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Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i Review

A good deal for scanning lots of short documents, but isn't great for long documents
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Price:   $295 List | $245 at Amazon
Pros:  High quality scans, easy to use software
Cons:  Relatively slow, 10-page document feeder feels limiting
Manufacturer:   Fujitsu
By Max Mutter and Steven Tata  ⋅  Oct 31, 2017
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66
OVERALL
SCORE

RANKED
#4 of 9
  • Scanning Performance - 35% 8
  • Speed - 30% 5
  • Software - 20% 7
  • User Friendliness - 15% 6

Our Verdict

Representing Fujitsu's budget option, the ScanSnap S1300i offers all of the scan quality you'd expect from a Fujitsu in a package that is somewhat portable, but lacks some of the perks of other high end models. Namely, it only has a 10-page document feeder. This makes it quite tedious to scan longer documents. The Epson WorkForce ES-400 produces equally high quality scans and has a 50-page automatic document feeder. Unless you know for sure that you won't be scanning any longer documents, we feel the Epson is a much better choice in this price range for most users.


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Our Analysis and Test Results

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i is a good all-around performer but its relatively small automatic document feeder feels like a big drawback for a scanner of this caliber.


Performance Comparison


After all of our testing was completed the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i ended up with a somewhat average overall score, as you can see in the table above. In the following sections we parcel out how it performed in all of the different tests we used to calculate those overall scores.

Scanning Performance


The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i was top notch in our scan quality testing, sharing the top score of 8 out of 10 in this metric. Both printed and handwritten text came out looking nearly as good as the originals, and it even was able to reproduce full color documents with a high level of accuracy. Like many of the models we tested, it did create some smudges when scanning receipts, but those scans still came out perfectly legible. It also handled full color scans quite well, with just minor alteration in the shade of the original documents. Overall this performance was very similar to that of the Epson WorkForce ES-400.

The S1300i lived up to Fujitsu's reputation of creating high quality scans of printed and handwritten text.
The S1300i lived up to Fujitsu's reputation of creating high quality scans of printed and handwritten text.

Speed


Speed is one area where the Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i was relatively lacking, earning a 5 out of 10 in this metric. It got through our 10-page double-sided test document in 45 seconds, leading to an average speed of 13 pages per minute. The Fujitsu also only has a 10-page document feeder, meaning for long documents you're going to have to reload the document feeder at least once a minute. For comparison the Epson WorkForce ES-400 is only slightly faster scanning at 14 pages per minute, but it has a 50-page document feeder, so scanning longer documents is more automated and requires fewer reloadings of the document feeder.

The S1300i is relatively slow when compared to other high end models.
The S1300i is relatively slow when compared to other high end models.

Software


The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i comes with the ScanSnap software, which was one of our favorite software bundles. This earned the S1300i a score of 7 out of 10 in this metric. This software makes choosing settings, creating PDFs, and managing the resulting files very easy and intuitive. The only reason it didn't earn a top score was because of its optical character recognition. In our testing the software was able to accurately identify most words, but it did miss a few words here and there. It was accurate enough that you could definitely find a document on your computer by searching for a keyword contained within it, but it may not give you an accurate count of the number of keywords within a document. The Epson WorkForce ES-400 was just the opposite. Its software interface has a slight learning curve, but the optical character recognition is nearly flawless.

Color scans looked slightly faded in our testing but otherwise quite good.
Color scans looked slightly faded in our testing, but otherwise quite good.

User Friendliness


The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i earned an average 6 out of 10 in our user friendliness testing. It was easy to set up, we had it scanning within 15 minutes of opening the box, and its software is compatible with both Mac and PC. The interface is also simple and easy to use. We docked it a few points because it doesn't have a paper output tray. When trying to scan longer documents it was surprising how annoying it was to not have a tidy paper tray where all the scanned pages were deposited. For that reason we preferred the Epson WorkForce ES-400 when it came to ease of use.

Value


The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i lists for $295, which feels like a fair price given its performance relative to other models. If you need a high end scanner to use for lots of shorter documents, its a fairly good value. However, if you scan lots of documents that are longer than 10 pages, it would be worth spending a bit more on the much larger document feeder of the Epson WorkForce ES-400.

Conclusion


The Fujitsu ScanSnap S1300i is a good all-around scanner, but its small 10-page document feeder makes it a poor choice if you scan lots of longer documents.


— Max Mutter and Steven Tata