Test report Quato film scanner IntelliScan 5000

At the beginning of the year 2006, just when Konica-Minolta, a well known manufacturer in the field of photography and scanners backed out of that segment, suddenly with the Quato company a new face on the film scanner market emerged.

Back then many hadn't heard anything yet about the company Quato. Can a new company simply enter into an established market, where since many years established companies such as Nikon or Reflecta are on? Is it worth for a company to invest development work into a type of device, which will be useless one day anyway? Whoever takes the Quato IntelliScan 5000 into his hands or views a picture of the product in detail, will immediately notice that there's already such a device on the market and it's from the company Plustek.

A comparison between the Quato IntelliScan 5000 and the Plustek Optic Film 7500i shows quickly that the two devices are almost identically built, although their technical data is different. The housing dimensions, the shape, the control buttons and the film holders are nearly identical. Are we looking here at double series, like it is for example the case with the Reflecta DigitDia 5000 and the Braun Multimag SlideScan 4000b?

The Quato IntelliScan 5000 is a scanner, which raises curiosity, because the price is extremely moderate. With a resolution of 5000 dpi it seems to at least on the paper beat every presently available Nikon scanner; one can however foresee that the effective resolution will be clearly lower. Very nice is also the fact, that the SilverFast Studio version with the IT-8 calibration slide is included in the extremely low price.

But how good can a scanner be, which contains a professional software, which alone already costs half the price of the device? Is it an absolute bargain or is it cheap hardware being improved by adding known software? The technical data, the equipment and the software are much promising and the expectations are high.

We will nevertheless not provide a test report for the Quato IntelliScan 5000, since the device is indeed identically constructed like the Plustek. After further inquiry at the manufacturer Plustek, it turned out that Quato developed a driver for this device for Apple computers and sells the same device by their brand for PCs and Macs, while Plustek offers its device only for Windows PCs.

Important: The film scanner Quato IntelliScan 5000 is identically constructed like the Plustek OpticFilm 7500i. Quato sells this device under license, but has however developed an Apple Mac driver in addition.

Buying a film scanner

Please, feel free to visit our online shop - it's the only shop on the Internet which is fully specialized on film scanners and accessories! We can provide you with any film scanner at an extremely attractive price and we also can supply you with accessories such as film holders or optional adapters.

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