Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Scanner for PC and Mac (PA03656-B005) The Cheapest
The ScanSnap iX500 provides users an effective way to greatly reduce paper clutter, storage space, and security risk associated with unmanaged paperwork at home or office. The perfect productivity tool, use this sheet-fed scanner for PC and Mac to quickly digitize stacks of documents into searchable PDF files at the
Best Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Scanner for PC and Mac (PA03656-B005) - **UPDATED**I've been using the previous model, the ScanSnap S1500 for almost 4 years now. I liked it so much that I bought a second one. To me, it completely transformed the concept of going paperless: from painful and time consuming to fun and even cool. If you have used a regular flat-bed scanner trying to go paperless, you probably know what I mean. I feel your pain. And this is coming from a hardcore paperless guy since 2001. Back then there weren't that many options.If you are reading these reviews, you probably already know that the S1500 is currently (January 2013) pretty much the gold standard in the automatic document feeder (ADF) scanner consumer market with excellent user friendly software, pretty fast, reliable, built like a tank, excellent optical quality and on top of that you get the standard version of Adobe Acrobat (worth alone >$100). Not that it is a cheap scanner but compared to other consumer-grade ADF scanners it is a good deal, and like most things in life, you get what you pay for. It is one of those rare pieces of electronics that *just work*. It makes something relatively complicated extremely easy.That said, I bought the iX500 as soon as I learned it was available on Amazon. It was hard to believe the S1500 could be improved but hey, even as a geek myself technology never cease to amaze me. Well, I've been playing with the scanner for two days so I will give you my first impressions.Not that it matters but the first thing I noticed is that the box is now very plain and vanilla (pun intended) colored without even a handle as opposed to the fancy S1500 box. I can't care less but I just hope they put the savings in the scanner and not the profit margins because this one costs more. Upon unpacking, the iX500 has a nice sophisticated industrial look with matte/shiny black surfaces and blue LED lights. Unlike the S1500, it does not look like an old cheap plasticky silver colored ink-jet printer from the 90's. Overall the materials and quality of construction seem as good as the S1500. The paper rollers seem improved. Also new is a physical switch to turn on/off the WiFi radio and WPS button to automatically set up a secure WiFi connection.Pros:-Faster feeding/scan. I don't think it makes a huge practical difference compared to the S1500 but it is undeniably faster. The higher the number of pages you are scanning, the more significant it will be to you.-Faster processing. Here is where the difference is very noticeable. With the S1500 the processing can take some time and you will always see the processing progress bar. With the iX500 you barely see it or if you see it it goes way faster!-USB 3.0 connection. Can't argue about the advantages of having a theoretically max speed of 5 Gbps (USB 3.0) vs 480 Mbps (USB 2.0). The provided cable is truly 6 feet long which is a plus. With USB 3.0 I wouldn't recommend using extension cables because the USB 3.0 protocol is very sensitive to increased cable lengths (>2m). If the cable is not long enough for you, get a powered USB 3.0 hub not an extension cable.-Improved paper handling mechanism. Regular paper documents rarely jam or misfeed on the S1500. Only if you have stuck, very thin, bended, irregular or wrinkled sheets. I threw in different types of papers and it seems to take them in better! This is a real usability improvement.-WiFi capability. Meh.. Honestly, this is not one of the main reasons I got the iX500. To me, for this specific task of scanning documents, speed, security and reliability are more important than going all wireless but that is just me. I have the scanner in my home office next to my desktop and scan a fairly regular amount of documents, some with personal, work and financial information that needs to be encrypted before storing, never online or on mobile devices.It also has scan-to-the-cloud capability using DropBox, GDrive, EverNote, Salesforce, SugarSync (some with never heard before silly names) but seriously, would you trust a hardly profitable -except maybe Google- private online cloud company to store all your documents for the long term? Maybe temporarily until you download but that's it. I wouldn't trust them even for just a backup. Also, try downloading just 100 300-dpi full color scans online and you will realize how painfully slow it is. I do however, see some situations were this may be useful like online sharing of docs or as temporary storage of trivial stuff but only as an add-on capability and not as a main way of connectivity. I will try it with my Android phone and tablet, though but nothing serious.Throughout the years I've learned that the most efficient way to go paperless without wasting time is to: 1)read the document once and decide if you need to scan or throw it away. 2)if its important enough to scan, do it and file the pdf right away in the corresponding computer folder. 