Fujitsu just sent me the brand-new ScanSnap S1500, a major revision its popular line of document scanners. I bought my old Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 in early 2006, when I made the switch to a paperless law office. Since then, I have been recommending it to everyone.
The new S1500 is better-looking, faster, comes with updated software, and sticks to the ScanSnap formula: efficient and easy to use. For solo practitioners or small offices, a ScanSnap (or a few of them) is still the best option.
Here is what I think of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 after spending an afternoon playing with it.
S1500 Form Factor
The S1500 (and S1500M for Mac) is a major update to the form factor. As you can see from the picture, this iteration of the ScanSnap is sleeker and more modern-looking. I like the new look.
As I note in the video, below, the S1500 does seem slightly taller, but the new “catch tray” is my only complaint (well, besides the fact that Fujitsu does not support Linux). It seems decidedly flimsier than the tray on my old scanner. I think it will probably hold up pretty well, but as you can see in the video, it does have quite a lot of give to it.
Fujitsu ScanSnap Bundled Software
Like all Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners, the new model comes bundled with Adobe Acrobat Standard 9 (PC) and Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 (Mac). For a paperless office, Acrobat is not strictly necessary, but it is very useful. Plus, Acrobat Standard is a $300 piece of software, while Acrobat Professional for Mac is normally $500, making the $459 (ScanSnap on Amazon) a pretty good deal.
The ScanSnap Manager is a useful scanning utility. I have it set to automatically detect color and double-sided pages, recognize text on the first page (for speed), and simply ask me where to save the file. It makes scanning quick and easy.
For, for scanning a stack of photos I had lying around, I just set the ScanSnap Manager to automatically name and save each photo to my pictures directory. I plowed through a few shoeboxes in about a half hour.
The scanner also comes with a few other bits of software, including a PDF organizer and a business card utility. I don’t use any of those, though, so I cannot comment on them.
S1500 Scanning
What really matters, of course, is how well the thing scans.
The S1500 is significantly faster than my old ScanSnap. As you can see in the video that follows, scanning five pages took 20 seconds on the old scanner, or about 15 ppm. The new scanner did the same pages with the same settings in only 15 seconds, making it about 20 ppm, a significant improvement.
Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners are meant to simplify scanning. They scan both sides of the page at the same time, and automatically detect double-sided pages and different sizes of paper, and the bundled software can automatically recognize the text in the documents.
All it takes to scan a stack of paper is a press of the big, blue button. This is especially useful for big stacks of discovery production. I just hit the button and let the scanner do the work.
In several years with my S510, the scanner would occasionally pick up two sheets at a time, so it pays to keep an eye on the scanner. It looks like the pick assembly is similar on the S1500, so I will keep an eye on it, just in case.
Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 in action
Here is a short video showing the relative speed of the S510 and the new S1500, along with a side-by-side look at the two scanners:
Conclusion
Like I said in the video clip, the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 is a great upgrade. It feels like the same scanner as my old S510, just better. And since I had no complaints, and lots of good things to say about my old scanner, that is a very good thing.
Update: Since the comments have gotten so long, I summed up the questions in a FAQ. Please read it first if you have any questions.
Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 | Amazon
Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500M (for Mac) | Amazon
Sam Glover is a business and consumer rights lawyer and the creator of Lawyerist.
Lawyerist is the #1 law practice blog. We write about marketing, practice management, career development, and more.
{ 112 comments… read them below or add one }
Next Comments →
Were you using the SANE fujitsu backend?
Sam, could you provide some comment on scanning photos; I do a lot of paper scanning and photographs, so for me the photo quality does count too.
Thanks in advance
@Raman: I think so. I just plug it in and it works. Edit: XSane does not recognize it, but it works just fine in Windows XP running in VirtualBox. Also, I just sent you the output of those commands.
@Robert: It scans photos just fine, but it is not a photo-quality scanner. If you just want to archive and share your prints, it should be fine, but the ScanSnap is a document scanner. If you want super high quality scans, get something built for that.
