Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 Scanner for PC and Mac (PA03656-B005)

It's a true delight to find a product that is as carefully thought out, as well engineered, and as user friendly as Fujitsu's ScanSnap scanners. I've been using the S1500 at my office, and my wife and I have have been using one for our home office, since 2010. It's been a workhorse appliance that we've used every day for paperless home and business needs, with our only problem being some very occasional finickiness in document feeding. When I started seeing reviews for the iX500, I figured it was time to pass the S1500s on to some office staffers and upgrade the office and home. I did that today, and I'm very happy I did. The iX500 is much faster than the S1500, and from what I've read I don't expect even the minimal finickiness we had with the S1500s. Beyond the excellence of the product, I've rarely seen such simple installation. The software installs almost entirely on its own, preserving settings from the prior version that came with the S1500. You basically just run the installation program, plug in the scanner, follow some on-screen prompts for both wireless and hard-wired connections (with built-in trouble-shooting if things don't go quite right), and you're done. Very few products are this easy. Yes, I'm pretty tech-savvy, but it's hard to imagine anyone having trouble with the setup. Both at the office and at home, everything went flawlessly. Most important, the installation preserved all my preferences, including the location of the destination folder for scans (a Dropbox folder, not the program default). Once the installation was complete, I did a scan and everything worked just as it had with the S1500, Hard to beat that. Particularly simple is the wireless facility. This isn't a wireless connection to your computer, but rather a connection to iOS or Android devices through local Wi-Fi, so that you can send a scan to these devices. I have to say that I'm not sure why Fujitsu devoted so much attention to this -- it's not obvious to me why anyone using Dropbox or a similar service would have a regular need for it. In my case, my default folder for scanning lives in Dropbox, so when I scan something it's available on both my office and home desktop computers and on my wireless devices. So, I don't know how often this will be useful to me. That said, I can see the value of being able to do a quick scan to a handheld when the computer is turned off and I don't want to have to fire it up. Regardless, the wireless setup is as straightforward and quick as anyone could possibly want. Again, even the tech-challenged should find this easy. And that's the real virtue of this very virtuous product: Anyone can use it. The S1500 was absolutely solid and reliable. The ix500 continues the tradition of excellence. Thank you, Fujitsu!

Updated review. Purchased and originally reviewed February 2014. This can be turned into an excellent office network scanner for a fraction of the cost of a scanner designed as a network scanner. It will only pair wirelessly with one computer at a time, and pairing it to a different machine can be tedious and time consuming. We originally had this connected by Wi-Fi to our Mac mini server, on which we had the ScanSnap app installed. Anyone in the office could take the scanner to his or her desk and scan and save documents to the server by using Acrobat Reader on the server. After a while, I did not want the server used as a workstation so regularly, and I wanted to stop accessing things like USB label and postage printers by hogging up USB ports on the server and sharing them out. So I bought a used 2012 Mac mini to use as a secondary server for the iX500 connected wirelessly and all of the USB only printing devices plugged into this secondary server with a hub and shared out over the network. This secondary server, like the primary server, runs headless, so the footprint is simply that of a Mac mini. Now, to scan, we screen share from any iMac or MacBook Pro into the secondary server to run the ScanSnap app, and save the files to server as a network drive connected to the secondary server. The secondary server has only the ScanSnap app, Acrobat Reader, and an old version of MS Word installed on it. So, if we ever need more iX500s, I will simply partition the secondary server's drive and install more ScanSnap, MS Word, and Acrobat Reader apps on separate partitions to allow multiple users to simultaneously use separate iX500s wirelessly and to save scanned files to the primary server. As I said in my original review, the iX500 provides fast, accurate, scanning. Both sides of the sheet are scanned simultaneously, vastly improving speed over typical duplex capable sheet feeders on flatbed scanners. The app has an easy to use interface with many options for naming and saving scanned documents to any network drive as .doc(x) or .pdf file formats under Mac OSX. The ScanSnap app works with a bundled copy of the Abbey Fine Reader OCR app, adequate for saving scans as doc(x) or rtf formatted files. The extremely small footprint allows it to fit into a very small spot on any desk in the office. It also comes bundled with a copy of Acrobat Standard for Windows. Not really sure why not a Mac version also. A heavy Mylar letter size jacket for scanning small documents such as checks, and receipts comes with the iX500. We have never used it because the iX500 handles documents as small as wallet-sized checks because the paper guides on the intake chute move in to about 3 inches. Paper jambs are rare and a non-issue, since the feed path is completely straight and opens up completely at the push of one button to remove internal paper jambs without losing the pages already scanned, which simply wait in a temporary file for more pages. The feeder holds 50 sheets, and if it runs out, you can add additional sheets to the same file as with a paper jamb. This versatile and extremely flexible paper-handling ability make a flatbed scanner unnecessary for anything but photo scanning. Since most photos are already electronic by the time they are used as or in documents, at least in a law office, that has simply not been an issue since we acquired this scanner in February, 2014. The small footprint and available case make it an excellent portable for off-sight use. Progressively falling prices make it a no-brainer and must have. The falling prices may also indicate that this scanner will be replaced shortly, most likely with a more expensive model, so now might be a good time to get one or more. I bought an earlier version of this scanner, the Mac-only ScanSnap S1500M, on the recommendation of a colleague who had the Windows version of that scanner to use at home to replace a different big, bulky, flatbed scanner with sheet feeder after it failed and turned into an expensive doorstop several days after the warranty expired. I bought this one for my office after a much bulkier and temperamental HP flatbed/sheet feeder also died several days after the warranty expired because I was extremely satisfied with the S1500M. We also have a custom-fit leather case, which Fujitsu sells for about $30 for travel. Well worth having if you are going to take it out of the office. The iX500 is sturdy, but it is still plastic, so the protection of a case is a good idea. Wearable rubber rollers are cheap and available from Fujitsu. Telephone support is excellent, a big plus because the wireless pairing procedure can be a little complex until you get used to it, or after you forget how to do it, because it is not particularly intuitive. This is simply the most reliable, flexible, accurate, easy to use scanner I have ever owned or used. Anything that will not go through the sheet feeder can be copied to a sheet of paper on a copier. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It probably deserves a design award.

Uno de los mejores aparatos que he comprado!!!! Me ha dado un resultado increíble ya que escanea por las dos caras al mismo tiempo y lo hace rápido!!! Es un excelente equipo!!!!

El scaner ScanSnap iX500 superó mis expectativas. Realmente es el mejor escaner para uso personal que he visto, incluso supera a varios que son para el ambiente empresarial. Escaner de alta gama, sin duda.