[LargeFormat] Microtek scanners.

[Clive Warren]

At 8:42 am -0800 20/1/02, Les Newcomer wrote:
snip
>I looked at B&H Photo. It looks like the ScanMaker 8700 is the
>cheapest/only(?) firewire they offer.  I've also found that there are two
>marketing packages out there.  Base model  and Design Pro  with Silverfast
>Ai5 and Genuine Fractals which I've also heard great things about.
>  A sherlock shearch came up with only a couple of sites for the design pro=
,
>the cheapest place that actually has one was $946.00  YIKES!
>
>A look at Silverfast's site shows they didn't bundle silverfast with the
>ScanMaker 4 here in North America.  Assuming I could find one on this
>continent I'd have to buy a scsi card and Silverfast.
>
>A quick search at mac mall came up  with an $80 scsi card that is actually
>fast scsi and it would allow me to save my zip drive and my very expensive
>internal scsi Microtek flash card reader from the old computer.
>
>But Silverfast for the ScanMaker 4 is $349.00.(direct from Silverfast)  Plu=
s
>another $180 for the templates to do multiples from my "minature"camera.
>Means that At the very minimum a ScanMaker 4 will cost in excess of $610.
>
>Man I didnt know how good my HP scanjet 4c was at $200!

The SilverFast bundle deal was a special from Microtek to clear off 
the existing stocks of ScanMaker 4s and mine cost around $435 as a 
bundle deal with all the scanning trays here in the UK!  The 8700 is 
the successor and is supposed to have superior optics but may be just 
a marketing ploy to sell 'em as they dispensed with the SCSI port and 
replaced it with firewire which must have been a redesigned chassis 
and electronics. USB would definitely be slow for a scanner with the 
capabilities of the ScanMaker4.

I believe the 8700 is about =A3800 here ($1200).

There are probably still some deals to be had out there if you make a 
few calls - well in the UK anyway. Makes a change for hardware to be 
cheaper here eh?

Cheers,
        Clive