Any reviews of, or experience with the Prime 1800 U by Pacific Image? I'm in the market for an inexpensive slide/negative scanner and would be interested in any comparisons of this unit with HP and Olympus units.

-- Romir Chatterjee (romirc@worldnet.att.net), March 10, 2000

Answers

Both the Prime and Olympus scanners have low resolution by todays standards. The ES-10 also only has a 10 bit A/D coverter which means that its ability to cope with dense or contrasty slides is very limited.

At the lower end of the price range there are only two scanners in the running IMHO. The HP photosmart 20S, and the Acer Scanwit 2720s. The HP has a slightly lower spec in terms of resolution and scan speed, but probably gives more acceptable scans "out-of-the-box". The Acer is capable of very high quality scans, but you need to do some work to get the best out of it; either extensive tweaking of its own Mira-photo software, or the use of Photoshops "curves" facility (Acer supply Photoshop5 LE with the Scanwit).

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), March 13, 2000.

I bought a Prime 1800. It did not work. I returned it and the replacement unit had broken peices rattling around inside. 2 out of 2 DOA does not speak well of their quality control. I did not go for a third one.

-- Ray R (rarobert@nyx.net), April 11, 2001.