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britboy

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Nov 4, 2001
2,655
0
Argentina
It would appear that UMAX, tired of following trends (such as this scanner, with a translucent plastic lid...) have decided to become an innovator themselves, as shown by this article. Will this move be followed by other tech companies? I hope not. I'd always thought that part of the price i paid for components was the guarantee of free future driver updates.... was i wrong?


Device drivers that were previously available as a free download had been withdrawn, and users were now invited to pay for a CD-ROM version.
 
I certainly hope this doesn't become a trend, its bad enough just having to deal with updates, let alone paying for them.
 
I agree. But at least they are making drivers available. Some companies dont seem to care about OS X drivers what-so-ever, not going to mention any names <cough>epson<cough>.
 
it would be a very sad state of affairs if manufacturers view compatability with OS X something that we should pay extra for...

paying for the components should be a one-time deal...not to get an updated version of the software to work on an updated OS...
 
Hopefully.... UMAX are the exception to the rule here..... interestingly they're doing the same for XP, so it's not some vendetta against OSX......

If they're going to keep doing this..... then people should stop buying UMAX products..... simple as that.... they'd soon get the message...... topping out at $60 for a CD of driver updates is disgraceful........

To be honest though, you can get much better scanners than UMAX ones at competitive prices........ from companies who probably value there customers alittle higher than UMAX's do....... :mad:
 
I never did like UMAX, and this isn't a surprise to me. I hope this news gets out and people stop buying their products so they figure out that paying for driver updates is ridiculous! If we buy their friggin products, you would think that the least they could do would be to actually make them USABLE, which means... creating compatible drivers! Who woulda thought! :rolleyes:

At the very least, they should give us drivers for a certain amount of years (like 3 or 5) for free. They'd be losing money if they gave us drivers for free indefinitely. Then, after that, they could start making the user pay for driver updates. That sounds like more of an acceptable practice to me.
 
UMAX...from what I've heard from more than one source...makes cheap scanners....quality-wise...at least in the past...

when Agfa was still manufacturing scanner...they were really tweaked out UMAX units...

I will be buying a scanner later in the year...with film/slide/transparency capabilities...

I really have no idea what I'll be buying...but hopefully by the time I get around to it FireWire prices will start to decline a little...
 
Originally posted by eyelikeart
I will be buying a scanner later in the year...with film/slide/transparency capabilities...

I really have no idea what I'll be buying...but hopefully by the time I get around to it FireWire prices will start to decline a little...

Whatever it is, I can bet it won't be a UMAX... :D

Take a look over at MacNN.com, every single one of those people commenting have condemned UMAX and swear they'll never buy from them again. I truly hope those corporate bigwigs who decided to make such a stupid move catch wind of these comments in addition to the flooding of emails they must be receiving by now. Like everyone says, they've had something up their you-know-what ever since their plug got pulled on those clones. Boo-hoo! :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by Hemingray

At the very least, they should give us drivers for a certain amount of years (like 3 or 5) for free. They'd be losing money if they gave us drivers for free indefinitely. Then, after that, they could start making the user pay for driver updates. That sounds like more of an acceptable practice to me.


Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't is normal for support to only last 3 to 5 years anyway? After that i thought support ceased, as the product was likely to be outdated, making it more worthwhile to upgrade.
 
Originally posted by eyelikeart
UMAX...from what I've heard from more than one source...makes cheap scanners....quality-wise...at least in the past...

when Agfa was still manufacturing scanner...they were really tweaked out UMAX units...

I will be buying a scanner later in the year...with film/slide/transparency capabilities...

I really have no idea what I'll be buying...but hopefully by the time I get around to it FireWire prices will start to decline a little...

You heard correct sir..... UMAX quality is pretty poor.... although don't get me wrong, their scanners scan....... and are suitable for those on a budget,..... but you can tell by the quality of both the product and the scan, than you can get better........

I used to have a Heidelberg Linotype Hell scanner, and it was truely superb..... although with Heidelberg you pay the premium... but the quality is second to none..........
 
Originally posted by britboy



Correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't is normal for support to only last 3 to 5 years anyway? After that i thought support ceased, as the product was likely to be outdated, making it more worthwhile to upgrade.

That's generally the norm, yes. Technology in the consumer scanning department, though, hasn't changed that radically in the past few years. What was made 5 years ago for the most part is still pretty usable today as well (except that it may be SCSI, but so what.) The resolutions have been increased and more features added, like one-touch buttons and all that jazz, but for the most part the scanning mechanism remains very similar.
 
umax email

Earlier today I sent them this email:

to: support@umaxcare.com

(umaxCARE.com ... what's in a name)

"Hi there,

I tried to download a new driver for my UMAX 1220U scanner and found out that it's impossible and that instead of downloading you want to charge money for a CD!!! More than 30 or even 60 dollars!!! Have you gone mad or what???

Go on like this and your drivers very soon will only be driving one thing:

You ..... Out of business...

I'll never buy any UMAX product again."
 
Originally posted by iGAV
I used to have a Heidelberg Linotype Hell scanner, and it was truely superb..... although with Heidelberg you pay the premium... but the quality is second to none..........

how much was your Heidelberg? We use a Heidelberg Quicksetter for film output here at work...and I know they paid about $50,000 for it...nice equipment...:D
 
and in today's update...

Ha ha! The updates are available at UMAX's other sites around the world as free updates.... Where's the logic there? As stated on insanely great:

It's likely few if any people will actually purchase driver CDs from Umax US. The more probably scenario is that users will simply download from sites that still offer free drivers. So, the cheapness exhibited by Umax's US operations will be paid for out of the pockets of the company's other operations. This is an untenable situation both for customers and the company.

It's on a lesser scale, but this is about as good as microsoft trying to claim that UNIX is bad, whilst hosting their campaign site on a unix server :p :D
 
Originally posted by eyelikeart


how much was your Heidelberg? We use a Heidelberg Quicksetter for film output here at work...and I know they paid about $50,000 for it...nice equipment...:D

We're going back to 1999 now... so it's abit grey in the memory....... it was around £800, and was just a conventional flatbed scanner, that really kicked a*se when it came to quality........ I choose Heidelberg over an equally priced AGFA, because of the high end nature of their products, so figured that there scanners must be pretty good aswell, and indeed I wasn't disapointed.......

I sold it when I sold my old 266 G3..... and have never really had a need for a scanners since, as all images have been supplied by either the companies I've worked for, or by my clients........

Have a check to see what the current price ranges are on the scanners....... although they're going to be expensive.... the quality really is amazing.......!! ;)

Canon are pretty good as well......... or so I here....... ;)

Hey nice find britboy..... I'd say anyone with a UMAX product, D/L the drivers now, before the rest of the sites go Pay-For-Drivers...... surely it's only a matter of time before this happens...... :rolleyes: :(
 
Well, a easy way to see how well Umax is doing is to check for Umax scanner today in ebay and to check back in two months, for sure the ammount of scanners for sale are going to increase.
 
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