Good quality positives and standard negatives scan fine. It is small an reasonably built.

Bundled software is useless (my standard flatbed scanner''s software is better suited to the purpose).

The machine is capable of producing good results although some tweaking of gamma is often needed. The twain driver supplied is adequate. The limited selection of negative types has caused me problems.

Customer Service

Support site''s database contains elementary support.

Similar Products Used:

None

Good enough quailty on most scans to be worth the effort for having a slide show on your PC.

Occasionally have to play with the gamma settings to get good output.

Decent scans from slides that don''t have a lot of contrast. Not so good scans from slides that have lots of shadows & bright lights. Had no trouble installing the driver on Windows 98. Have to turn off/turn on every so often when scanner decides to scan only half a slide as mentioned in an earlier review.

Customer Service

Not needed.

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flatbed scanners

Umm... yeah.... uh... look a bird .

It should be illegal to make something this crappy. Poor colors, poor... EVERYTHING!!!

Since I''ve gone digital, I thought it would be a good idea to scan in my old 35''s to have online and maybe for some 4x6 reprints. I didn''t want to spend $800 on a nice scanner, so I bought this piece of crap. I had read all the reviews, stories about it breaking, and thought to myself, It can''t be that bad? WELL IT IS. ITS at TOTAL piece of junk. The colors are terrible. The darks are VERY noisy. And to top it off, it broke (thank GOD) on the 29th day. It just doesn''t work anymore. I just hear a click and it locks up the twain driver. I scanned about 100 negatives, and they are useable for the web, but scanning the actual photos would have produced better results. Please, DO NOT buy one. Save youself the hassle. A good alternative is to open microsoft paint (the one that comes with windows) and hold the negative up to the light... and start drawing freehand. Its THAT bad.

Customer Service

Wasn''t even gonna try.... it went back to netmarket which took it back without a problem.

Similar Products Used:

Agfa E50 flatbed

Umm... yeah.... uh... look a bird .

It should be illegal to make something this crappy. Poor colors, poor... EVERYTHING!!!

Since I''ve gone digital, I thought it would be a good idea to scan in my old 35''s to have online and maybe for some 4x6 reprints. I didn''t want to spend $800 on a nice scanner, so I bought this piece of crap. I had read all the reviews, stories about it breaking, and thought to myself, It can''t be that bad? WELL IT IS. ITS at TOTAL piece of junk. The colors are terrible. The darks are VERY noisy. And to top it off, it broke (thank GOD) on the 29th day. It just doesn''t work anymore. I just hear a click and it locks up the twain driver. I scanned about 100 negatives, and they are useable for the web, but scanning the actual photos would have produced better results. Please, DO NOT buy one. Save youself the hassle. A good alternative is to open microsoft paint (the one that comes with windows) and hold the negative up to the light... and start drawing freehand. Its THAT bad.

Customer Service

Wasn''t even gonna try.... it went back to netmarket which took it back without a problem.

Similar Products Used:

Agfa E50 flatbed

Price / Quality

Software

I like this scanner. The price is ok and the quality is very, very nice. The only thing that is not so fine is the software. Using silverfast SE is a real inprovement.

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None

Low price (for UK); USB interface avoids need for SCSI; easy to set up and use; good online documentation on CD; works better with negatives than slides; 1800dpi optical resolution is better than for most flatbed scanners.

Perfectly exposed slides all came out far too dark, necessitating a level of pre- or post-scan adjustment which degraded the image too much, rather like a mis-exposed negative which is heavily pushed to obtain a print; significant loss of detail in shadows and highlights, noting that density ratio is not quoted by the manufacturers, and is therefore presumed to be quite low.

Not very impressive, at least for slides with reasonably high contrast, even if end objective is limited to 72dpi web images. Might represent good value if you are using only negatives or slides with low contrast.

Customer Service

After 5 days of waiting, manufacturers have not responded to my, or retailers, e-mail queries seeking help with exposure problem.

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Nikon Coolscan III proved far superior but is around four times the price in the UK.

1. Cheap
2. CAN produce very good results if you persevere with gamma adjustments, etc.

1. Serious mechanical shortcomings. First machine was replaced. Replacement is the same.Transport 'judders'half way though scan on around 1 in 3 scans (average, particularly on quality mode), meaning scan has to be redone. Far too time consuming for professional use.
2. Shadows too dark on some slides, even if photos only intended for use on web sites.

Take a chance if you have limited funds and plenty of time. The results can be very good. But how long will it be before the machine stops working altogether, particularly after the warranty period expires?

Customer Service

Dealt direct with shop.

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Professional drum scanner.

It's cheap.

Absolutely terrible technical support. The driver for Windows 2000 simply doesn't work. Tech Support has not responded after several days and several E-mails.

Using Windows 98 (pre-installed) scans were wildly inconsistent and required dramatic post scanning work in Photoshop.

Different scans of the same negative using identical settings were not the same suggesting problems with the internal workings of this scanner.

This scanner doesn't approact pro quality and amateurs will have problems working with the software so it's really not worth it for anyone

It's a loser.

Customer Service

Forget it, there seems to be none.

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HP ScanJet 5370c with transpency adapter, and other scanners.

Cheapest scanner in the world, if that's a strength

Suffers from various problems resulting in crummy scans

I originally posted a favorable review of the PF1800 here in October of this year. That scanner worked very well for a few days, then suddenly started producing out-of-focus scans. I arranged an exchange from the manufacturer. The second one produced a vertical line along the left side of each scan, and a green haze along the right side. I arranged for another exchange. The third one generated moire patterns on every image, in addition to the same green haze along the right side. Another exchange. I suppose I'll end up keeping number four, even though it too suffers from the dreaded green haze syndrome.

I was really hoping to get a specimen that works correctly, because in theory, this scanner could be a nice entry-level solution. Unfortunately, its persistent serious defects make it impossible to recommend.

Customer Service

Marginal, but the product is so bad that service is irrelevant

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Microtek ScanMaker 3600

The price is right, the scans are high quality.

I had a couple strange problems(see below), not the fastest, noisy at times

The first problem was it scanned a few pictures super bright in shades of cyan, then it would only scan half the image. I simply reset the scanner(by turning it off then back on) and the problems went away. It's not the fastest by any means, and it can be pretty noisy at times when previewing. Other than that, it's a great little scanner.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

none