The ScanSnap S1300 rocks and this page doesn't do it justice.
BTW, the difference between the ScanSnap S300 and S1300 is simple.
S1300 works with PC and MAC. S300 only works with PC. Get the S1300.
It scans FAST and PDFs pop up on my PC immediately. It does OCR in the background while the PC is idle.
Great, great quality. My old Epson Perfection 1240 never scanned docs with such clarity.
One drawback...you can't use TWAIN with the ScanSnap series. So no "import from scanner" in Photoshop.
But this things will scan a JPG that can you later open in Photoshop. No worries.
As a designer, I'm not impacted since I rarely scan anything in color these days.
(It does scan in full color, btw...really nice quality).
I'll let the video show you real-world usage.
Personal stuff has been blurred. ;)
You can watch it at you of the tube
and search for the following kB7268TGEng. Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Mobile Scanner (PA03603-B005)
I was thinking about the 1500M but then realized that the software was for Mac only and that making it work with a PC using the great software that is bundled would not be possible. Sure you can get the scanner to work but not all of ease of use features with profiles etc.
I like the Scan Snap software, it is easy to use. I did not use the manual to figure it out(beyond checking what needed to be installed).
You simply select active Profile for your scanning task and then it is a one-click affair.
Scan to a file
Scan to Evernote (I had to configure, very easy to-do)
Scan to email
Scan to Card-Iris
Scan to Word
Scan to Excel
etc.
Could this get any easier?
Page Per Minute:
8 supposedly but if you turn on the special PDF feature to make the document SEARCH-ABLE then the PPM goes down or at least the post-scan processing takes slightly longer.
Small size benefits:
* I like the ability to take it with me to a meeting where I know I will want to share notes
* small footprint on my desk (I like this)
* when you fold up the trays the 1300 is just a tiny little box
Small size issues:
* the paper tray cannot hold as many sheets as the larger models
* guide rails are small and papers can sometimes get fed in at an angle if your paper is curling up a little, I have to assume that with bigger guide rails that would help keep the paper straight
* if you have the space and you want to be able to do large batches of scans I have to assume the larger SCAN SNAPS would be a better choice (they can process more PPM too).
power from USB:
* the option to power form two USB ports is pretty nifty
* this feature is useful for people that travel and do some serious word warrior computing
Lastly, my use case (so that you can determine if my advice applies):
* I am a GTD user and scansnap is part of my process of processing my inbox (getting to zero).
* I scan a lot of stuff to evernote (magazine articles/notes/project related documents)
* I scan all my bills and tax related documents to an encrypted folder
* I scan business cards and use card iris to send to entourage
* My goal of FILING less stuff is a success thanks to the EASE of use of the Scan SNAP
* my goal of shredding old files after scanning is a success
I own other scanners, and they are PERFECT for scanning a few important documents for a task but not for BULK SCANNING jobs. WAY too many steps and too slow! I strongly recommend SCANSNAP scanners.
I've been looking for this scanner for 15 years. It's good enough. It could be better, but it's good enough. If it lasts for two years I'll happily buy it again at the same price.
The hardware is essentially perfect. It's a bit annoying that you need two USB cables if you want to avoid the generic (mediocre) power brick, but blame that on USB. We should all be using either old style firewire or never coming USB 3, but we're stuck with USB 2. It scans both sides of paper at once. Yes, DUPLEX.
Although it's primarily a document scanner, I've used it scan color prints. The results were not professional quality, but they were darned good and fast.
The documentation is excellent.
The software is mediocre. Some of the bundled OS X software is so old it's non-native on Intel machines, fortunately you can omit that. Unlike the higher end machines you don't get Adobe's superb PDF/OCR combination (yes, once Adobe was competent), you get a much less efficient product called ABBY FineReader. Even so, it does produce PDF images with searchable OCRd text indices.
Most importantly, OS X Spotlight WILL index the text associated with these PDF image files.
The mediocrity extends to the ScanSnap Manager UI and workflow. Clearly this was a low bid contract. Don't expect much in the way of upgrades or future products. The scans, however, can be sent to products like DevonThink Pro ($150) for processing.
The scanner uses proprietary drives. This is perhaps the most lethal problem. If they're not upgraded we can be sure that within 3 years they won't work on OS X. Fujitsu, notoriously, does not provide new versions of ScanSnap Manager without a hardware purchase.
There are other problems with the software, but so far it hasn't been unstable.
In summary, 2 star software, 5 star hardware, gives a 3 star review. Surprisingly, I still love the product. If Apple were ever to produce a scanner, it would be a lot like this, though with a better power adapter and infinitely better software.
Even though I have flatbed scanners and a wand scanner, I decided I needed something faster that the flatbed with less tweaking than the wand scanner (fast and OK for images, iffy for documents). I've been wanting to buy either the S1300 or the S1500 based on the great Amazon reviews, but couldn't decide which.
Pros for the S1300 were:
Support for both Mac and PC (have both)
Portability
Price
Cons were:
10 sheet ADF limit
Slower speed (10 ppm versus 20 ppm for S1500)
Lacks full Adobe Acrobat product
Ultimately I decided to "settle" for the S1300, but I'm very happy.
First, it turns out you can actually put far more than 10 sheets in the ADF. The important thing is that the first few pages feed well. The additional pages will fall into place if you've taken moderate care to stack them neatly. I've scanned documents at least 35 pages long with no trouble.
The "slower" speed hasn't been a problem for me. In the past few days I've already scanned inches worth of documents (7" stack is waiting to be shredded) - I anticipating being entirely paper free at work in a week. Ironically, work finally (after months of waiting) got me set up with a XEROX Workcenter 7346. I think the S1300 is actually faster for me, because I can multi-task while the S1300 chugs at my desk (fwiw, I am using a netbook to ingest the scans while working at my "work" desktop).
While I do love having a complete version of Adobe Acrobat, the software included with the ScanSnap lets you do most stuff that's really important - OCR, rotating pages, deleting pages, etc. I have found it's useful, when scanning a stack of documents, to take a moment after each scan to name the thing (e.g., yymmdd description). Renaming is a snap, just hit F2 and start typing the new name. No need to add the ".pdf" extension, that gets added automatically.
The business card software is nice as well, though I find I have to go through and QA the OCR "guesses." Since I haven't had a business card scanner before, I don't know how this compares.
Lastly, this little unit works great if you have a need to use it on the road. I had two multi-hour flight delays this week. I went ahead and set up the ScanSnap with my netbook and chugged through stacks of paper I'd been dragging around for far too long. So awesome that I could do so without any access to power (though I did find outlets so I wasn't draining my netbook).
Definitely recommend the S1300 for anyone who wants to go paperless! - Scansnap - Document Scanner - Scanner - Fujitsu'
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