Re: filmscanners: CANON INTRODUCES CANOSCAN FS4000US

[Arthur Entlich <artistic@ampsc.com>]

shAf wrote:


>       The Kodak scanner, so well received because of hype, underscored the
> old buyer beware cliché "you get what you pay for!" ... and should
> warn us this Canon scanner should be welcomed only with some caution
> and only after testing.

I certainly don't argue healthy skepticism in any potential purchase, as 
hype is the currency of the high tech industry.  However, I would say 
that cost is not necessarily a good indicator of quality either.  Often 
the name on the front of the product has more to do with the cost than 
the quality or features built into it.  The Kodak may actually be a good 
example.  I'd hardly call it a "cheap" scanner.  As we know, branding is 
also a bit of a red herring since most of this stuff is OEMed by other 
companies (Polaroid, Kodak, etc.)  Secondly, how robustly built the item 
is, how well the software functions, and what kind of customer support 
exists can all enter into the equation.

Further, "value" has to do with the demands of the user.  The Polaroid 
SS4000 is probably neither needed or even appropriate for someone who 
does web pages only, and scans hundreds of images a day, for instance.
Someone who needs to scan uncut rolls cannot use it either.

In its day, the HP Photosmart scanner was a great value (with the caveat 
that you got a good one), and saved many people a good deal of money. 
The Acer Scanwit 2720/2740 broke price point again in that quality 
range.  The Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II seems to once again raise the 
bar while lowering the price (now selling for just under $400 US.)  If 
everyone ignored these products due to the assumption "you get what you 
pay for" these products would have failed in the marketplace, and no 
manufacturer would ever lower their prices, since there was the 
assumption that charging more indicated better product.

The AMD CPUs are considerably cheaper than Intel's, and have forced 
Intel to restructure their pricing on CPUs.  Certainly, at one time 
AMD's CPUs were not fully "Intel or Windows compatible" (due to the way 
Intel protected their products and MS relationship with them), but then 
again, Intel chips couldn't do floating point math properly at one 
point, either ;-)

If we could truly could determine the "value" of a product by its price, 
that would make 98% of this and other list traffic completely 
unnecessary.  We all know that there are so many intricacies determining 
what allows for a good scanner, that I'm not sure even the 
manufacturer's know what is wanted or needed.

Art