[35mm ] Firstly, I have never encountered a product whose reviews differed so much from the actual product.

I purchased this scanner primarily for its Optical Resolution. The software features are practical, easy-to-use, and magnitudes better than reviews suggest.

Use Case - Digitizing several dozen slides and negatives taken in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
All comments are based on scanning at the highest resolution.



PROS

* Both hardware and software features thoroughly complement each other. Slide and negative scanning simply works.

* Truly High-Resolution Scans - Scanning was performed at the highest resolution with TIFF file sizes in the 680-760MB file range.

* CyberViewX (software) is stable and responsive when Pre-Scanning/Scanning slides and negatives at maximum resolution.

Note - My scan times are reasonable at the highest resolution. I suspect some user’s computer hardware are unsuitable for such large data transfers over USB.

* CyberViewX (software) contains a solid set of features for adjusting scan area, color, exposure, and image clean up.

* CyberViewX (software) – “Magic Touch” does an incredible job of removing dust, scratches, specks, etc. from images. (See before/after images)

* Problem-free hardware. The unit behaves as expected with no surprises.



CONS

* Hands down, the weakest part of this product is the user manual. You need only read “Installing Hardware – Step 1” before your first head scratch. It suffers from: 1) poor proofing, 2) outdated software references, and 3) no mention of the newest software features.

* Short-ish USB cable; a longer cable would be nice.


I sat on the PrimeFilmXA fence for quite a while given the poor product reviews. I have been at 4-Stars for a while, but after thoroughly evaluating the ‘Negative Film’ support I am more than comfortable giving this product 5-Stars.

[24 MP] I have been using the A300 Plus scanner a few days now and can say it does what it was made for. It has been working great at scanning large format books (old bound newspapers). The automated scanning available in the software is great. The default is every 15 seconds which seems to be just about enough time to rotate and turn pages. So far I am very pleased with it and have had no problems with it preforming as expected.

[35mm ] These are some of the best scanners on the market, Fujitsu always made a top notch scanner for enterprise document scanning. This one has the bonus of TWAIN drivers to work with more software than the more proprietary formats they used in the past.

[Linear CCD] I thought I was going to have to throw away my slide scanner box, because parts are to find. This hard to find part will keep me scanning. Thanks bhphoto & video.

[USB-B 2.0] We have a scan lab at the Maine State Library that includes a range of different technology for digitizing various types of media. We have long relied on Epsons for digitizing photos, film and negatives and Zeutchel book scanners for imaging of bound materials. The Plustek fills an important niche for us, however, and I'd strongly recommend it for anyone looking to digitize bound materials at a fraction of the cost of buying a full blown book scanner. We use it a lot and have been pleased with the results.


Unlike our Epson flatbed scanners, the Plustek allows scanning right to the front edge of the scanner. That allows you to scan one full page of a book or a magazine right up to the gutter without any distortion or shadow from the book gutter. The bed size is large enough that you scan scan pages up to 11x17 in size.


While our Zeutchel book scanners perform better with many bound materials because of the ability to scan a page spread, the Plustek is portable and costs a fraction of the what it cost us to purchase the book scanner. We've also found that the Plustek does a much better job of getting page images of tightly bound (perfect bound or fastback bound) books that we need to image because we are able to get a nice scan without having to force the page spread completely flat.


There are a lot of entry level book scanners that claim a good page spread from overhead scanning - I've yet to see any that provide image quality like what we get from the Plustek.


If you are looking for a flatbed to do negatives/slides or photos at a resolution higher than 600, this really isn't the machine for you. But if you want a relatively inexpensive way to get into book scanning and want good results, this is a smart purchase.

[7200 dpi] We are a small research library that occasionally needs to scan our books and articles for our digital collections. The scanning software has some oddities (I had to fiddle with some of the settings to see my preview and change other settings to prevent it from overwriting previous scans), but it worked great after I figured it out. 600dbi archival TIFFs in seconds! I called Plusteck to help with the settings and they were fantastic! Answered on the first ring and they were very helpful. Very little, if any, post-processing required. Relative to the amount it would cost to get our books professionally scanned and edited, this scanner is a steal.

[AC Adapter] I bought this scanner, tested it, then realized someone I know could use it for her job so I donated it to her organization and am ordering another. It isn't just the product I like. I'm ordering from B & H Photo because their service, staff, and delivery time are unmatched.