Fujitsu fi-7160

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Fujitsu fi-7160	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	USB 3.0	60	120	80 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Fujitsu Fi-7160 is the first 50 ppm document scanner that actually does 60 pages per minute so it’s a bit on the faster side. It has a really high pixel density of 1200dpi from its integrated CCD (Contact image sensor). With 1200 dots per inch, you will get a high level of detail from your JPEG and Bitmap images so it will do well as a photo scanner. Although it is worth noting that our computer tests showed that there isn’t any improvement in optical character recognition accuracy or confidence, just more detail.

The daily scanning volume that Fujitsu recommends you can reach is 4,000 sheets per day as this device was built to be a production scanner. That should cover most office work on a regular day easily. In long document mode, you can convert documents that are up to 220 inches long to digital images. The software in the package includes: PaperStream IP, PaperStream Capture, ScanSnap Manager for fi Series, Scanner Central Admin Agent. It can take a wide range of paper thicknesses and types, ranging from 7.2 lb to 112 lb and has a multi-feed ultrasonic sensor to automatically stop if more than one sheet was fed into the scanner.

It will connect to your PC or Mac only via USB port, but it’s great that it is a fast USB 3.0 port. This is not a wireless scanner. The auto document feeder ADF tray can hold up to 80 sheets in it. The feed rollers will last for 200,000 scanned documents until you need to replace them. It has multiple image enhancement features like automatic rotation, cropping, deskew, background removal and also the more advanced features like barcorde recognition which you can use to insert metadata or separate documents and Zonal OCR which is perfect for form pr invoice scanning in bulk. It also has batch scan features which we frequently use in our digitization center. We have some Fujitsu Fi series scanners that we use as book scanners after we have cut the binding and they have proven to be extremely reliable.

Brother ADS-3000N

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Brother ADS-3000N	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	Gigabit Ethernet and SuperSpeed USB 3.0	50	100	50 sheets	5,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Brother ADS-3000N is a true and exact 50 ppm document scanner, not more not less. The Automatic Feeder tray can hold exactly how much the scanner can digitize in a minute and that is 50 sheets. With an image resolution of 600 dpi that is made possible by the CIS (Contact Image Sensor) integrated into the scanner, this document scanner will to a great job with OCR text accuracy and photos. Using the long document mode, the scanner will not stop and scan papers that are even 196 inches long. This is a duplex scanner and so both sides of a document will be scanned with a single pass.

It will connect to your Windows PC or Mac OS using Gigabit Ethernet and SuperSpeed USB 3.0, so this is not a wireless scanner either but it is a network scanner at least. You can use this network document scanner to scan directly to your favorite cloud storage, which includes Google Drive, Dropbox and Evernote. It too can scan extra long documents up to 196 inches long, as long as they are as wide as an A4. You can put up to 50 sheets in the automatic document feeder tray.

This workgroup scanner has all the driver types you need: Twain, Sane, Wia, Ica and Isis so it is ready to be fully integrated with most scanning apps available on the market. The software package consists of: ABBYY FineReader Professional, ABBYY PDF Transformer+, Nuance PaperPort 14 SE, Control Center 2 & 4. It is a big advantage for the Brother the fact that it includes ABBYY. Our tests have compared the ABBYY to the ReadIris and Omnipage OCR and the ABBYY had better recognition accuracy and better layout detection.

The scanner has all the ICE features for improving the color scans as background cleaning, edge correction, rotation, cropping, etc. There is no multi-stream option, which would have allowed you to scan the same image in different scanning modes with a single pass.

Canon DR-C240

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Canon DR-C240	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	USB 2.0	45	90	60 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Canon DR-C240 is the third 50 PPM document scanner. This scanner doesn’t actually have a scan speed of 50 PPM, but 45 PPM, still very close that in reality it will be difficult to notice the scanning speed difference. The size of the ADF tray is 60 sheets and Canon recommends you only scan up to 4,000 sheets every day. This scanner is equipped with a CIS sensor that scans at an optical resolution of 600 dpi but it only has USB 2.0 connectivity, so if you work in an office where you want to share it, you may want to reconsider. It can scan paper sizes that are as wide as an A4 and maximum 118 inches long. You can use it as a receipt scanner for when you have those extra-long receipts from large purchases at the store.

Here’s how the included software looks: CaptureOnTouch 3, CapturePerfect, eCopy PDF Pro, Kofax VRS (for Canon). The Kofax VRS is an advanced image enhancement software that will automatically crop, rotate, deskew and clean your scanned images. It integrates perfectly with the scanner and our tests have shown it can bring big improvements to image quality. The feed rollers will last the same as with other scanners, it will be 200,000 scanned documents until you have to consider replacing them.

This is a straight-pass sheetfed scanner so it can do id card scanning without the need to purchase an extra flatbed scanner.

Epson DS-780N

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson DS-780N	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0, Ethernet (optional)	45	90	100 sheets	5,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Epson DS-780N is the last 50 PPM document scanner and this too can scan at an actual scanning speed of 45 pages per minute, so in duplex scanning mode you can get up to 90 images per minute. You can stack more sheets though in its ADF tray which will hold 100 sheets. The daily volume of the scanner is about 5,000 sheets and the maximum optical resolution is 600 dpi, produced by a CCD sensor.

We have found in our tests that CCD sensors in desktop scanners are superior in handling photos in terms of color to CIS sensors. They seem to have a wider dyanmic range and just seem to bring out more colors from the RGB color model than CIS sensors can. That’s not to say it is a big difference, but there is one.

The included scan software with this color duplex document scanner is: Epson Document Capture Pro 2.0, Epson Document Capture Pro Server 2.0, Epson Document Capture Pro Server 2.0 Authentication Edition, Epson Document Capture, Epson Scan 2.

Epson also provides TWAIN, WIA and ISIS drivers for both Windows and Mac on their website for this scanner and also to register your product if you have purchased one.

Which is the Best Document Scanner at 50 PPM to get?

At the 50 ppm speed benchmark, our favorite scanner is the Fujitsu Fi-7160 and that is because it has proven itself in time to be a reliable and versatile scanner. The balance between price and features is solid and the customer satisfaction after 6 months of usage is high. So who is missing from the list? The Canon dr-5010c, the HP ScanJet 3000, the epson workforce es-400 color duplex document scanner which we have reviewed in a separate article, the scansnap ix1500 which is a great scanner but too slow for this list. We also reviewed flatbed scanners and portable scanners, check out our website homepage to find all our articles.