Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheetfed Review
This premium machine is great for those that need to scan hundreds of pages a day
Price:
$1,200 List | $745 at Amazon
Pros: 80-page automatic document feeder, fast, high quality scans
Cons: Expensive, text recognition not perfect, somewhat complicated installation
Manufacturer: Fujitsu
Pros: 80-page automatic document feeder, fast, high quality scans
Cons: Expensive, text recognition not perfect, somewhat complicated installation
Manufacturer: Fujitsu
By Max Mutter and Steven Tata ⋅ Oct 31, 2017
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Our Verdict
If you find yourself scanning lots of documents that are 50+ pages, the Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheetfed will vastly improve your quality of life. With its huge, 80-page automatic document feeder, it can turn an 80-page document into a high quality PDF in just over 4 minutes, and all the labor required is dropping the document into the feeding tray and pushing a single button. It backs that speed up with high quality scans, an intuitive interface, and good software. If your scanning jobs generally don't have single documents that are greater than 50 pages, you should check out the Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap. It is a slightly better overall performer than the Fujitsu Fi-7160 and is significantly cheaper, but has a slightly smaller 50-page automatic document feeder.
Compare to Similar Products
 This Product
Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheetfed | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awards |  |  |  | | |
| Price | $1,200 List $745.00 at Amazon | $495 List $490.00 at Amazon | $350 List $360 at Amazon | $110 List $89.98 at Amazon | $295 List $259.99 at Amazon |
Overall Score  |
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| Star Rating | |||||
| Pros | 80-page automatic document feeder, fast, high quality scans | Fast, high-quality scans, easy operation, touch screen interface | High quality scans, easy operation, good text recognition | Great scan quality, small and portable, simple operation, good OCR | High quality scans, easy to use software |
| Cons | Expensive, text recognition not perfect, somewhat complicated installation | Expensive, Character recognition not perfect | Slower than other high end models | Slow | Relatively slow, 10-page document feeder feels limiting |
| Bottom Line | If you’re scanning all day, this model makes your life easier, but costs a pretty penny | The best option for high volume scanning jobs that demand high quality | A solid, high end model that doesn’t cost quite as much as most other high end options | Apart from speed it excels in every aspect at a relatively low price | Can handle a lot of short documents quite well, but the lack of a paper tray and large document feeder makes it less suited for long documents |
| Rating Categories | Fujitsu Fi-7160... | Fujitsu ScanSnap... | Epson WorkForce... | Brother DS-640 | Fujitsu ScanSnap... |
| Scanning Performance (35%) | |||||
| Speed (30%) | |||||
| Software (20%) | |||||
| User Friendliness (15%) | |||||
| Specs | Fujitsu Fi-7160... | Fujitsu ScanSnap... | Epson WorkForce... | Brother DS-640 | Fujitsu ScanSnap... |
| Paper Sizes | A4, A5, A6, B5, B6, Business Card, Post Card, Letter, Legal and Custom Size. | Minimum 50.8 x 50.8 mm (2 x 2 in.) Maximum 216 x 360 mm (8.5 x 14.17 in.) | Max: 8.5" x 240" Min: 2" x 2" |
Max: 8.5" x 32" | A4, A5, A6, B5, B6, Business card, Post card, Letter, Legal and Custom size |
| Weight (pounds) | 9.26 | 7.5 | 8.1 | 1.03 | 3.1 |
| Resolution (dpi) | 600 x 600 | 600 x 600 | 600 x 600 | 600 x 600 | 600 x 600 |
| Simplex/Duplex | Duplex | Duplex | Duplex | Simplex | Duplex |
| Scanning Modes | Color, Grayscale, Black and White, Automatic Detection | Color, Grayscale, Black and White, Automatic Detection | Color, Grayscale, Black and White | 24-bit color, 8-bit (256 levels) gray scale, 1 bit monochrome | Color, Grayscale, Black and White, Automatic Detection |
| Automatic Document Feeder | 80-page | 50-page | 50-page | No | 10-page |
| PC Compatible | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mac Compatible | 3rd party drivers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pages Per Minute | 21 | 26 | 14 | 4 | 13 |
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Our Analysis and Test Results
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 excels when you need to scan lots of very long documents. Otherwise the Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap is a better overall scanner, but its automatic document feeder has a smaller capacity.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Performance Comparison
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 was one of the top overall scorers in our testing. Its top attribute is its high capacity document feeder, but if you never scan documents that are over 50 pages then this scanner is not worth the high price.
