Wear of Spectrometers - Buying advice

[Inkling]

Hello,

I currently have an offer for a brand new Calibrite Studio for 350 € and an offer for a used Colormunki Photo for 110 € and a used X-Rite i1 Pro for 90 €. I assume that the first two are technically more or less identical except for the branding and some minor design changes.

Is there any relevant decay of spectrometers that would justify the purchase of a new device?

 

[James Mike]

I'd wait for more knowledgeable opinions but i'd guess areas of concern would be the hours on the light source and whether there is damage or yellowing to the calibration swatch and whether those can be serviced.

 

[Flummi]

Colorphotometer, generally used as cheap device to profile your monitor, use/used organic color filters. These degenerate with time. So I found that my "Spyder 3" is useless today.

Colorspectrometer dont use such organic optical filters and should not lose precision with time. So I would stick to the good offers you got.

 

[pharmacist]

Which X-rite i1Pro: version 1 or 2 ?

 

[Inkling]

Which X-rite i1Pro: version 1 or 2 ?

It is Version 1

 

[Inkling]

It is Version 1, haven’t found any affordable used i1 pro 2, yet

 

[pharmacist]

I suggest definitely the Colormunki Photo: you can use ArgyllCMS to create even more accurate profiles.

 

[Inkling]

I suggest definitely the Colormunki Photo: you can use ArgyllCMS to create even more accurate profiles.

Thanks, so you are not concerned in terms of accuracy of a device that is maybe 10-14 years old?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You can ask the potential seller(s) of the mentioned device offers to run the i1 diagnostics which works as well on the ColorMunki and should tell you the overall usage time of the device. You may choose to buy the unit with the lowest usage time .

https://www.xrite.com/service-support/downloads/i/i1diagnostics_v4_1_2