Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500

The HP Officejet Pro L7780 All-in-One was getting old. Two thousand scans with it had proven it was marginal at best. So when the ScanSnap S1500 presented itself with glowing reviews I snapped it up. After a months use there is not much to say. It works as described and as expected. It’s probably the best scanner one can buy.
+ It was not difficult to set up.
+ It scans both sides at the same time and removes the blank pages and sides automatically!
+ It is very fast. Like 20 pages a minute. Makes scanning a pleasure and not a chore. Just drop it in and it slide out the bottom instantaneously scanned on both sides!
+ It’s the size of a small shoe box. Very compact when not in use. When in use it folds out nicely.
- Often the empty pages are not removed because it sees the text on the other side of the page and includes it. (Perhaps if the scan heads were positioned differently on the next model this problem would go away.)
- The software prevents multiple scans to be done without intervention on the PC. Continuously clicking multiple options on the pc before the next document can be scanned is annoying and time consuming.
- Papers aged in the sun scan poorly if at all. The mechanism will grab one side and then pull the page in cattywompus like.
- Papers can get stuck inside. Pressing the scan button does not move them forward. Perhaps the thing can be torn apart but it’s not obvious how.
- 2009.08.06: Does not scan long pages. The IRS sends some of their 941 documentation in 8.5″x22″ format. This gets scanned in most of the way before throwing up and leaving the document stuck.