Raven Original Document Scanner

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Raven Original Document Scanner	A4	8.5 in. x 11.7 in.	Wi-Fi (2.4ghz), Ethernet	17	34	50 sheets	1500 sheets	Click for more info

The Raven Original is Amazon’s favorite scanner. Its users have been more than satisfied with this device after using it for a year. So what does it offer to deserve such a title?

First of all, there is the wireless connectivity and ethernet connection. Both of these provide internet connectivity to the scanner and It can scan without a computer connected to it, but it can scan directly to PC and Mac devices. It offers a huge LCD touchscreen. You can even post-process and edit the document after you scan it: You can crop the image, rotate it and adjust the colors. Of course it also offers automatic deskewing.

Then there is the Cloud connectivity. The Raven offers you 2 nice features. The first one is the ability to scan directly to cloud destinations with Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, OneDrive and Evernote integrations ready at hand. But on top of that, Raven also offers you the option of scanning directly to the Raven cloud storage platform where you can store your scanned documents online and even convert the paper documents into searchable PDF files with OCR. You can also scan documents directly to a USB Flash Drive. You just plug it into the USB port and start scanning. It cannot connect to your computer via USB cable, only by Wi-fi and Ethernet.

The Automatic Document Feeder ADF tray can hold up to 50 sheets. This is the standard size for both Raven scanners and lower than the 100 sheet capacity of the ScanSnap models. The daily duty cycle is up to 1500 digitized documents per day. It doesn’t have fast scanning speeds though. If you compare the Raven Original vs Raven Pro you will find that the Raven Scanner Original scans at 17 pages per minute and the Raven Pro Scanner scans documents at 60 pages per minute.

Raven Pro Document Scanner

Product	Format	Scanning area	Connectivity	Sheets per minute	Images per minute	ADF Size	Daily Duty Cycle	Price
Raven Pro Document Scanner	A4	8.5 in. x 11.7 in.	Wi-Fi (2.4ghz), Ethernet	60	120	100 sheets	6000 sheets	Click for more info

The Raven Pro Document Scanner offers much more scan speed than the Original. At 60 sheets per minute, it is almost 4 times faster. So what else does it offer for it to be worth the difference in price?

The advanced paper feeding system can hold 100 sheets on the Raven Scanner Pro vs the Raven Original Documents Scanner which can only hold 50 sheets.

The touch screen is also bigger, the Raven Original only has a 6 inch touch screen while the Pro has a 7 inch touch screen. The Raven Original doesn’t do automatic orientation and the Pro does.

The Raven Pro Document Scanner can connect to your PC via USB cable and comes with TWAIN drivers while the Raven Original can only connect via Wi-fi / Ethernet.

What is great about the Raven Document Scanners is that they both get automatic software updates.

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

So how does the Fujitsu Scansnap IX500 color duplex compare to the Raven Pro, since they are similarly priced? First of all the optical resolution is the same at 600 DPI, same for the A4 maximum document size. But the IX1500 has a party piece, with the ability to scan A3 papers. How? You fold it and it scans both sides and stitches them together.

The speed of the Raven Pro just thrashes the Fujitsu IX500 and the Fujitsu IX1500. The Fujitsu scanners are much slower with speeds of 25 pages per minute for the Fujitsu image scanner scansnap ix500. The scansnap IX500 document scanner has wireless and USB 3.0 connectivity. It can be wi-fi connected, but doesn’t have an ethernet port.

The main disadvantage is that it does not have a touchscreen. That is a big issue here and for us it weighs a lot in our purchasing decision. It comes with the ScanSnap home app and ScanSnap connect application. There is an entire ScanSnap ecosystem which is wonderfully integrated. Other apps include ScanSnap organizer and ScanSnap Manager.

Both the Scansnap IX500 scanner and the IX1500 can scan directly to mobile devices and smartphones.

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

The IX1500 has faster scanning speeds, 30 pages per minute instead of 25, but as we mentioned earlier still way slower than the Raven Pro. There is a touchscreen which is not even remotely as big and detailed as the one on the Raven, but still lets you operate the basic functions and configure it. It is also a scanner for PC and Mac with drivers available for both. No TWAIN drivers here because this is a ScanSnap and they just don’t have those.

In the Raven vs ScanSnap IX1500 battle, it is worth noting that both offer a cloud platform to store your documents on. Fujitsu’s version is called ScanSnap Cloud.

The best thing about the ScanSnap IX1500 vs Raven Original and Pro is that it comes with ABBYY FineReader. That means you can convert your scanned pages not only into searchable documents in PDF but also editable Word Doc and XLS files.

Raven Original Document Scanner vs Raven Pro Scanner vs Fujitsu ScanSnap IX500 vs Fujitsu IX1500. Which one to buy?

The Raven Original provides the best value for money but is slow. If you want the best, get the Raven Pro.

Why buy the IX1500? It is a great scanner priced just like the Raven Original and it has a much better OCR platform plus the A3 scanning feature.