Fujitsu ScanPartner FI-4120C Color Duplex Scanner

I first saw this scanner when I went to the hospital for a routine procedure and was impressed with its small size and speed. The employee who was scanning told me what a pleasure it was to use. I was hooked, and after doing some research, I bought it to use at home to replace my flatbed scanner. I scan receipts, warranties, bank statements, brochures, books, etc. I usually use it with my desktop pc, but it is so light and small that sometimes I take it into another room to use with my laptop.

This is not an inexpensive unit, but I decided the convenience and performance was worth the expense for home use. I have not been disappointed. The difference between using this and a flatbed scanner is night and day.

Setup was relatively simple, although the instruction manual did not mention that it was necessary to install a separate USB driver from the installation cd in addition to the twain and isis drivers that are necessary for the scanning software that comes with the unit. If you are a computer novice this might pose some difficulty, but I doubt a computer novice would spend this much money for a scanner to use at home or in the office.

The scanner comes with two separate scanning software programs. I prefer QuickScan, which lets you set up different profiles depending on what kind of documents and files you are working with(e.g. pdf for a brochure, tiff for a black and white receipt, jpeg for a color picture, etc.). This is a very handy feature since it permits scanning different kinds of documents with a minimun of time spent changing scanner settings.

The duplex feature is what really sold me on this scanner. I recently cut off the binding of a paper back book and scanned several hundred pages into a pdf file in less than ten minutes. It's also very handy to scan an invoice that has all kinds of fine print on the back.

Like any other device, you need to do some experimenting to customize it so it performs the way you want. If you do, you will not be disappointed with this product.

This is not a cheap scanner, you already knew that. But I think it is worth the price if you have lots of paper you want to turn into ones and zeros. I had a few cardboard boxes full of paperback books that were taking up too much space, but I didn't want to throw them out. I cut off their bindings with a band saw and ran the pages through the FI-4120C and turned them into PDF files -- about 200 books, somewhere around 30,000 pages -- only cleaning out the paper dust every few books. I won't say it never jammed, but it jammed seldom enough to be highly productive, and it always had a good reason when it did, like residue binding adhesive. All the scans were excellent quality. I leave it set up on the computer desk because it doesn't take up much desk space. When bills or bank statements come in I scan them and throw away the paper instead of letting it pile up. A good, reliable commercial-quality document scanner, and rebuild kits are available for the rubber parts that wear out.

I have used this scanner in my office for over a year with zero problems. It's fast, quiet, and efficient. And it does a great job with both letter and legal size documents. The automatic document feeder works well with documents up to about 50 pages long.

The instructions for installing the software drivers were a little confusing. I recommend going to Fujitsu's website and downloading and installing the latest drivers. The download contains a setup file that automates the driver installation process.

The scanner comes with USB and SCSI cables (use one or the other), Adobe Acrobat 5.0, and pretty much everything you need. Personally, I prefer PaperPort 9.0 software (not included) for scanning and organizing documents. So, I did not evaluate any of the other software (besides Acrobat) that comes with the scanner.

All in all, I highly recommend the 4120C for small office and workgroup users.

This scanner is a bit pricey but is well worth it if you have to archive a large amount of paper. Beats hands-down the models from Visioneer. I like the duplex feature, fast warm up of the lamp, and speed. Interface is very good, compared to Visioneer or HP. I would buy another one again.

We've used this scanner in our office for almost a year, scanning hundreds of pages per week. The problem is that having this has encouraged us to scan a lot more stuff (and have a lot less paper laying around), so there is a big line for the scanner. So I'm buying a second one!