Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for PC

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review:

Review 6 to 10 of total 214

Tranformed my office,
by L. Ross, 2009-08-04

I got this scanner a month or so ago and I love it today as much as I did on day one.

For years I've wanted to organize my office, as in get rid of countless files, back tax returns, and mounds of paper.With the scanner I have thinned out filing cabinets and ripped through stacks of old papers. My desk is finally clear, and I plan to keep it that way.

The scanner is very fast, one sided or two, and with reasonable paper, rarely jams. When it does jam, it is very easy to clear.

You can scan to PDF files or Word or Excel files, all searchable, plus email and scan business cards. When you're done, it closes up into a very small footprint. It is a great piece of technology.

(Did I mention that my wife wishes I spoke as lovingly about her.)

 

Another great scanner by Fujitsu,
by Pen Name, 2009-10-25

Note - This scanner is the next generation of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 Clr 18PPM/36IPM Dupl Scanner

Our office has dozens of HP Scanjets and Xerox Documates and, as the IT guy, I hate every one. Feeders wear out, get jammed, pull multiple pages through, and are slow. I decided to go with the Fujistu ScanSnap because of all the great reviews, despite the higher price. Our budget doesn't allow for a copier scanner or a high priced workstation scanner. For the price, the ScanSnap is excellent.

1. This scanner is very small. It is only slightly wider than a letter-sized sheet of paper, and when everything is folded up, it is half as long. Unlike other scanners, I can easily find room for it at any desk in our office. It is so small it could even sit on top of a workstation.

2. This scanner is VERY easy to use. Previous scanners had buttons all over them for different functions. You would press the regular scan button, and then have to wait for the scanner's software to start up, the lamp to warm up, the image to preview (I HATE previewing the image!), and the slow process of scanning. The Fujitsu ScanSnap has two buttons. A power button (which I never use since I leave the unit on all the time) and a big green SCAN button. Put the paper in, press the button, and literally within about 5 seconds it scans the image, and in another 3 or 4 it converts it to PDF and saves it. It is amazing how insanely fast this scanner is.

3. The Software provided by Fujitsu is great. It is very unobtrusive and easy to use. I scan most of my docs to PDF, so after it is done scanning, I just use their included software, which shows previews of the actual scans. I can click an "e-mail" button and 2 seconds later it opens my email program with the scan already attached. MUCH faster than scanning directly from Acrobat. It's also great that I can use their software standalone and don't have to deal with Acrobat at all, which is incredibly bloated in version 7.

It comes with some other software, such as an OCR reader which I haven't tried, and a program called CardMinder which you can use to scan in business cards. It will scan the card, use the OCR reader to categorize the contact information, as well as save an actual image of the card. I don't use this program either but it definitely seems useful for people who receive a lot of cards. It also comes with Acrobat Standard 7.0 so you don't have to buy Adobe's software.

This might be the best piece of office equipment I've purchased. If you are looking for a powerful scanner at a mid-range price it is great, and I definitely recommend it for anyone who does a lot of scanning to PDF. It is worth the extra $250 or so compared to the HP scanners simply for the copy of Acrobat and the speed of use.

The differences between the S1500 and its predecessor, the Fujitsu ScanSnap S500 Clr 18PPM/36IPM Dupl Scanner, are:

1. The S1500 is slightly faster at scanning, and the software seems to be a little faster at processing the documents. Given that the S500 was fast to begin with, the increase is barely noticeable.
2. Form factor - The S1500 has straighter lines and looks more modern while the S500 is a little more rounded. The differences are pretty dramatic and I probably prefer the S1500 more.
3. The S1500 comes bundled with a newer version of ScanSnap Manager. That's somewhat significant because it is pretty difficult to obtain the software/drivers if you don't have the disc it came with. You can't just go on Fujitsu's site and download it, you have to actually contact them and give them your model number, and then they give you an FTP site to obtain the software. So don't lose your discs. It also comes with Acrobat Standard 9. The Acrobat software is terrible, but it is a little better than the Acrobat Standard 8 that comes bundled with the S500.

Overall, I do think they improved a bit on the S500, but not enough where anyone needs to replace their S500 with the S1500.

