Customer Reviews

Pandigital SCN02 Photolink One-Touch Scanner with Memory Card

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I purchased this unit for a very specific reason. I have thousands of old photos that probably would not benefit from a high res scan since they do not look all that great as pictures. Many are of family and pets and thus I would like to keep them and display them using my digital frame. The idea that I could scan pictures in on a table top without a computer was very appealing. When the unit arrived, I read the instructions. It tells you to use these clear plastic sleeves (one for 3x5 and another for 4x6) to scan your photos. Don't. These things are poorly designed and will either not catch properly on the unit causing numerous rescans or it will create lines on the photo. It tells you in the packaging that they are to protect your photo. Nonsense. I have scanned a lot of pictures without them and there has not been even a hint of a problem. Once I ditched the sleeves and scanned directly in to the unit, I was quite pleased. Just be aware that it crops a few mm's off your original. The final product is respectable. You get a 1.5 mega pixel jpeg for 3x5 and a 2 mega pixel jpeg for 4x6's. This is fine for displaying on a digital frame but hardly high enough resolution to do any real editing to or print enlargements. I have used up to 4 gig Utra II SD cards and they work fine. There is also a compact flash slot so you can make use of some old cards if they are sitting around. Bottom line, it works as advertised but the final product is hardly a comparison for even a low cost flat bed scanner.

This is great for doing 300dpi scans. It is so fast and quicker - much faster than placing photos in a desktop scanner. I have been impressed with the results and can easily sit and scan hundreds of photos (up to a 4x6 size) while watching tv. The quality is great. I would highly recommend this PanDigital scanner to anyone who took tons of photographs and wants to have them on their computer or just to create digital images for backup. If there were ever an emergency, it is far easier to run out of the house with a memory card rather than boxes and boxes of photos. So far, I have scanned about 4000 photos and very happy with the results. Would love to see PanDigital come out with a higher DPI unit. I would be first in line to purchase.

I bought this scanner to scan several photo albums and many boxes of prints that I have. Some are old, one-of-a-kind family photos that go back to early in the last century.

This scanner screamed through my grandmother's album (with 400+ photos). I was able to scan them all in about 2 hours. That's incredible. However, I didn't run into a few issues:

1) Some photos just won't feed straight and you end up with a funky curve in the photo.
2) Some photos get stuck and need help. These photos end up with a lot of leading or trailing bogus data.
3) Some old photos from the 40's/50's are tiny. These really need a higher resolution scanner to be useable.

There are a couple of things that would definitely improve this scanner. A battery so that it could be used without plugging it in and a way to more securely put in a SD card. That way I could through this in a backpack and just use it.

Even with these issues, it's a very nice addition to flatbed scanner, but it's not a replacement.

I purchased the digital scanner after reading the reviews - aware of the potential scan line problem. While initially happy with the scanner after trying a couple of scans, my optimism turned to disappointment as the infamous "scan line" appeared. I consider myself technically proficient and have tried all the manufacturers cleaning and problem corrections (and even disassembled the unit and cleaned the roller - but nothing worked and the very prominent scan line problem persists. While the unit is extremely fast in scanning photos, the scan line problem overrides its efficiency. So, essentially, this piece of equipment is now a paperweight as the photo scans are unusable. I'll revert to my larger desktop but slower CanoScan 8600. I gave it a shot. Maybe pandigital will improve their product to permanently fix the problem.

I got so tired of using my flatbed scanner to back up the thousands of photos that I had laying around that I had to find something more effective and this was the ticket! I purchased the scanner and while watching a couple movies I scanned over 2000 photos. That would have taken forever on my flatbed scanner. I am using with windows 7 so I know it works on that too.

Great item. It is a lot eaiser to scan photos than using a full size scanner. It is fast. Really great for your everyday photo collections. I would recommend the full size scanner if you want to do any extensive editing.

This thing is perfect for quickly scanning in old photos. Like others have said they won't be the best quality (as compared to a flat bed scanner), but we were able to scan ~500 photos in 2 hours (including taking them out of the book and watching tv/drinking). If you want super high quality photos use the flatbed. If you want to be done scanning before you die...get this.

Don't use their plastic sleeve. Its a waste of time. If you're only putting the photo through the scanner a few times its not going to damage it.

I have scanned to date 2,500 photos with this scanner. I love it! It is very fast. I have just enough time to scan a photo, put the duplicate behind the pile I am scanning, get another one ready, by the time the first photo is done being scanned. I love this scanner.

Be sure to scan the photos directly to your PC. If you can't, that's fine too. But I like to because I could see if 1) the scanner was working 2) the quality of the photos. Be warned - every photo I have scanned has an extra triangle of black on the left and right of the photo. Every photo. A big deal to me? Not really. I will be downloading a free application found on Google (not sure what it's called yet! But I know they exist) to BATCH crop all photos scanned using this scanner. Sure I will lose a LITTLE bit of photo, but nothing to want to scan each photo and crop each photo by hand using a flat bed scanner. The quality isn't the best either, but I will be using Picasa to both "Sharpen" and "I'm feeling lucky" settings to make the quality great.

Also note: you will every once in a while notice vertical (or horizontal depending on how you look at it) lines in your scanned photos. Don't use the plastic sheet that it comes with. I threw it away without even trying (based on reviews here). That would take forever. If you notice lines, follow the 3 steps to clean your scanner. It'll work great. I usually had to do this every 50-100 photos, but once I got through about 300 photos without cleaning. Other times, it was every 10 photos until you got a good clean.

BEST TIP I CAN GIVE YOU: CALIBRATING YOUR SCANNER with the included calibrator is the best way to get great results and no vertical lines. You may have to calibrate a couple of times in a row. This is why I recommend scanning directly to your computer - you get to see the quality right away before you scan 100 photos all with a noticeable line through them :)

This will make a digital copy quickly but at drastically reduced quality. The claims of "up to 1800x1200 @4x6 photo scanned" and "optical 300x300 dpi" are misleading and false. I scanned the same 6 photos on my aged HP scanner at its 300 dpi setting to compare. My HP scans were much much clearer and the colors were true to the originals. Comparison took place after abandoning use of the pandigital's "scanning sleeve" which further blurs images and reduces color quality.

The scanning sleeve comes with marks and lines in the clear cover which, I imagine, would worsen with use and impact the images. The scanning process also imposed black and/or white lines on some of the digital files. This was discovered only after moving them to my computer to view. I had to start over to get line-less copies.

This product is a great concept but not worth the money if you want to see your photos clearly. Stick to a real scanner, scan 6 images to a page and simply crop them out.

I bought one of these for myself and then one for daughter. So easy to use and can scan photos while watching tv, doesn't have to be hooked up to PC. Must remember to clean rollers after about 50-75 scans otherwise there will be streaks across scanned pictures. I suggest not using the clear sleeve when scanning. Pictures come out better.