Fujitsu ix1500 Scanner Review

Today I am going to review the Fujitsu ScanSnap ix1500 document scanner! You might be saying what in the world do I need that for?! Well let me tell you, you do! It is time to declutter your life and get rid of all of those old documents. Of course with this scanner you aren’t really getting rid of it as so much as getting up to date with the 21st century and going digital!! (to see it in action or watch the video review instead, click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post!)

PRICING/LOAN SIGNING AGENT

This bad larry was $399 on Amazon (click my affiliate referral link here to view/buy). I contemplated this purchase for a long time because of the price. Now the only thing I am mad about is that it took me so long to buy it. I am OBSESSED!! I am a notary/loan signing agent (click here for a great course to teach you all about loan document signings) and historically have not accepted jobs where I had to scan the documents back to the hiring company because it was a royal pain in the rear to scan 150 pages by phone. Well now….. I WELCOME the opportunity to scan loan docs because with the Fujitsu ix1500 document scanner I can scan about 200 pages in 5 minutes. Let’s gooooooo!!!

UNBOXING

The Fujitsu Scansnap ix1500 scanner comes with the following:

Scanner
Instruction manual
Wall plug
Cord to plug the scanner directly into computer
Receipt attachment (to easily scan receipts – I do not bother using it though)

KEY FEATURES

scans up to 30 pages per minute
600 DPI
50 page automatic document feeder (ADF) – in reality it holds much more but this is what they advertise
Continuous Scan feature so if you have a big file you can scan in batches to ONE PDF (hello, loan documents!)
auto detection of legal and letter paper
auto detection of single sided or double sided (simplex vs. duplex)
Wifi or hard connection (cord included)
scan business cards, id’s, receipts, photos documents and more!
scan direct to desktop, phone, email, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote or Cloud
create profiles for items that you scan all the time so that you don’t have to enter settings every time
interactive screen on the actual scanner
creates searchable PDF’s

SETUP

Ok so I am not going to lie, but the setup was just a wee bit more difficult then I thought it would be. I would give it a 7 out of 10 for it’s ease of use. That being said I did NOT read any instructions and I did NOT use the website that is meant to make the setup a breeze! You can either do what I did and follow the prompts on the unit’s screen OR you can go directly to scansnap.com/m/ and get all the help and tutorials you need to get this baby up and running. I recommend setting it up on both your phone and your computer. The computer has way more options than if you simply scan to your phone every time. However I am a girl who loves options so I have both setup!

CREATING A PROFILE

As I mentioned I am a loan signing agent and every so often I have to scan loan documents and then upload them to an online portal. There are key features that I always want when I scan loan documents, however I don’t want to have to change my settings every time that I need to do this. GREAT NEWS! you can create profiles using your desktop computer so that with a push of a button on the actual machine it knows what settings I want every time I scan loan documents (simplex, b&w, low resolution, continuous scan etc). You can do this with anything that you scan all the time (receipts, paychecks, policies etc). Watch my YouTube video below (by scrolling down or clicking here) to see how easy this is in action!

WIFI or HARD CONNECTION?

I read a lot of comments in customer reviews that it was much slower on the WiFi. Let me tell you, using the WiFi is pretty darn fast! However, it might be slower if you were using the scanner on the road with a hotspot or on a public WiFi connection. If I was handling a signing on the road that required scanbacks, I might bring the cord with me just in case (however I have yet to need to scan something on the road).

PROS and CONS

There are so many pros to the Fujitsu ix1500 scanner that I can’t stop telling everyone about this darn machine LOLOLOL. See key features above for all of the pros. The only cons that I can think of are as follows:

price – at $399 on Amazon it is a bit pricey HOWEVER after using it for a day I thought it was worth every penny!
you can only scan things you can fit in the automatic document feeder
receipts that are too long will get jammed (you can try to use the receipt attachment though LOL)
less options when using the phone app – you can’t use the profiles when scanning to the phone.

CLEANING THE SCANNER

There are two ways to clean your new scanner to keep the dirt out and to avoid streaks on your paperwork. You can buy the F1 cleaner (click here to view/buy) OR you can buy the wipes (click here to view/buy). I am all about ease and convenience so I bought the wipes. They were a bit pricey for what they are BUT if they keep this baby purring for years to come, I will buy them all day! To clean all you have to do is unplug the scanner and open the adf. Use the wipe to clean rollers on both sides (4 total) and to clean the two glass strips (see photo below for reference). Voila!