 

Compact wizard scanner,
by James F. Ludwick, 2009-07-11

Price brought this level of speed and flexibility into range where I could justify the purchase. I was very happy with the installation and use of this scanner. Has increased the productivity of scanning in documents and detecting and scanning double sided documents automatically, a feature not available with my multifunction that included the scanning function I had used previously. Someone who does over 200 or so documents a month could justify this scanner. I saw it demonstrated at a national financial planning meeting by the Fujitsu rep. and determined this model was exactly what I needed at this price point. Highly recommended.

 

So my take on this as a, *gasp*, photo scanner....,
by A. Choy, 2009-10-05

If you're like me you've been looking everywhere for a photo scanner that has an ADF to finally digitize all of your photos. Like me, you probably don't want to spend the rest of the year scanning with a flatbed but probably also aren't comfortable shipping away your memories in a Fedex box to a scan service. All I want is a digital copy of my pictures for purposes of scrapbooking or loading onto photo sharing sites.

Well, I'm happy to say that the ScanSnap might just help you out. On my first night playing with ScanSnap, I scanned in a few pieces of mail and about 75 - 4x6 photos from the 80's and 90's. I was VERY happy with the results and am now in the process of scanning the rest of my photos, my parents and some of my friends, too.

On scan quality:

* The first couple scans yielded a burn mark across the top of the scanned image. I'm going to work with Fujitsu to troubleshoot that issue. However, I found that I could scan the images face up (it defaults to face down) and the burnt edges went away. A little dust streaking here and there needed to be cleaned up, but other than that, no other scanner marks or burned spots. (I'll be posting images for a sample of the burn marks)
* The scanned image comes out really nicely - very close to the original. Now, these are just snapshots from point and shoot cameras so you have to realize that they can be grainy to begin with. This scanner serves my purpose perfectly which is to preserve my photos and provide a little organization.
* Scanned at 600dpi. I did a test for a few photos using both the ScanSnap S1500 and my Canon Lide Scan 30 (just your run of the mill desktop scanner). I'll post some side-by-side comparisons. I'm sure there's tweaking to be done on both sides, but the ScanSnap holds up on clarity and the color is actually a little more focused. (The scan settings on the flatbed may have washed out the color a little) For any photos I plan to enlarge, I'll scan on a flatbed at a higher DPI, but since most of the original are 4x6, I'm not gaining much but file size.
* For great info on batch scanning photos, check out these sites:
o [...] Here the writer suggests that you won't gain much by scanning at higher than 200 dpi!!
o For a more detailed explanation read here: [...] , replete with a printing/resolution calculator: [...]
o Since the ScanSnap is so quick, I plan on sticking with 600, but all the same
* Another note, the setting to "Continue scanning after current scan is finished" is quite helpful. The feeder fits about 25 photos easily (maybe more, but I haven't tried to stuff more in). You can use this option to continue to feed the tray when the previous 10 are done and all the images will be scanned in the same batch.


On document organization:
* I do want to go paperless. I'm terrible at filing and this has given me an opportunity to get rid of all those loose papers. There's plenty out there on why it's good to be paperless (security, organization, etc) so I won't bore you with that. This scanner is lightening quick and doesn't make filing a chore. I've gotten rid of my filing cabinet full of documents from the past few years in only a couple of days. I don't want to make light of it's perfection as a document scanner but there are plenty of testaments to it's speed and ease of use. I purchased the deluxe version with Rack2Filer.


Hopefully this helps you all out there who are looking at the ScanSnap as a photo scanner. Let me emphasize, it's not professional quality and a more discerning eye might shun the use of a document scanner for photos. Some other users have mentioned why they don't think it's a good photo scanner, but for me this scanner is perfect! In one night, I whipped through 200 while watching TV!

 

The best scanner ever!,
by bonky, 2009-07-05

The Fujitsu ScanSnap is a great scanner! It is very fast. It scans double sided documents with one pass. It scans small receipts and full size documents, There is an organizer to manage all your paperwork! It converts documents to word docs you can edit as well as Excel and PoerPoint docs! I'm on my way to becoming paperless and getting rid of all my boxes of receipts and statements, etc.... It's a snap to use!