More cheap scanner reviews.
In December last year I made a short review of the “Reflecta RubyScan” now I got my hands on one more of these cheap scanners, and I thought why not make a review of it as well. So here we go.
:Zolid Filmscan 35-II-2.4
Is – I guess – the name of this scanner, and right of the batch the design and build quality, looks and feels better than the Ruby scanner, but that isn’t saying much, because the Ruby was really crappy.
:Zolid scans 35mm negatives and slide film – Ruby also did 110 – and setting up the scanner is really easy, you just plug-in the power, insert an SD card and you’re ready to go.
Stand alone
When you’re using the :Zolid scanner, you don’t need a computer, it saves the scans to the SD card. And as with the Ruby, you just put your film in one of the film holders, slide that into the side of the scanner and your ready to scan your first photo.
But this is where the headache starts, because the software for controlling the scans really sucks. There are three buttons at the top of the scanner – Mirror – OK – Flip – they are used for, according to the manual, mirroring and flipping the photo, and entering the menu. But no matter what I try I couldn’t get the buttons to work with flipping and mirroring. I also wanted to rotate one of my photo’s but that didn’t work either, here you have to go into the menu rotate and saved it, but it was still turning the wrong way, when I exited the menu. I ended up just scanning the photos as they were, and then flipping and rotating them in Lightroom, faster and easier.
Saving
When you want to save a photo/scan you have to push the OK button, wait for the menu to appear – it’s only a few seconds, but still – then push the OK button again, then it saves your scan. Why isn’t there just a save button on the outside of the scanner?
Adjustments
You can actually make some minor adjustments to your photo, before scanning it. You can adjust the brightness, and the color with an “RGB” adjustment, where you set the colors – Red, Green & Blue – individually to get the color tone you want on the photo.
But it wouldn’t be wise to start making adjustments when all you have to go by is a very small and properly not very accurate LCD screen.
Camera not scanner
As it was with the Ruby scanner, this one doesn’t scan, it just makes a photo of your photo.
Now with a camera that’s way better than the one on the Ruby scanner, but still not good enough.
Photo quality
We are way above what the Ruby scanner could deliver in quality. The photos from the Ruby scanner were useless, the ones from the :Zolid are almost usable. But not for anything serious, for that the quality is still too bad.
So, am I going to use it? Well, hell no 🙂
Another thing I find a bit annoying about this scanner is that it adds a title and a caption to your photo, that both says “My beautiful picture”, stop it! Now you have to manually remove those, if you don’t want it to pop-up – almost – everywhere you use the photo online. I know it’s a minor thing but still annoying.
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The Look
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The Quality
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The Handling
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The Price
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The Output
In short!
It’s a better “scanner” then the Ruby I reviewed earlier. But it’s still junk, Stay away!
Pros
- It’s small & light
- Stand alone
- Fast (if you don’t use the menu)
Cons
- Output file is not usable
- Software menu is really bad
- Doesn’t scan – takes a picture.
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