Fujitsu PA03656-B005 Scansnap Ix500 Clr Dupl 600dpi Perp Usb3.0 Wl Ios/android Pc&mac

This is the best document scanner out, period. It scans faster than you could imagine, up to the rated specs for sure, if not faster. Need to feed 40 random papers at it from letters to those strange paper receipts? Just stick them in the feeder and it handles the rest, no jams ever, and well designed. The scanner itself picks up the paper/receipts with no trouble, there is no bleed though, though if there is, there an adjustment for that.It can scan color photographs, which I use it for as well, though more as a quick "I don't care much", I only want this image for representation in digital form. I would never consider it a true photographers scanner. Though the images can clean up well in an image editor, if you know what you are doing. Mac support is great, documentation is almost overkill.The hardware can be operated with opening only one lid, or also opening the tray at the bottom to catch your documents, and also open the top rest extension to hold extra long documents, for which the machine comes with a "carrier sheet" to help in that process. There are further skinny trays that slide out of the main trays to give additional support, though all optional in your use.It does duplex scanning, and no, it does not suck the page in, push it back out, and then scan the other side,or force you to do so for it, this is a true duplex scanner with two separate scanning heads inside. Which is another nice aspect, a final hatch lever pull and you are into the guts where the main roller is that can build up with debris over time, which will cause jamming. Simple 99% isopropyl alcohol will clean the rubber rollers, and is recommended in the manual as an actual Customer Serviceable Option ( CSO ), as is cleaning the scanning heads.I was up and running in under 60 seconds, literally. Plug the USB cable in and you are good to go. Installing the software took the longest, as they have added an auto software update feature which takes some times to download, and then more time to download the updaters. The printed manual are nice, but a more current one installs and is maintained as part of the update software.Setting up wifi, yes!, it is capable of scanning wirelessly. That would have been a two click operation, however, I have a dual band router, and it would not connect to or see the 5.0 Ghz side. So connect to the slower end. What is strange is somehow, my laptop being connected to the 5.0 band, and the scanner to the 2.0 band, and I can still scan wirelessly, you just have to setup under the lower frequency. I have a feeling this is very router specific and network configuration specific, as I have had high end routers where the two bands were entirely separate subnets, so the two machines simply would be physically unable to talk to each other. While not confirmed, I can tell you, if our router asks for different passwords for each of the two bands, I am going to assume that you need the passwords to match if you want to use quick setup. Of course, there is no reason to not use manual setup and configure wireless however your router needs it. It even supports WPS, though I am on a Macintosh and they do not use WPS. I had no issue scanning remotely at distance, sending multi page docs of 10+MB around. There is a wifi LED on the front, which is amber for "launch the software please" and blue for "good to go". The LED's are not blinding bright. All folded up and it takes up a footprint about the size of half a sheet of letter sized paper.The software is full of options from choosing the color modes of: Color, Greyscale, Black and White, Duplex, Simplex, Ignore Blank Pages, Auto OCR to PDF, Save as PDF or JPG, Compression Adjustments, on scanner button to "press to scan", auto shut off with adjustable timer, quiet operation, low power at only 15 watts. You can set the scanner to scan however you want, and then save those settings as as a profile for later use. And you are not just scanning to a folder, though that is *my* preferred method. You can scan to any number of applications that it comes pre-loaded with to manage your PDF's and JPG's, such as yanking pages into different order, or merging PDF files, or set a stack of business cards in and they will end up in the business card management software where it pulls out the data and adds it to an address book. I have not played with with software much as I use Evernote and I would hope the business card software syncs up with Mac OS X's contacts.app, but I'm not certain.The scanner software also comes pre-loaded with some common apps and features, like scan to folder, scan to network drive, scan to Preview.app, etc. Any application that has the ability to open a file via drab and drop, I have fond you can add to this scanner. You simply go to the the Applications Tab, click add, and add the app, it will then show up as a destination, and you can fine tune what you want to do and save a profile for that app. For example you may not want to send a duplex PDF to photoshop, so enable Simplex mode, set the other options for resolution and color or greyscale, save that as a profile for that action in am image editor™. It need not be an image editor though, you can add a web browser if you desired, and the image would pop into a new tab in your browser, or replace the existing one, assuming how your browser prefs are set up that way.Evernote also "makes" this scanner as well, or at least has a branded version of it. When connected to Evernote the scanner will make