Sam, thanks a lot for the info. Right now the s1500 is not listed in the SANE hardware database. Since you are one of the first to actually own this scanner, could you run the following commands in a terminal and send the output to the sane-devel mailing list (or send the output to me and I’ll forward it to sane-devel for you):
cat /proc/bus/usb/devices
sane-find-scanner -v -v
Thanks for a great review.
@Raman: I’ll put it on my to-do list for Monday (I am using the S1500 only at the office), and either send it to you or the SANE dev mailing list. Thanks for reminding me to do my duty by the open source community!
How does one update with acrobat pro which adds bata stamp capabilities–???
@anson: I am not sure I understand your question.
If you want to update to Acrobat Pro, you need to buy it and install it.
If you want to know how to use Bates stamping, you can find it under Advanced > Document Processing > Number Pages in Acrobat 9 Standard, or in Acrobat Pro from version 7 and newer.
Sam, On the Fujitsu site it says one can highlight text to include keywords in a document. How does that work, exactly and is it useful as a way to name documents for filing purposes? Tom
Not sure exactly what you are referring to. But if you recognize the text in the document, you can highlight it, copy it, or do whatever you want with it.
It seems like one of the biggest updates in this model is speed; but not as it was mentioned in your review. At a glance 18ppm vs. 20ppm doesn’t seem like much, but when you look a the specs sheets you see a widening performance gap as the resolution increases:
S510M vs S1500M
Color 150dpi, B&W 300dpi: 18ppm vs. 20ppm
Color 200dpi, B&W 400dpi: 12ppm vs. 20ppm
Color 300dpi, B&W 600dpi: 6ppm vs. 20ppm
Color 600dpi, B&W 1200dpi (interp): .6ppm vs. 5ppm
Sam:
This new model is supposed to have a double page detection features which stops the process if it grabs two pages so as not to have to babysit . . . any comparison you’ve observed against the
s500 on this issue?
I missed that feature in the spec sheet. However, the paper picking is very good — as it was before — so I have not noticed any double-feeding.
With my S500, there was definitely occasional double-feeding, especially as the scanner and pick assembly aged. Next time I am in the office, I will try to force feed a couple of pages through, and see how it goes.
Reporting back.
The S1500 paper pick is really really good. I could not get the thing to take two sheets of paper without taping them together.
That said, when I did finally get it to take two sheets by taping them together, it did not seem to notice that there were two sheets of paper. Maybe this is because it was not a genuine misfeed, I don’t know.
I think I will probably have to wait until I get a natural misfeed to know for sure.
I am very depressed! I just bought my ScanSnap S510 Bundle in mid-February…this new model was not even listed on the Fujitsu website at that time.
Which version windows do you run in the virtualbox? Is the windows software much better than the mac one?
@Tony: Which version of what? I run Windows XP in Virtualbox, so I use the S1500 for Windows, not the S1500M, which is for Mac.
Hi Sam
I am wondering if the Acrobat 9 software that comes with this is like the previous versions of 7 and 8 with respect to just being able to install it and use it or do you have to go to Adobe to have it activated first before using?
What are the file sizes of a “typical” document after the S1500 saves the file? Typical could be full b/w document several paragraphs with header (no graphics) and footer.
My old Canoscan N650U takes forever to scan – so I’m in the market for a new scanner. I page takes about 2 minutes (from scan to file naming).
If I let the Canoscan toolbox “copy” the document, it saves it as a 400KB PDF. If I let the OCR program scan it, I print the image as PDF at 73KB.
@Steve: I don’t think I had to activate it with Adobe.
@Aoha: I am not sure I can give a typical size. It depends on how long the document is, whether it is in color or not, and the quality settings you use. A one-page color scan on medium quality is a 211.2 KB PDF. A four-page mixed scan (only 1 page color) on medium quality is a 438.6 KB PDF. Hope that helps.
Knowing this model doesn’t support Twain, when it scans and saves photos, does it save it as PDF or JPEG?
Thank you for this blog! So much useful information compared to others.
Next Comments →