Review on Pacific Image PrimeFilm Slide Scanner by Chris Edgerton

I bought this product as a gift for my 80 year old parents who wanted to digitize their old collection of 35mm slides (boxes and boxes of old family photos). . I bought this scanner because other reviewers said the digital image quality after scanning was pretty good for the money (ie it was supposedly good value). I can't say anything about the image quality because the scanner didn't work. But after 2 hours of trying to set it up I came to the conclusion that this product is not intended for consumer use. Here are the 4 main problems I encountered: 1) Poor integration of hardware and software. This product consists of 3 elements: A) Hardware scanner, B) CyberView software and C) SilverFast software. Neither of these elements is integrated with the other. It looks like 3 technologies from 3 different companies that don't work together as a whole. 2) Terrible documentation. Inside the box is a small piece of paper called "Quick Setup Guide”. This is very limited and really only covers turning on the scanner and plugging it into a USB port on your PC. That's all. The software is downloaded from the Internet and comes without documentation. I'm an engineer and I finally figured out how to download/install everything but the process was very confusing and frustrating. Since the scanner does not work without software and there is no unified guide for software and hardware, I believe this is a small business product only that has the patience to train someone to be an expert on this product. For the average user/consumer this product is a nightmare. 3) Outdated UI. The whole installation process reminded me of installing technical products on Windows 30 years ago. Nothing was modern or even remotely reminiscent of this century's applications/UI/flows. And the user interfaces for the CyberView and SilverFast software were very complicated and designed for professionals who use the software on a daily basis and want to have a lot of buttons and dials to adjust images. There is no simple "scan" button for casual users who just want to digitize their boxes of 35mm slides. 4) Never Connected - I was never able to connect the scanner to my PC (my MacBook would not connect the scanner even after following the instructions and restarting the scanner and PC several times. However, the scanner never worked, so I finally gave up and returned the scanner to Revain.