decisions about what you scanned and auto file it. My understanding is that Evernote has limited it to that basic setup. They made physical *hardware* changes to the product. You can no longer use it on it's own without Evernote. Or more specifically, the scanning features are very limited without using it in conjunction with Evernote. So I bought the Fujitsu consumer version, thinking I'm sure I can find some way to get Evernote to recognize the scanner. You can't, it is a hardware change, even if they wanted to, they can't, it requires changes to hardware *and* software. The Evernote version is a lesser scanner in some ways but is supposed to make up for it with superior software.I find the native software the Fujitsu *NON Evernote* version comes with to be more than adequate. While I am not entirely happy with how much stuff it installed, it is all in three folders in my Applications folder, and one of those folders is just PDF documentation. Hopefully one day they make an App Store version that is an .app and sandboxed so we won't have to worry about having thousands of files installed all over three folders, and libs in the Application folder. At least it is not as bad as some printers, and keeps everything neatly in one place. But it still had that feel of installing software for a 3 in 1 printer and that you were in for some troubleshooting.I get the feeling this scanner has history behind it, it being around at least ~8 years without any major visual hardware changes I can tell, though I am sure that the optics got better over time, as at some point, they were probably unable to source the old optics without paying a huge premium as all the other scanner manufacturers had moved on to the new technology.I installed one of these for a client 6 years ago and shrugged it off. Plugged it in, hooked it up, and it worked. I did not look beyond the annoyance of the software that I assumed was going to litter my clients otherwise clean server. That is where they wanted it installed, on the file server so it can scan to the server and everyone can immediately have access to the scans. I was surprised, it worked out well and did what it was supposed to do. I get a call a week from this client about something, in all the years, never once have I been asked about the scanner.I don't have a negative thing to say about this scanner aside from the Evernote version which is confusing when you are searching out which to buy. The Evernote hardware is crippled in my opinion as well as many others on the Evernote forums. The fact you can't use this scanner and have software talk to one of the most popular document archiving apps out there is insane. But Evernote is AppleScriptable, and I will be solving this problem either through scanning to certain folders, or, if I want to use an SDK where a simple REST API would have sufficed, I may make something more "Software" like so these great scanners can talk directly to Evernote. I'm not saying that even if you are the most hardcore Evernote user/fan to not buy this for the lack of integration ability. I am saying buy this version to not get stuck with a crippled version and to get a scanner backed by a company that has the ability to take it in AND repair it, while I would guess, EverNote must have you sent it to them, they test it, confirm the problem is real, and then ship it over to Fujitsu, who may send it back to you, or may send it back to Evernote, which in turn will send it back to you. Who pays all those shipping fees? And scanners are the last item you want kicked around in the shipping centers. In fact, I had to return my first one due to shipping related damage, but Amazon, like the true troopers they *always* are, made that a literal one click, a print, and UPS had it picked up.I further don't like Evernote auto filling my things, I want to put them where I want them, and that is already a feature of this scanner as it stands. It comes pre-loaded with Evernote as an app you can scan directly to. From there slap some tags on it, give it a title, and move it to the notebook of your liking. Make sure you have a default notebook setup, or your scans will end up in a notebook you forgot about and you will start to have duplicate scans or just think it isn't working.If you are on the fence, just get it. If you think it is a lot of money, it is, but if you are looking at other stuff, you probably already are going to be spending half what this is. And while half the cost, I can't see if being as great a product, from hardware design to how fast it is, to being wireless, to only 15 watts, and the software being perfectly usable, though not the polished Mac experience I am used to. I do believe there are a few third party software manufacturers that are pure Mac shops that support this scanner. The wifi just works, it has never flaked out on me. The default shut off time was set to a large ~6-8 hours as default, leaving me wondering, "is that because it will have issues reconnecting to wifi"? And if so, then regardless of the scanner turning off or not, my laptop falls into sleep mode many 10's to 30's of times a day, severing the wireless connection, as good as powering the scanner down anyway. Yet far, no trouble, launch the software, it sees the scanner, and I am on my way to scan.The wifi is a little different, the scanner does not broadcast an SSID like printers, where you connect up to that SSID based quick print job from your phone, though the scanner does also support mobile and it also supports Evernote's mobile receipts scanner app, which is