Fujitsu fi-7160 Color Duplex Document Scanner - Workgroup Series

The Fujitsu fi-7160 scanner is an excellent model; however, I didn't give it 5 stars because when I tried to register it directly with Fujitsu, I found out the serial number indicated it was grey market, which apparently is legal, but if it breaks within the warranty period, Fujitsu US is not obligated to repair or replace it. It's my understanding that grey market items need to be be sent to the home country of import for repairs, which would be a major hassle for most expensive and/or large purchases. I did not see anywhere in the Amazon site blurb that this item was grey market. Something like that should be indicated very boldly! My advice is always inquire from Amazon and their vendors, if the item is grey market (especially expensive purchases), since that information is not voluntarilystated, unless it's buried somewhere deep in extra fine print :)

I would give this scanner five stars, if were not for the following: Others have commented that this is a "grey market" product and here is why that is important. First of all, I love the hardware. I did not love the Paper Stream software that came with it. I found it complicated and confusing. I ended up downloading ScanSnap Manager for fi Series which is drop dead simple to install and configure. But here is the problem - after a few days the scanner could no longer find the software. It kept wanting to take me to the Windows scanning software, or my MFP software, or my PDF software. I worked with my IT guy to get it working, but then a couple of days later I again lost the connection. My IT guy burned up a couple of hours but couldn't solve the problem. I then called Fujitsu Technical Support (800) 626-4686 and gave her the serial number and learned that this is not a U.S. Serial Number and the scanner should not be sold in the U.S. (North America? not sure). Which means if I run into a hardware issue, any warranty will likely not be honored. On the other hand, it took the person I spoke with less than 10 minutes to log on to my computer and make some changes and now I am up and running again. She gave me a case number and assured me if I run into this software problem again, just call, give them the case number, no charge. The issue is if the scanner breaks. Bottom line: five stars for the product, one star for deceptive marketing.

This is a solid scanner for volume single-desk use. I recommend it for legal use with a Mac. You do have to eat the cost of driver software. A high-volume court in my locality that is paperless filing-only (Fulton County Superior Court) uses this very scanner, the f1-7160, for lawyers and lay persons coming into the court clerk's office and needing to file documents in person. All federal and bankruptcy courts are e-filing-only, and most state courts here in Georgia have moved to e-filing, most of them exclusively. The days of running to court to beat the statute (or the filing deadline, and the parking and mileage...) are over. I am a tech idiot (or not far off), but I had enough sense to photograph the court's scanner and buy one for my own office. I am running macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 but followed good advice to download ExactScan Pro for $79.99 from the App Store. Amazon does not sell this software. The software found the scanner and within about three minutes I was in business. You can scan by mouse-clicking on the screen or by using the rubber button on the scanner itself. The cost at about $850.00, plus software for a Mac, is no joke. I expect to make it up in productivity.

I install these absolutely anywhere I'm able to get clients to spend the money. They're fast, they produce very high quality scans, and the software and drivers that come with them are very nice. You can use the paperstream drivers to create multiple scan profiles and set users up to be able to take a single document and scan in multiple pages of all different sizes and the software will skip blank pages and automatically detect the correct size of each sheet of paper in a single scan. I usually get users setup to do all this with just the touch of their scan button on the front of the scanner. I've been told a thousand times by office users how much easier this makes their lives compared to the various solutions they were using before.

CAUTION: The one I bought from PandaDragon in Dec 2019 had a European Part Number. Fujitsu US chat told me: "The scanner was sold by Fujitsu Europe Division. This means that this scanner is suppose to be sold in Europe like Britain. When this scanner is sold, all the profit will go to the Fujitsu Europe Division instead of Fujitsu US Division. This also means that any warranty repair that needs to be made is suppose to be done by Fujitsu Europe Division since they got paid. If a US customer got this scanner when buying from the US, looks like the reseller made an error and sold the wrong unit. Amazon has done that before and item can be exchange by them." European Part Number: PA03670-B051; US Part Number: PA03670-B055. You can search this part number on Amazon site before you buy.

I expect a bit more from a $900 (Fujitsu) scanner than a $500 (Epson FF-680W) scanner. I got both. I first noticed that Fujitsu scans were a bit out of focus, similar to a camera lens producing an out of focus image, the scanner produced an out of focus scan. I used VueScan software to eliminate differences between the scanning software and yes, I see that Fujitsu produced consistently out of focus images, while Epson produced pretty sharp images. I was disappointed. Maybe Fujitsu can be calibrated, but I have found no information on doing so. I think Fujitsu is going back, and Epson stays, unless I can make Fujitsu perform at least just as well as Epson.