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Fujitsu ScanSnap Scanners

Fujitsu has two fairly new low cost personal scanners. I think the Fujitsu scanners are the best and love the industrial strength Fi line. However, I recently got myself the little Scansnap s1100.

ScanSnap s1100

This little scanner is 10.8" long and 1.9" high and 1.3" deep. It is so small it fits under my monitor which is held about 2.5" high on the monitor stand. For this reason, it functionally takes up NO room on my desk. It is powered off the USB port, so it uses no power cord. It weighs only 12 ounces and so is called a mobile scanner, though since I'm not mobile, I don't use it that way.

When I get something that needs to be scanned, I pull it out, and pull down the feeder lid. This turns it on and alerts the software via the USB port. Then I click Scan and it scans the document in a few seconds. If it is two sided, I flip it over and scan in the other side. If there are multiple pages I feed the pages in one after the other. When I click finish, it assumes the document is done, until then it continues to feed into a single document.

A video demonstrating it is here.

The accompanying software allows me to convert my scanned images to searchable PDF files or JPG files, and to organize them and add keywords. It handles thick items like an drivers license or sheets as long as 34". Credit card receipts are scanned in a few seconds, a full 8.5 x 11 sheet takes about 7.5 seconds. It scans in full color and at 300-600 dpi. A spec sheet is here.

For $200 this is making it a lot easier to organize all my scannable documents, not just receipts but medical information too. It recognizes the size of documents and scans only what is there. It straightens and crooked feeds and even reverses an upside down document. I think the included software provides the necessary additional features that are nice, but without locking me into their database or other proprietary systems. It can scan to MS Office programs after converting to text and also scans to many cloud services like Evernote.

ScanSnap S1300

For only an additional $60 (list is $295 but you can get it for around $260), you can get the big brother to the Scansnap s1100, the Scansnap S1300. It is 11" long, 3.9" deep and 3" high (just a little too high to fit under my monitor). So it is very small and takes up very little room. It includes the same software, as the S1100, but adds a 10 sheet feeder and will scan two sides in a single pass. If you frequently have dual sided scans or multi-page documents so a feeder would be useful, then the extra money and space might be well worth it.

A nice video demonstrating it is here.

Scansnap S1500

This is the older and bigger brother to both. The sheet feeder holds 50 sheets, and it will scan 20 pages per minute whether they are single sided or double sided. That makes 40 images per minute if the sheets are double sided.

None of the scansnap scanners are twain compatible. They use Fujitsu's own drivers. This means that if you have some standard software to manage your scans you will not be able to use it. You are forced to use Fujitsu's software. This should not be a problem for most of us. The S1500 lists at $495, but can be purchased for about $429.



Date: April 2012


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