Others are sexier, but this one scans...
Written: Sep 27 '00
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Pros: Scan quality, ease of use and setup, build, reliability, competitively priced
Cons: Big and not very cool if you worry about those things
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| Clive_Conway's Full Review: Agfa SnapScan 1236s Flatbed Scanner |
Scanners have become as trendy as lycra bike pants in the last 2 or 3 years. The first SCSI scanner I bought about 6 years ago cost $3700 Australian after a recent price cut. The same spec today is unavailable. A modern $99 scanner has twice the quality and 3 times the speed.
With so much price and feature warfare going on at the bottom end of the market it's easy to get lost in specs or bamboozled by 'coolness'. If you're impressed by that sort of thing then the better AGFA models are not likely to impress you much.
My comments here apply to both the SCSI and Parallel models of this scanner
This scanner, like most in the AGFA range, is an old-fashioned, solidly built warhorse. It looks nice enough, is not too heavy but is reasonably large. There are cooler looking models on the market.
But what the AGFA does very well is SCAN! Yup, it does what it's supposed to as well as many models I have seen at 3 times the price.
What you need to remember about scanners is that having 4800dpi 42-bit is all well and good, but you almost never use it. The best colour printing presses hold no more than 200 line screens, so you don't need to scan at more than 400dpi for that. A computer monitor is usually about 72 dpi so all the extra resolution is never used.
That being the case the Snapscan will do all you want and more. The optical quality is great, and transparency adaptors and sheet feeders are available I believe. The accompanying utilities are good though you may be able to shop for a deal on a bundle with decent OCR or image editing software. Speed is very good on the SCSI model and tolerable on the Parallel one. Build quality is solid and long term reliability good.
Buy it--just don't expect your friends to say "Hey wow, a new scanner."
Recommended:
Yes
Interface: SCSI
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Epinions.com ID:
Clive_Conway
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Member: Clive Conway
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Reviews written: 41
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
Writer, philosopher and adventurer from Adelaide, South Australia. www.eebahgum.com
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