Epson ES-500W

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson ES-500W	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and WiFi	35	70	50 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Epson Workforce ES-500W is the cheapest scanner in this list. It has a scan speed of 35 pages per minute together with a document feeder that can hold up to 50 documents.

It uses the Epson ScanSmart as the main scanning software coupled with a TWAIN driver that is compatible with both PC and Mac devices. Why does the TWAIN driver matter? Because you can scan directly into document management apps, Photoshop or any Imaging app that supports scanners. The software has a Nuance OCR engine in it.

Because it has wireless connectivity, you can wirelessly scan to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, be it Android or iOS. Along with the wi-fi, you also get a 3.0 USB port.

It can scan directly to the Cloud and most cloud storage platforms are supported like Dropbox, Google Drive and Evernote.

With the Nuance OCR engine, it can convert scanned images to searchable PDF files, Word documents and Excel documents. The last two have fully editable text.

Extra long documents can be scanned even if they are up to 240 inches. Epson says that the recommended daily duty cycle is up to 4,000 sheets per day.

Epson DS-575W

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson DS-575W	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0, Wireless and Ethernet (optional)	35	70	50 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

How is the Epson DS-575W different from the ES-500W, apart from the 75$ price difference?

It has TWAIN and ISIS drivers as opposed to just TWAIN.

With this device, Epson also offers you the option to buy an extra ethernet port.

But the biggest difference is in the software included. You get the ABBYY FineReader Sprint which is a great Optical Character Recognition software with great text recognition accuracy.

Then, instead of the ScanSmart software you get the more advanced Document Capture Pro which has auto size detection, layout orientation and deskew. There is also a text enhancement feature, punch hole removal and background removal.

Is the extra money worth it for what you get? You decide.

Epson ES-400

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Epson ES-400	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	SuperSpeed USB 3.0 and Ethernet (optional)	35	70	50 sheets	4,000 sheets	Click for more info

The Epson ES-400 offers the best value of all the three Epson scanners.

It doesn’t bundle the ABBYY OCR software, it just uses the Nuance OCR software.

There is no wireless connection, you can just hook it up to your personal computer (Windows or Mac OS) through USB cable.

The scanning software is the basic ScanSmart of Epson Scan.

The good part is that you can buy an ethernet port if you really need it but then, if you want to do networking, the ES-500W might be a better deal.

But it is the cheapest document scanner here and provides most of the scanning features of the ES-500W.

All the three Epson scanners come with a 1-year limited warranty from Epson America.

Scansnap ix500

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Scansnap ix500		A4 – 216 x 360 mm (8.5 x 14.17 in.)	Wireless and USB 2.0, 3.0	25 PPM	25 IPM	50 sheets	400 sheets	Click for more info

The ScanSnap IX500 is actually an older document scanner. It was ultimately replaced by the IX500 but you can still find older models on Amazon.

With a scanning speed of 25 pages per minute and an Automatic Document Feeder ADF tray of 50 pages it’s nothing special from that point of view. The design is perfect, it looks even better than its successor. It is minimalistic and black.

The point of the IX500 is to scan directly to the Cloud without using a computer. Just plug it in, configure its network settings, it connects to the cloud and does the rest. You can either scan to the ScanSnap cloud or to Google Drive and Dropbox.

There is only one button, to scan. It can output the digital files in PDF, JPEG, searchable PDF, Word and Excel documents with editable text. There is also the option of scanning directly to your mobile device, be it an Android smartphone or an iOS tablet.

The best thing about the device is its ScanSnap software ecosystem where you can find apps for document management, business cards, receipts and several other functions.

Fujitsu Scansnap IX1500

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Fujitsu Scansnap IX1500	A4	8.27 in x 11.69 in	USB 3.1, WiFi	30	60	50 sheets	400 sheets	Click for more info

So what did the Fujitsu IX1500 bring new to the table?

First there is the 2.8″ LCD touchscreen which lets you operate the scanner without having to connect to it via your PC. You can choose the destinations and which scan profiles to use. It is a game-changer in my opinion.

The scanning speed is also faster, this time it can scan at 30 pages per minute. It is not the fastest scanner out there, but good enough for small office tasks.

The IX1500 also has a faster start-up time which you may not consider important, but think about the fact that usually in an office it is more likely that you have to scan 20 batches of 2 documents at 20 different times in the day rather than 1 batch of 40 documents so start-up time matters a lot.

There is also the option to scan A3 folded papers. The idea is that you fold them, put them into the document feeder and scan both sides in duplex mode. The imaging software will then stitch the 2 sides together into one big A3 image. Great for occasional scanning but don’t rely on it to be a full-time A3 document scanner.

Both the Fujitsu scanners come with a 1-year limited warranty.

Epson ES-500W vs Epson DS-575W vs ES-400 vs ScanSnap IX500 vs ScanSnap IX1500. Which is the one to get?

In the Epson ES-500W vs Epson DS-575W, for us the extra 70 dollars is worth it for the better software.

As far as ScanSnap IX500 vs ScanSnap IX1500 is concerned, there is no doubt that the IX1500 is worth it more than a refurbished or renewed IX500. Check prices on Amazon and you will notice they aren’t even that good on the IX500 models.

Epson ES-400 vs ScanSnap IX1500? They are different scanners with a price difference of 120 dollars. But if we were to buy one for our office, we would buy the IX1500 and never look back. Still if the budget is so tight, the ES-400 is better value than the ES-500W because all it is missing is the wi-fi connectivity.