Well. I actually said yes to trialling this gadget for two reasons.

Number One:
I have a very dear friend who has traveled around the World; seems constantly on the move and takes with her from house to house, country to country a treasure trove of photo albums. Those good old fashioned cardboard folder things, ya know, loaded with photo's printed on uh, thinner cardboard.
This almighty collection is also unique.
She has no negatives (uh, like 'back-ups') of these countries, these years, these people who have touched her life across time.
Having sat with her, once or twice, and looked across her shoulder as she's shared some of the moments these photographs have captured, there is no escaping the enormous value of these albums to her.
They are quite literally priceless and irreplaceable.

Number Two:
The second reason was an amazing gift that another friend of mine undertook. For forty years, in the same house, on the same day of every year (Christmas Day) her Father gathered the family to the staircase and took a photograph. Forty years, Forty photographs later, he had collected this extraordinary history of his family.
A child now an adult, with children of her own - these are just some of the moments reflected.
My friend, this mans daughter, wanted a copy of these photo's, to upload them to an online book publishing service (http://www.blurb.com - trust me, they deserve the plug) and give the book as a gift for her parents wedding anniversary.
What could one gadget do to perhaps add to the above?

The answer's actually simple and valid. We were sent the Pandigital Photolink One Touch Scanner. It takes longer for me to type the name of it than it does for the gadget itself to work!
Slightly smaller in size than a regular packet of Choc Chip Cookies (UK not USA - have you seen the size of their cookies!), supplied with two cables (one USB / mini USB and the power cable (European adapter incl.)) and a distinct lack of instructions (journo demo copy - it happens), oh and a distinct lack of any real (ie. printed) photo's I wasn't off to the best of starts.
The glitch was fleeting. This device is so simple, with self-installing software to boot.
Plug it in to the power, connect via USB to computer, rip up a magazine advert (no photo to hand first time I tried it!) into roughly 6 x 4 and feed into one end of the scanner (which end? Didn't have a clue so guessed.)
With the quietest hum and a speed that had me going "Oh, I didn't expect that." - this again taking me longer to type than the scanner took to process the photograph.
Ah! But what was the quality of the scanned image like? Actually surprisingly good. This is not a scanner where you can take a 6 x 4 image and scale it ip to a Banksy derelict wall masterpiece. However, you can look at a very decent copy, 6 x 4 in size on your screen.
There is no function - or not one I could find - that enabled me to adjust the quality, the resolution of the scanning itself. There is no "convert to Sepia" / "Greyscale" etc.
No, this is quite simply a hand-held size scanner (it is easily hand holdable but pop it on the coffee table or you look a bit daft) that scans photos to file, no added thrills except the pricelessness of simplicity.
The tech specs can be found on the pandigital website but returning to my two friends...

The one who travels the World..
This gadget scanner would be ideal. I think it's something she would genuinely use because it's easy and it does what it says on the box. It would neither scare her nor tire her and the satisfaction of knowing she did have that 'back-up' of all these precious moments she's carried with her - I couldn't put a value on that for her.

This gadget is something she should have - and I'd hope next time she travels and converts her 35mm photos to file, that she sends me a couple!

My friend who wanted to publish the photobook for her parents wedding anniversary...
This gadget is the wrong one. The quality of the scan is not quite good enough for that. Whilst the colour capture etc is genuinely good, the resolution just doesn't quite cut it.

All - in - all, I think I'm impressed. I think that if you know what to expect from this gadget and those expectations meet your wants, then this gadget deserves 8/10
All you really need to ask yourself is how much are those hard copy photographs worth to you - especially if you lost them...

RRP: £109.99 Available at various online & high street retailers including Amazon.