Can you recommend a scanner ?

[Sinizter]

Can anyone recommend a scanner with an ADF. Duplex scanning would be great too.

It's for office use, with a upto 10-30 pages scanned daily on average. Ease of use and quality are the top priorities.

Would like a standalone scanner - not a part of a multi-function device.

I have been considering the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. But thought it might be best to get a quick second opinion before pulling the trigger. There was some mention of a different driver type for this scanner, which means it cannot be used with normal document management solutions.

Also looked at some HP offerings, but there have been several reviewers who have got nowhere near the speeds advertised.

Thanks in advance.

[oolon]

Questions

Is the scanner to be used by one person or by lots of people? if it is to be used by lots of people, consider getting a network scanner

What OS are a people using?

Do you have a Photocopier already in the office? if you do normally those have print and scanner functionality if you figure out how.

Do you only need to scan A4?

If you only need to do 20-30 pages a day and it has a sheet feeder you can feed it in and let it do the work. Speed isn't so important.

[ehhhhhhh]

I've got the HP 5590 with the ADF module.

Does the job adequately, though it can't scan both sides simultaneously.

When scanning white papers with little writing or graphics on them it sometimes messes up the auto cropping too


Overall I'm quite happy with it.

I've been using several ADF scanners including fuji, hp and kodak, I must say there aren't one which hasn't got any issues.

Considering the price I believe HP is the cheapest.

[Sinizter]

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

It is to be attached to one computer, with a shared folder. Network capability for the scanner is not required - and it would make it much more expensive.

OS will be Windows Vista.

No photocopier, but it is not something we need to do on a routine basis. If needed, documents can be scanned and printed.

I am only expecting to scan A4 and lower. And anything that can take an A4, should be able to handle an A3 as well (I think).

Speed is quite important as the pages are not likely to be scanned all at once. Would prefer not to hang around too long waiting for scanner to warm and then for it to crawl through slow ADF (we do have a HP multi-function device with inkjet printer, which is very slow and quality rubbish). But, as you say, as long as it isn't too slow, we can manage.

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 does seem perfect on paper - fast duplex scanning, throw on different sized documents onto the ADF and the scanner will still detect them and scan them correctly, documents deskewed and saved as PDF. Seems to cost around £430 - I am happy to spend that much if it can deliver.

I have also seen one in action, and it delivered good results quickly - only for a three page single sided document. But before spending that much, I wanted to know what else is available.

[Saracen]

....

I am only expecting to scan A4 and lower. And anything that can take an A4, should be able to handle an A3 as well (I think).....

Only by folding the A3 in half and scanning each bit separately.

I have an A3 flatbed, and it's a BIG sucker. Expensive, too.

....

Speed is quite important as the pages are not likely to be scanned all at once. Would prefer not to hang around too long waiting for scanner to warm and then for it to crawl through slow ADF (we do have a HP multi-function device with inkjet printer, which is very slow and quality rubbish). But, as you say, as long as it isn't too slow, we can manage.
....

Like ehhhhhhh, I quite rate the HP5590. I have one of them too.

From start to finish, an A4 scan, via the ADF, was about 1 min 10 seconds. But let me explain what I mean by start to finish. That was from time time I hit the "Scan" button, to the time all was completed, including the file written to a PDF. So it includes the warm-up, because the scanner was off when I started, selecting options in software and specifying destination, the feed through the ADF (which, you're right, isn't super-fast, taking, at a guess, about 30 seconds) and the scanner settling itself back down. That was a 300dpi scan, by the way.

For a similar job, I set up a four-page scan. The time from starting feed on one page to starting feed on the next, at 150dpi to PDF, was 16 seconds. So, 1 minute-ish for the four scans, plus about 30 seconds of warm-up, and settle down.

Note the effect of the res change.

To my mind, scanning multiple documents is a trade-off between convenience, speed and price. If you're going to be scanning single sheets most of the time, I question the need for an ADF. It's not really any harder to lift the cover, position the sheet, scan and remove the sheet. So buy a non-ADF scanner.

If, on the other hand, you're going to put several sheets in at ta time, and don't want to sit there, going ..... load, scan ..... wait a minute ..... reload, scan ..... wait a minute .... reload ..... etc., then buy an ADF scanner. Instead, I load up a few sheets, hit start, go make a cuppa, and come back to the job completed.

Given the ease of use, good scan quality and scanner price, I think the HP is pretty good. I have quite a few scanners here, including single sheet-fed, A4, A3 and several film scanners. I bought the 5590 specifically for the ADF function. I wanted it for document archiving, though this is personal/home office use not a professional archiving operation for a big corporate, and it does the job for me perfectly. It was a very good compromise between speed and cost.

Hope that helps.