result is slightly out of focus.
It failed to focus on a slide containing the picture of a flower against a dark background. This remained the case even when I selected the scanning area to exclude all the dark areas (areas without information). Manual focus capability could have helped.
Negatives look grainy when scanned. Haven't been able to figure out why.
The slide holder has little ears sticking inwards from one edge - supposed to hold the slide mount in place. These are flimsy - and have been broken in mine - and I don't abuse my scanner. But it hasn't hampered the operation of the scanner in any way.

Unbeatable at the price. Serious amateurs could look this up as an entry into the scanning arena.
I would highly recommend it.

Customer Service

Never needed it.

Similar Products Used:

none

Looks good on the paper, but I due to installation problems I haven't tried it.

I have not been able to install this scanner in Windows NT Workstation 4.0. I have tried everything Acer support tells me and everything MS support tells me I should to correct this, but the driver simply doesn't work under NT 4.0. I know NT well enough to give up on this scanner unless Acer comes up with a miracle soon. For sale now :)

If the scanner worked it would probably be good, but I want a scanner that is working. Now it's science fiction ...

Customer Service

Bad, haven't been able to solve the problem.

Similar Products Used:

None