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Mine was D.O.A. with a mechanical problem. The scan head was visibly misaligned and would not move; the scanner just made a horribly loud buzzing sound but would not scan.

It appears that there are some serious QA problems with this manufacturer. I recommend waiting until a product made to higher standards is released in this price range.

Customer Service

I'm not dealing with Pacific Image, I'm just going to get a refund from B&H.

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Fast, some scans looked great from slides

Not one negative scan was worth a d***. Some slides wouldn't scan accurately, especially shadows.

It's obvious that "you get what you pay for" applies to film scanners, too.

Customer Service

Didn't bother calling

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Low price. Small size. Acceptable quality for price.

Poorly thought out software with a fair amount of crashes and locking up. Needed to re-install driver three times on first day! Found updated software on makers site essential for proper operation, software with my new scanner was over one year old!

I bought this slide scanner mainly to transfer about 150 old family slides onto the PC and then distribute to family by e-mail or floppy. At the price charged per slide for commercial processing this scanner just has to do these 150 slides and it has paid for itself. It then is effectively a useful tool to have for further occasional use connected with e-mail or web pages. If I had a huge slide collection of quality images I would pay about three times more for a better quality unit. However I have no complaints at this low price.

Customer Service

Direct contact not needed but FAQs on makers site were a great help.

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None.

Easy to use, great scans, compatibility. Solid Construction. Way better than add on film scanners that come with cheap scanners.

I have just had a couple problems trying ot scan b/w negs, they have come out thin. This is solved by adjusting the contrast in photoshop.

i am not too sure why this has gotten bad reviews. I love it, it works with both my pc and mac and is very easy to use. The quality is terrific and the price is good compared to others. Its very well built and looks great too. I enjoy this very much and its def worth what i paid for it

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Cheap, easy to use, good resolution compared to a flatbed scanner

Green haze along right hand side, no shadow detail at all, dynamic range of only 2.8, scans from the same slide without changing the settings are all different, poor customer service, very noisy (almost scary), requires too much post processing work which results in the image deteriorating.

I had two PF 1800. I had the first one replaced after 4 weeks because of a green haze along the right hand side of each scan (especially with slides). The second one lasted three weeks after which the bulb blew up. I then decided to ask for a refund and got my money back.
The first scanner delivered scans that had accurate colours but with a green haze. With the second one the green haze had almost disappeared but colours were far from being accurate.
With both scanners there was no shadow detail at all and contrasty slides did not give satisfactory results even after a lot of post processing with photoimpact.
Only buy if you are on a tight budget and if your expectations are lower than mine.

Customer Service

They never answered my first mail but answered the second one. They never solved the problems though...

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Image results and value for money.

1.Drivers not brilliant with my PC setup, updated download needed.
2.As it is so cheap people think it must be rubbish!

OK so we're not supposed to review the same product twice. But if these reviews are to help future purchasers an update must be justified! The previous poor reviews nearly stopped me buying this scanner, and that would have been a mistake. After another months use I have increased the overall rating for this scanner. The software glitches I mentioned before have not returned after downloading updated drivers from the Primefilm site. Now I have mastered the programs/settings the scans are even better. In fact they exceed the quality requirements of both PC screen display and domestic colour printers. I now believe, for non-commercial use (and perhaps some basic commercial uses), this scanner is all you might want. It is true it needs care on a dark slide, but then such a slide looks poor anyway when viewed or projected, however all reasonable slides have produced excellent results so far. Other users I have e-mailed the images to are most impressed. So I have to now agree with Zack Fanning "I can't see why this has received such poor reviews in the past". I took in a print of a scanned slide to my local shop who sold me the unit as I was the first to buy this model from him. I think he worried that it was a little too good at the price and undermined the £400 units he tried to sell most customers. So if you get a good one that works as mine, keep it and enjoy. If yours works as some describe take it back for a refund and spend twice as much on a better one. The choice is there!

Customer Service

FAQs on Primefilm site useful. Otherwise service not needed.

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Price. Scan quality. Size. Build.

None.

I got this on 28 money back guarantee, just in case! However, it worked fine out of the box with none of the problems others have reported.
I've only scanned slides and, providing the slide is reasonably exposed, then the 1800dpi high quality scan is pretty decent. However, if you play around with the Histogram in grayscale mode ala the tips on www.scantips.com then the quality becomes very good indeed.
After a bit of tweaking in Paint Shop Pro 7 the images look great. So far I've printed them at 7 by 5 inches and they look really good.
For the cost, this is unbeatable.

Customer Service

N/K

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This is one great scanner! Cheap in price but not in quality, it produces great scans of negatives and slides.

It's not Nikon Coolscan but it cost several hundred less to.

Well worth getting, you wont be sorry.

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Microtek 3700

Very affordable.
USB connection - great for moving between machines.
Decent quality pictures from slides.

Scans from colour negatives often need a lot of work!
Software installation problematic (esp. in Windows 2000!)

For the price, there's nothing to compete. It doesn't like being on the same USB hub as my Epson Perfection flatbed, so we have it plugged into the other computer (which has a parallel port flatbed installed).
The key to the software installation is to install all the drivers etc *before* plugging in the scanner... otherwise you'll never get it to work!
The updated drivers are vastly superior - they work great under both Windows 98 and Windows 2000.
Results from slides tend to be pretty good at 1800dpi. Negatives are a mixed bag, and often take some work in Photoshop. So we tend to scan in prints rather than negatives. There's no problem with black and white negatives though, just the colour ones (especially if you're using obscure make film).
Overall, a very worthwhile purchase that's definitely contributed to me shooting slides at least 80% of the time these days!

Customer Service

Not needed apart from downloading updated drivers.

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Cheap...Reviews are
fairly good showing
actual scans. Fairly easy to use. Did not expect a professional product. I need this for
scanning occasional slide or negative. Images are much better than flat bed scanners. With good exposures, negatives and slides turn out surprising sharp with good color.

Manual is worthless.
Scanner takes a little
use to get the hang of.
Poorly exposed slides or
negatives...well..it does little for them. Bundled software is trash. Use Photosuite 4 or Adobe to load scanned images into.

Want a cheap fairly good negative/slide scanner?
Can you work without decent instructions,install
software drivers, and plug in to USB...this product should work out just fine. A pleasant surprise at a remarkably cheap price.

Customer Service

N/A

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None: Only read about.
My Journalism Major in
the family (daughter) says the professional Minolta scanner she uses at school and cost $1400.00 works better.
It should for the money! For most of us the Pacific Image should do fine.