3)shred the paper original right away otherwise later on you will waste time picking it up and reading it again. If I were to scan something without my PC I would eventually have to read that paper again online to decide where to put it so that would be 2 reads of the same damn document. Not too efficient if you have say 20+ docs. Also, keep in mind that with this scanner, it is very easy to scan lots of stuff so if you don't have your own paperless system/routine/strategy, you may end up with digital clutter rather than paper clutter. Develop a system that works best for you.-I haven't replaced any "consumables" on my S1500 in almost 4 years so I wouldn't be worried about that with the iX500. Seems to me like a marketing ploy from Fujitsu to make more money. I have emptied two big 3-drawer file cabinets plus regular scans all these years without any problem. Just keep the rollers sticky clean and vacuum the paper dust that accumulates after a while and you should be fine.-All the nice "minor" features on the S1500 that make it so great are also on the iX500: ultrasonic double paper feed sensor, automatic de-skew (alignment), double side scan, auto color detection, automatic paper orientation, scanning long papers (legal size), blank side auto deletion, etc. I'm sure they must have improved these.Cons:-The optical sensors on the iX500 are CIS and not CCD like in the S1500. Theoretically, CCD is better, especially for color reproduction. CIS is better for text and details however, honestly, I don't see any difference compared to my S1500 which basically uses 7-year old technology. This means that probably current CIS technology has caught up with the older CCD quality in the S1500. Of course this doesn't mean that current CCD quality is not better yet. Anyway, I use a Canon flat-bed for high-quality scans like paper photographs, cards and the likes so not really an issue for me.-no Adobe Acrobat XI, just the same version X as before even though XI has been out for a while now. (Note that the provided Acrobat is Windows only. If you have a Mac, you can use Preview which comes with MacOS). Regarding software, I will also mention that personally having gone completely paperless for many years, I avoid like the plague using commercial "paperless office managing software" (read Rack2-Filer, ScanSnap Organizer, FileCenter, PaperPort, Sharepoint, etc). Nothing wrong with them at all, its just that many of these programs and their supporting software companies may not be around 10+ years from now so you don't want to depend too much on their proprietary file indexing system or formatting (a reason I wouldn't touch NeatDesk scanners not even with a 10-foot pole!) or deal with some compatibility issues that may arise in the future if say you switch to a new operating system. This is very important because the reason you are digitizing documents/photos, etc is for archiving and future use. I only trust the PDF format which is an open standard (many programs and platforms can open it) and plain hierarchical file directories (regular Windows folders) for organizing the files. This will guarantee that 20, 30 or 40 years from now your files will be as organized and usable as today.-no TWAIN support. Even though not that important nowadays, it can be an issue for small business that rely on specific software for scanning. I mostly scan directly to PDF so in my case -and I'm sure for most people- it will not be an issue. TWAIN is a standard protocol that most scanners and imaging hardware use to communicate with software programs. This means that you cannot directly scan images from within some graphic or other type of software that require a TWAIN driver. You will have to scan and then open the image file.In summary, I will say that coming from the S1500, other than the new wireless capability, the iX500's big overall improvement is in speed. The iX500 won't make your S1500 obsolete, not at all unless of course you must have the wireless connectivity. The improvements are more evolutionary than anything else because the S1500 is already very fast. We are talking about differences in seconds. If you add all the speed improvements: a faster feeding mechanism/optical scan + faster image processing due to the new "GI" dual microprocessor + USB 3.0 connection, you get a much faster experience, specially if you scan a lot. Few years ago, a scanner this good and fast would have cost thousand(s) of dollars like commercial grade Canon and Fujitsu doc scanners. I have recommended the ScanSnap series to friends and family who were interested and from their feedback I can say that the iX500 would also be perfect for both beginners and experienced users alike more so with all the improvements.Couple more things: 1)from personal experience, having a good file backup routine is as important -if not more- as having a good scanner. Read more ›
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