in fact a great app and great addition to this scanner, plus it is free. If you look at the advanced settings in wifi, you will see it is more like a network attached storage device sans the storage feature than a printer is. It connects to your router, the software sees that through your normal wifi connection, and it is entirely invisible to you. I thought it was going to be like some of the junk printers I have had to work on in the past were it broadcasts an SSID, you can if you so desire, send prints to it if you connect to it, but that means changing your network settings all the time on your computer or phone unless they support AirPrint or you get a print server. Not the case at all, I was worried and was going to just use USB if I had to go though all that. But this is simple, it sits in my network, and I imagine that others could instal the software and also connect to it. Not entirely needed as you can simply set the scanner up to scan to a network share and anyone can drop a scan into the machine, press scan, and it will be saved to the network drive. Don'y have a network drive? Use any of the cloud based providers out there to scan to that system, and then use the cloud software to get to your files. Plenty of solutions these days, good to see Fujitsu going the extra mile here to do it right.I also picked up the Square Trade protection plan as I have worked with hi-end scanners all my life and know how a single spec of dust can ruin the optics until you clean it off. It will leave banding and streaks on the file. Though for receipts you will never see if, and even color, if it is from a magazine or printed material, you are scanning a bunch of tiny dots and will get moiré anyway, which means the software, or you, will be blurring that image up a ton anyway. But if you scan a photo, use the carrier to begin with, which is going to throw the colors off so build a color profile for the scanner, and get in the habit of following the instructions for cleaning the rollers and the glass scanner optic covers. Now, if just a spec of dust works it's way into the scanner behind the glass, good luck depending on your skill level with taking things apart. I have no issue taking it apart and cleaning the optics on the inner glass side, but I have done so on 500K scanners when they were still used and made. Or perhaps a better example, I have cleaned the CCD on digital cameras by hand to get rid of dirt that has entered into the body and the self cleaning feature just can't seem to get it off. Not everyone wants to do that, nor should they have to, but all scanners will eventually become victims to this. 99% won't ever notice as it will only show up on photo scans, which this machine is not designed for, so I would get a good scanner, or most are all digital camera based now anyway. If you have an archive of prints and slides, send them out for professional scanning, better than you could ever hope to do unless you are a photographer with extensive photo manipulation skills, and it is only a few dimes per scan. I guess what I am saying is, the right tool for the job is the most important decision. If you are buying this thinking you are going to scan your old photo albums, then you are buying the wrong tool, then again, if that really is your intent, you pronely also would not care about color accuracy or a little dust and scratches on your digital files. If you need a tool that is fast and smart, duplex scans both sides at the same time, can take near any size sheet of paper, all the way down to business card sized and smaller by using the plastic carrier sheet that is backed with a white back where you put your originals and feed it all through the scanner. Fujitsu really thought of everything. This is the first extended warranty I have ever bought in my life, and I am now offered it on everything, and have declined in everything. But with the fickle nature of scanners, printers, all in one's, etc.. I felt for the low cost, and the extra years where they will just replace it, was with the peace of mind. I further registered my warranty, which I did the day I ordered it, and noticed they post dated the warranty to the shipping arrival date. Nice, they are honest. I had an issue registering, and called them at what I remember being an out of band set of hours, and there was someone there to help me that answered the phone and knew the answers to all of my questions. I was never put on hold, and I was happy with the terms of the warranty. This is nothing like the arguments you find yourself in over price matching/warranties at big box stores, even with companies where they are selling cheaper on their own website, they hate the price match. Staples won't match on some items of their own website if the cost difference is too much. They just claim "Oh, different SKU's, different item!". Though the model number is the same, and it is the identical product, they still refuse. I finally ordered a paper shredder marked in store at $159.99 for $49.99 to that very store, with free shipping, and a pay in store option, and got it for the price they should have done regardless of an SKU being different. SKU's are often different, model numbers, no, they define the product much like a serial number attaches the product to you. I quizzed the square trade guy after removing my web issues for 20 minutes or so. And it was also nice to not have to call back when the web department was open. It was s simple issue of their form thought my email address was invalid, so I had to have him enter it in for me. But