Scanning Performance
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 was just behind the top scorers in our scanning performance testing, earning a score of 7 out of 10.
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 handled pretty much any text based scanning very well. Normal text, bold text, and handwritten text all came out looking nearly as good as the originals. Receipts sometimes looked a little blotchy, but never illegible. It only missed out on a top score because it didn't produce completely true colors when scanning color documents, everything looked just a bit faded. However, this feels like a minor drawback for a document scanner, and we think just about everyone will be more than pleased with this model's scan quality.
The Fi-7160 handeled pretty much any scan job with ease.
Speed
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 was one of the fastest models we tested, earning it a score of 8 out of 10 in this metric.
It tore through our 10-page duplex testing document in 29 seconds, resulting in a speed measurement of 21 pages per minute. This, along with its huge 80-page document feeder, allows it to dispatch an 80-page document in just over 4 minutes. The Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap was noticeably faster in our testing, logging an astounding speed of 46 pages per minute. However, its document feeder capacity maxes out at 50 pages, so the Fujitsu Fi-7160 is still better for very long documents.
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 has an 80-page automatic document feeder, the largest capacity of all the models in this review.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Software
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 was about average in our software testing, earning a score of 6 out of 10.
The Fujitsu Fi-7160's included software package works well, but it has a bit of a learning curve compared to other models. First off, it is not compatible with Mac operating systems, so Mac users are mostly out of luck. There are 3rd party Mac drivers available online, but we found that most of them were quite clunky. All the various settings you need to make sure your long document gets scanned the way you want are available, but the interface is a bit short of intuitive. You'll probably find yourself checking the manual or doing a google search the first time you do something. The optical character recognition also works fairly well, well enough to find a document by searching for a keyword at least. However, turning it on requires searching through a bunch of arcane menus before you find it.
In comparison, the ScanSnap software that is sold with the Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap was much more user friendly, and is Mac compatible. If you're not the most tech savvy we would suggest learning to live with the slightly smaller automatic document feeder and opting for the Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap.
User Friendliness
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 earned a fairly high score of 7 out of 10 in our user friendliness testing.
In short, the Fujitsu Fi-7160 is hard to set up, but once you get it going (and get over the software learning hump we described above) it is fairly easy to use. Setup was arduous and ended up taking us 50 minutes. Which was triple the average time. Once that was over the interface is clear and easy to use with a digital readout on the unit itself that lets you know what settings are selected. The automatic document feeder and paper tray keep everything neat, and we never had any issues with jamming. If you want something that skips the frustrating setup, the Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap is still your best bet, It only took us 15 minutes to get that model up and running.
Most models have very simple and clear interfaces, like the Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheetfed pictured here.
Credit: Jenna Ammerman
Value
Whether or not you consider the Fujitsu Fi-7160a good value depends on how much you value your time. It is outrageously expensive, but if your days are filled with large scanning jobs its 80-page document feeder makes more of that job automated, leaving you to tend to other tasks. However, the Fujitsu iX500 ScanSnap still has a 50-page document feeder, and costs nearly a third the price. So you are paying a lot more for a little bit of time saved.
Conclusion
The Fujitsu Fi-7160 has a big, 80-page document feeder, making it great for those that have to scan a lot. However, it is also very expensive, and there are other much cheaper models that also have decent sized document feeders.
— Max Mutter and Steven Tata