Fujitsu Scansnap S300 - Looks Nice; Anyone Using One?

[J-Mac]

Since reading this review for the Scansnap at Lifehacker I've been interested in it.  Though if it is not quite as good as advertised, it's a lot of cash to lay out for a relatively limited scanner.

It only scans documents - no photos - and only outputs to PDF files.  It has software that apparently is something like Paperport, though I would imagine it is more like a Paperport "Lite" version.  Virtually all reviews I have read thus far have been glowing.  Extremely portable, it really does sound great for pure document scanning, though I will have to also maintain another scanner for my photos. My Canon MP830 handles those well enough.  This scanner is NOT TWAIN compliant, so you it will not be recognized by your applications as a source for scanned documents.

Is anyone here using this, or another model, Fujitsu scanner?  I'm curious to hear from folks I know rather than just reading reviews.

Thanks!

Jim

[patteo]

I have tried a Scansnap Color image fi-5110EOX.

Yes it is indeed fast and if you have a ton of loose-leaf double sided documents that you want to convert to PDFs, this is a wonderful device.

It is fast and quite trouble free although at times it would pull a couple of pages together in a single pass. And it scans both sides in a single pass.

It allows you to select compression vs quality.

But the trouble is how many (me included) have a ton of loose-leaf double documents that you want to convert to PDFs.

So that's the deal breaker for me.

It is also as you rightly pointed out - Non Twain compliant - which is another deal breaker.

And if you got a book from which you need to scan a few pages or many pages for that matter, would it tear your heart out if you had to tear the pages to scan the pages with Scansnap ?

I'll stick to a Canon Twain compliant LED flat bed scanner.

[J-Mac]

Thanks patteo!

Actually I do already have a Canon, which is a decent scanner. But...  for the kind of very fast document scanning and filing away of a large number of documents, the Canon's not so good.

Jim

[Dormouse]

I've had a lot of scanners over the years, including a number with document feeders.

I now have a ScanSnap (I think mine is a S500). There is no comparison with previous scanners. It is massively fast and convenient. I use it for almost anything that comes in that I don't want to lose. Lots of post etc, as well as documents. I now regard it (or something similar) as a must have and, if it goes wrong, I will replace it immediately.

Occasionally it will feed more than one page at a time (as do all feeders). I have heard that sometimes they deteriorate and need of of the feed rollers replacing. I've also heard that some machines have a problem with this from the start. Mine seems fine.

Not at all cheap, but well worth the money.

[tomos]

should point out the 300 may not be as fast as the others commented on?
I've no personal experience but there's a comparative review of docu-scanners including the S300 in c't (german language) magazine last month - I like their reviews - they're more like user reports
In terms of speed it gets a "satisfactory", less than most of the others, but then they mostly double the cost.

"Good" for OCR quality (included software is Abbyy FineReader 7.x)
"Poor" for graphics and for "Noise measurements"
and commented:-
generally "delivers good results"
from what they say, probably wouldnt be suited to heavy-duty office work but you're probably okay that way

[Dormouse]

Having checked the difference between the S500 & the S300, it seems that the S500 is a heavier duty machine - so please take my comments on the basis that my only experience is with the S500 & equivalents.

[Darwin]

I recently checked out the S300 and S500 and the S500 is rated at exactly double the speed of the S300 (if I recall correctly, the S500 is rated at 36 sheets per minute when scanning doublesided - ie 18 doublesided sheets of paper per minute). That's a WHOLE lot faster than I can scan with my ancient HP flatbed - I'm guessing, but I doubt I can do more than 3 sheets a mintue max.

[J-Mac]

I know that they have several better models (Fujitsu) available, but the cost is a bit higher.  Plus, the S300 is ultra-portable. Lightweight (half the S510's weight), and it can be powered from a notebook PC's USB port, which is cool.

Quick comparison below:

[attachthumb=#]

Decisions, decisions....   

Jim

[Dormouse]

If you need properly portable, then the S510 isn't it.

Otherwise the difference in numbers makes the S510 much more usable as well as sturdier. I'm not sure I'd trust it to do 50 sheets at a time - but that probably means I wouldn't trust the S300 to do 10.

If your projected usage is low enough to make the numbers for the S300 seem OK, then do you really have enough need to justify the expense at all?

[Dormouse]

That's a WHOLE lot faster than I can scan with my ancient HP flatbed - I'm guessing, but I doubt I can do more than 3 sheets a mintue max.

And your HP probably doesn't do double sided automatically as part of the quoted speed.

[J-Mac]

If you need properly portable, then the S510 isn't it.

Otherwise the difference in numbers makes the S510 much more usable as well as sturdier. I'm not sure I'd trust it to do 50 sheets at a time - but that probably means I wouldn't trust the S300 to do 10.

If your projected usage is low enough to make the numbers for the S300 seem OK, then do you really have enough need to justify the expense at all?

I don't know that I will need something like this forever, but I could sure use something like this now.  I have about 400 - 500 documents that I need to get into electronic format.  I have been using my Canon MP 830 A-I-O, but while that does photos very well, it is not very fast at all for documents.  And it does not scan both sides at once.  The Ccanon requires a lot of user input along the way.  Selecting whether to save as image or PDF, whether all pages should be included in one PDF or separate for each page. No way I can see to set this to occur automatically.

The Fujitsu scanners look to be much more suited for pure document scanning and organizing.

Thanks!

Jim

[Dormouse]

And if you got a book from which you need to scan a few pages or many pages for that matter, would it tear your heart out if you had to tear the pages to scan the pages with Scansnap ?

Much easier to use a camera.

[Darwin]

That's a WHOLE lot faster than I can scan with my ancient HP flatbed - I'm guessing, but I doubt I can do more than 3 sheets a mintue max.

And your HP probably doesn't do double sided automatically as part of the quoted speed.

Exactly!

[J-Mac]

Just thought I would post back and give an update.

I did end up getting the S300 Scansnap.  This thing is pretty amazing!  So far I have sat and scanned for about an hour or so, each time scanning approximately 200 two-sided documents, plus about 150 business cards I had thrown into a shoe box.

Extremely fast - especially considering that it is scanning both sides at once - plus in all that time it has only jammed about a dozen times.  And two of those were because I had left staples in a few documents - thought I had gotten them all out but hadn't. Plus the included organizing software is nice.  The time I soent included creating several folder and sub-folders for the various scanned documents.

Another good feature is that the PDF documents created are "searchable".  I haven't tried any complex searches but I did run a few sample searches and it performed OK.  I didn't have to put these docs through an OCR conversion - it is configured in the setup so that all I scan is made searchable.

All in all a worthwhile purchase for me, as I have hundreds of documents - all insurance correspondence - that really need to be kept orderly and searchable.  This is doing it much better than I was with my Canon All-In-One.

Jim

[cranioscopical]

Just thought I would post back and give an update.
I did end up getting the S300 Scansnap.

Thanks for sharing your experience. It's always good to know when someone finds something good, and what about it is appealing.

[Darwin]

Great. Now I want WANT one