my 20 or so minutes of questions assured me there is minimal fine print as no one could remember it all let alone understand the legal mumbo jumbo. He explained how they determine to try to get the manufacturer to repair it, how they warehouse a percentage of the products under warranty, verses when they may hire someone to fix it, versus when they may just order you a new one, and what happens if a new one of the same model is not available, and when they just say screw it and refund you your original purchase price. What is nice about Amazon working with them, is they have made integration simple, you simply email in your receipt and they are able to pick out the pieces they need and enter in the order details so you need not try to decipher the zero versus a "O" or a one versus a capital "I". In the end, I was happy. I even had no trouble at all understanding any accents, grammar, and when I was told an email would arrive in "x" minutes when he had finished doing "y", it arrived at that time. I will order warranties from these guys again, but only on certain items does it make sense. Too bad all the documentation is already originals in electronic format, as this could be your first document scanning job to do, alas, they have a copy of your receipt in their system before you are e-mailed your already digital receipt.The only last and final note, one I should have checked on myself, will be support for Mac OS X beyond Yosemite, such as Mac OS X El Capitan. It probably will just work but it can't hurt to inquire ahead. Hopefully it just barely works, and will require a full rewrite and they have been aware of this and it is about out the door. That would be great to get a single drag and drop package installer or an App Store version. According to their website it is "supported", but the verbiage is a bit strange and it suggests "updates will be coming to the page": [...] There are quite a few websites and forums that are complaining about limited success with El Capitan, but many are having no trouble at all. Remember, these are all people using beta software,, more than just the OD as well, so don't hold anything against anyone yet. And don't hold anyone *to* anything yet. You will have time to complain when El Capitan shows up in the App Store. :)

I bought this ScanSnap iX500 almost a year ago in December of 2013 and have put in through its paces over the past year and I want to share my findings with you as I believe this is THE BEST automatic document feed (ADF) scanner on the market right now... not just because of how it functions, but the included software as well which makes sorting and organizing a breeze!BACK STORY:Suffering from a disability that causes me not to think clearly at times, having everything in paper format was an absolute mess. When my disability started in 2006, I started a company and worked for another company and the paper started piling up. It was a mess and I was completely disorganized. I accidentally threw away or shredded thousands of documents I needed... receipts, important paperwork, documentation, etc. It was a mess and I'm still trying to find those documents to this day.After finally starting to get my disability under control in 2013, I made the decision to purchase this scanner and go paperless. The company I was working for needed a couple thousand documents scanned organized and this is the scanner I recommended and purchased. Now, towards the end of 2014, I have scanned at least 15,000 pages of documents with this scanner without a single problem whatsoever. Seem too good to be true? That's what I thought until I saw the end result. Files cabinets, empty. Stacks of papers, gone. In fact, any piece of mail, receipt, or document that made its way into my hands is immediately scanned and stored in digital format.HOW IT HAS WORKED:Well like I said, I've got about 15,000 documents through this thing and haven't had a single problem with it feeding documents, jamming, or anything. I've used scanners almost twice the price of the iX500 that had more problems.The software is extremely user-friendly with a few quirks you'll have to get used to... nothing severe enough worth mentioning. What I like most about it is I use Google Drive to store my paperwork and with the ScanSnap software, when a document is sent through the scanner, I can have it automatically save to the Google Drive folder on my home computer which automatically syncs it with the cloud, making it available on all of my computers, my cell phone, my Chromebook, etc. I don't know of any other scanner that lets you do this right within the software. That feature alone pushes this scanner to the front of the line for me and many others.It's built extremely durable and has a small footprint on your desk, folding up when not in use. It's also black in color versus the typical beige ADF scanner colors that stick out like a sore thumb.You get what you pay for with this scanner, 100%. Fujitsu could probably charge a lot more money for this scanner if they wanted to because it works better than scanners twice its price.SOFTWARE:As I mentioned above, the ScanSnap software controls the scanner with ease. You can quickly change settings from single-sided scanning to double-sided, color scanning to black and white, grey scale, or even auto-detect where the scanner will be able to tell how it should scan the document. If the document is a black and white report, it'll scan it in black and white. If it notices grey-tone, it will scan it accordingly. If it sees color, it scans it in color. Absolutely