Customer Review
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 November 2010Summary: 6th November 2010. The Pantone HueyPRO does NOT work on Windows 7 64-bit, despite Pantone claiming they "tested" it and didn't need to change anything to make it compatible... yeah right. Nothing fixes this. I am very competent Windows user and have had to give up after 2.5 hours of trying to get the HueyPRO to function at all. This is a shame because the specific item I have works well with Windows Vista (on a friend's computer) and with Mac OS (although it has to be forcibly terminated once on the Mac because it temporarily persists even once you remove it, but this is not a problem). The item I used did not seem to have problems with colour casts (on the Mac and Vista), but many users complain of this, which of course would make it worthless.
Overall there are too many problems and unreliability to make this a useful or worthwhile product. Pantone, shame on you. There certainly seem to be better products out there. Potentially some of the problems could be fixed with a proper software update, but it does seem there are actual hardware compatibility problems. Remember it only helps you set the balance between red, green, blue in any case - you then still have to set the "colour temperature" and the gamma yourself.
More Details:
I have updated the software to the latest version 1.5.1 with no success. Removed, reinstalled, rebooted many times. Tried all three powered USB ports on my Dell Studio laptop. Tried restarting with it plugged in; tried plugging in before running the program; tried plugging in afterwards. Usually Windows finds the device and says it is working normally but the HueyPRO software just keeps saying it is not found and asking me to plug it in. Sometimes when I plug it in Windows says the device has malfunctioned. Occasionally one red LED comes on and it appears to measure the room light level, but then fails immediately when it tried to start actual calibration, saying there is a "measurement error". Occasionally it says I need to "upgrade" to a HueyPRO (which is what I already have), and takes me to the Pantone website to purchase this upgrade. However, the website then says there is an error and is of no help at all. When I manually find the "upgrade" option on the website, it will cost £35, and I would be very surprised if it would help at all. In any case it should be free.
I have also tried two older versions of the HueyPro software, and also tried with the non-pro Pantone Huey software. Tried running in Administrator mode, and in compatibility mode for Vista and compatibility mode for XP. I made sure my virus scanning software was off and no other programs running.
Waste of time. Avoid.
