Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 review

Although the ix500 can scan documents at 600dpi, we preferred to scan at 300dpi and save the results as PDFs to the ScanSnap Organiser utility as this produced documents with plenty of detail but low file sizes compared to higher resolution scans. By default, Organiser uses optical character recognition technology on the scanned PDFs to make them searchable, and you can use it to convert the scanned file into a Microsoft Word doc and send it to Dropbox among other tasks.

You can scan in PDF or JPEG formats, but uncompressed formats such as TIFF aren’t available, making this device a poor choice for anyone who needs to scan original images for archiving or editing.

Our test photos weren’t damaged by the scanner’s rollers, but scanned photos had a slightly red cast which was noticeable on flesh tones, and subtle differences in the shading of pale colours wasn’t always accurately reproduced. Even at 600dpi, not all the fine details of our photo were accurately captured. However, for something that specifically is not a photo scanner, the ix500 does a very respectable job.

Its paper feed can handle thicknesses of up to 209gsm card stock and up to 50 sheets of standard 80gsm copier paper. Its feeder can cope with paper sizes of up to 216x360mm.

In terms of speed and quality, we’ve nothing to complain about. The ABBYY OCR accurately converted eight and even five point lettering into editable text, correctly recognising challenging formatting elements such as magazine columns and light text on dark backgrounds.

Simplex and duplex scans take almost the same time to complete, as the scanner’s image sensors scan both sides simultaneously. The ScanSnap can also remove blank pages from your scanned and collated documents automatically. It took one minute and 24 seconds to scan 10 A4 pages and automatically collate them at 600dpi and just 23 seconds to perform the same task at 300dpi.

A single A4 page scan in JPEG format took 17 seconds to complete at 600dpi, seven seconds at 300dpi and five seconds at 150dpi.

It may seem expensive for a scanner, but it’s the document management features that makes the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 a great buy. If you only need to scan the occasional document you may be better off with an MFP, but if you have either years of archived paperwork or handle hundreds of documents every week, then the ix500 is a natural choice.