Fujitsu Fi-7160 Sheetfed Review

The Fujitsu Fi-7160 excels when you need to regularly scan lots of very long documents, with its huge 80-page capacity. As a result, it 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 may not be worth the high price.

Performance Comparison

Credit: Jenna Ammerman

Scanning Performance

The Fujitsu Fi-7160 was just behind the top scorers in our scanning performance testing. However, it 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.

The Fi-7160 even handled receipt ink, which can be problematic for scanners very well. The scanned receipts occasionally came out a little blotchy but never illegible. It only missed out on a top score because it didn't produce true-to-color scans when scanning color documents. Color scans always appeared to be 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.

The Fujitsu Fi-7160 tore through our 10-page duplex testing document in 29 seconds, resulting in a speed measurement of 21 pages per minute. Speed, along with its huge 80-page document feeder, allows it to process an 80-page document in just over four minutes. The Fujitsu iX1600 ScanSnap was noticeably faster in our testing, logging an astounding speed of 67 pages per minute. However, its document feeder capacity maxes out at 50 pages, so the 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. Its 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 iX1600 ScanSnap was much more user-friendly and is Mac compatible. So 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 iX1600 instead.

User Friendliness

The Fujitsu Fi-7160 earned a fairly high score 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.

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-7160 a good value depends on how much you value your time. It is at the higher end of the price range of tested models, 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 iX1600 ScanSnap still has a 50-page document feeder and costs nearly a third of the price. So you are paying a lot more for a little bit of time saved.

Conclusion