So far, my choice for hardware was Newegg. The only exception, IIRC, were my cameras, which I bought at Amazon - that was the area where Newegg had weak offering. But even then, I had to google these cameras for technical specifics, because on Amazon there are none.
This time, it's a scanner for negatives. We always had a camera in the house, since the late fifties. And kept the negatives. Some of the pictures, specially those before I started developing on my own, are on miserably small 60x90 mm paper. Among those, some were never printed, or I did them badly in the lab and never printed properly. Many are lost. But we have the negatives.
So, buy a scanner. Again, Newegg's offer isn't that rich, and maybe Amazon's price may be a bit better. But it turns out Amazon doesn't really want me to know what I'm buying. There's product description, which looks like this:
What? "Instantly" - how many seconds per frame? Zero? Converts prints - then it's not a film scanner, it's a multipurpose gadget. If it scans pictures, then it doesn't do backlight, it probably does reflected light, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, don't want that halo around every dark tree branch. "To preserve them forever" - how is that specific of this scanner? Isn't that in the nature of the digital medium per se? This is as if you boasted that your car has wheels. "Simple-to-use" may mean that it has very few buttons and requires memorizing which one has to be held 3 or 4 seconds to do something else. "Digital image in five seconds" - ah, now we know the length of an instant, it's five seconds. Five megapix(EL!) scanning chip - wait, wait, how does it know how far does it have to travel while scanning? Weren't the scanners supposed to do some, you know, scanning. The "move from here to there while doing your thing along the whole path"? IOW, this is NOT a scanner, it's a camera. Taking shots of old negatives and slides with a camera - been there, done that, and it works without your gadget.
Ah, but this is just "product description". So let's see the technical details for one of these.
But then there's text galore. Things like "Is this a gift? This item ships in its own packaging. To keep the contents concealed, select This will be a gift during checkout.", or "What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?", "explore similar items", "Order it in the next 10 hours and 48 minutes, and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout.", "Frequently Bought Together", "Have one to sell -" (the <...> is a button), "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought ...
Page 1 of 20"... etc. The last one is a pearl. You can't be bothered to serve one page of text, which probably exists ready for the taking on the manufacturer's site, but readily offer 20 pages of your internal statistics on your buyers' habits?
Why would I buy something, blindly unaware of what it actually is, how does it work, what does it do? Just because it's sold on Amazon?
Amazon doesn't care what it sells. Amazon's only product is Amazon itself. That is what is advertised.
This time, it's a scanner for negatives. We always had a camera in the house, since the late fifties. And kept the negatives. Some of the pictures, specially those before I started developing on my own, are on miserably small 60x90 mm paper. Among those, some were never printed, or I did them badly in the lab and never printed properly. Many are lost. But we have the negatives.
So, buy a scanner. Again, Newegg's offer isn't that rich, and maybe Amazon's price may be a bit better. But it turns out Amazon doesn't really want me to know what I'm buying. There's product description, which looks like this:
XXX 3-in-1 PhotoScanner XX-XX00 is a innovative standalone film scanner that instantly converts 35mm film negatives, slides and photo prints into digital images without the need for a computer or application software. Now you can preserve all their photo memories by turning the millions of photographs now stored on slides and negatives into digital images to preserve them forever. We have created a very simple-to-use device that works right out of the box and produces a five-megapixel digital image in five seconds at a push of a button. The device features a 5.1mpix scanning chip producing the images large enough to be printed on a A4 page! Unlike similar devices currently on the market, the XXX 3-in-1 PhotoScanner XX-XX00 does not require a computer or learning a new software program, and it takes very little space to operate, store or transport.
What? "Instantly" - how many seconds per frame? Zero? Converts prints - then it's not a film scanner, it's a multipurpose gadget. If it scans pictures, then it doesn't do backlight, it probably does reflected light, which is exactly what I'm trying to avoid, don't want that halo around every dark tree branch. "To preserve them forever" - how is that specific of this scanner? Isn't that in the nature of the digital medium per se? This is as if you boasted that your car has wheels. "Simple-to-use" may mean that it has very few buttons and requires memorizing which one has to be held 3 or 4 seconds to do something else. "Digital image in five seconds" - ah, now we know the length of an instant, it's five seconds. Five megapix(EL!) scanning chip - wait, wait, how does it know how far does it have to travel while scanning? Weren't the scanners supposed to do some, you know, scanning. The "move from here to there while doing your thing along the whole path"? IOW, this is NOT a scanner, it's a camera. Taking shots of old negatives and slides with a camera - been there, done that, and it works without your gadget.
Ah, but this is just "product description". So let's see the technical details for one of these.
OK... doesn't tell me anything. Real time control is what, a LCD screen? Any camera has that. Automatic scan modes - does that mean there are no manual modes or not? Dust removal... by what, little brushes or software? I'd like to know before I buy. But where are the gory details? The DPI, the color depth, whether it delivers images in some raw format, or tiff, or is it necessarily a fixed-rate compressed jpeg? Hey, here it says See more technical details. That's it! That's where all of this must be. And, indeed, here it is:Technical Details
- Real-time Control and Automatic Scan Modes
- Automatic Dust and Scratch Removal
- Automatic IT8 Calibration
- Enhanced with Multi-Exposure functions on negative Film
- Built-in Multi-Sampling function for quality image
Really? The page source is 286 kilobytes. And all the technical info I get out of this is the brand and model, which were already listed. And there's no link to manufacturer's product page. None on Newegg either, though I seem to remember they used to have that, once upon a time.Technical Details
- Brand Name: Blahtech
- Model: XX00iX0
But then there's text galore. Things like "Is this a gift? This item ships in its own packaging. To keep the contents concealed, select This will be a gift during checkout.", or "What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?", "explore similar items", "Order it in the next 10 hours and 48 minutes, and choose One-Day Shipping at checkout.", "Frequently Bought Together", "Have one to sell -
Why would I buy something, blindly unaware of what it actually is, how does it work, what does it do? Just because it's sold on Amazon?
Amazon doesn't care what it sells. Amazon's only product is Amazon itself. That is what is advertised.
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