amazing.You can also change the resolution settings depending on how crisp you need the document. The higher the resolution, the higher the file size, although I've noticed, even at 150dpi, the images are crisp and easy to read. I can't see much difference between 150dpi and 300dpi besides the increased file size with 300dpi.The software gives you the option to scan right to email, to a specific folder, to Google Drive, and several other services. This in itself is an amazing feature that has come in handy on numerous occasions. Also worth mentioning is the WiFi capability. I can scan a document and have it sent right to a folder on my cell phone simply by using the free Android or iPhone app. This has come in handy when I'm on the go and need to bring the document with me for a business trip, doctor's visit, etc.Since we're mentioning software, keep in mind, this scanner comes with a full version of Adobe Acrobat, worth over $100. This lets you use all of the features Acrobat offers when scanning your documents. You can also tell the scanner to use OCR (optical character recognition) to make your documents fully searchable!Now that we've gone over a brief history of the iX500, let's get down to the pros and cons:PROS:* Very quick and accurate scanning speed. Whether in simplex (one-sided) or duplex mode, the scanner is fast and accurate.* Processing speed is very quick with very minor lag, if any at all.* USB 3.0 connection. This is HUGE as it allows for a very fast file transfer speed from the scanner to your computer. Many ADF scanners still use a standard USB 2.0 connector and the speed difference is very noticeable. With USB 3.0, you're getting up to 5 GB/second compared to UISB 2.0's speed of only 480 MB/second. No comparison there... USB 3.0 wins.The provided USB cable is 6 feet long giving you plenty of length to set the scanner up on your desk where you want it, not necessarily right next to the computer.* The paper handling mechanism is greatly improved over previous generations and light years beyond the current competition. Like I said, I've put at least 15,000 documents through this scanner in under a year and it continues to feed documents the same as the day I bought it. Go ahead and scan a tiny receipt or business card, throw in some odd shaped papers, legal sized sheets, or long receipts... it doesn't matter... the iX500 handles them all with ease.* The rollers (consumables according to Fujitsu) last forever! I've heard some people going 4+ years of scanning file cabinet after file cabinet of documents with no problems. Just keep the rollers sticky cleand, vacuum and paper dust particles from inside the scanner and you should be good to go.CONS:* Recently brought to my attention is the sensors on the iX500 are CIS and not CCD like they are on the similar model, the S1500. Historically, people have preferred the CCD sensors as they have typically scanned color documents better, although the CIS sensors have historically scanned text and grey-scale documents better. Fast forward to 2014 and quite honestly, I've used both and they perform identically... I cannot notice a difference really... in fact, I think the CIS sensors have finally caught up and surpassed the CCD sensors. The thing to remember is this is an ADF scanner, not a flat-bed scanner. If you need to scan high-resolution photos, you're looking at the wrong scanner as this scanner is designed for low to high volume document scanning.* The Acrobat software included is Version 10, not Version 11 which is the most current version. This isn't a huge deal but I felt it was worth mentioning. Also, the Acrobat software will only work with Windows based machines so you'll need to use the Preview software that comes standard on a Mac.* No TWAIN support. This really isn't a huge deal anymore as nowadays we're mostly scanning right to PDF and storing our documents in local folder versus running them through separate proprietary software. If you absolutely need TWAIN support, unfortunately this scanner is not going to work for you in that regard.SUMMARY:I can't stress enough how much I recommend this product. I have written hundreds of reviews here on Amazon and out of all of them, this is probably the one I am the most passionate about because this scanner has changed my life and is changing the lives of others, too. If you want to go paperless and finally ditch those file cabinets full of paper, buy this scanner! Having papers in file cabinets isn't safe anymore as they can be lost or destroyed in a fire, through water damage, theft, misfiling, etc.As I said earlier, I scan directly to the Google Drive folder on my computer. So far that process has been working great but I will keep you updated if I notice any glitches. Right now, it's an awesome method! Scanning some important documents in and being able to pull them up on my Chromebook months later while sitting in a coffee shop is amazing. This is the era of going paperless and I hope you take the plunge, buy this scanner and get scanning! :-)*** If this review was helpful to you, please let me know! It means a lot to me when I know I've helped someone make a decision on whether or not to buy something. I either own or have tested EVERY product I review, and I appreciate reading other people's reviews because they always help me make an informed decision. These things are what make Amazon great: the prices and the reviews! If you have a specific question about a review, please contact me through my profile page. I'm more than happy to chat with you about it. Thanks! ***