Suggest a scanner?

[TophatFire]

tl;dr version: want scanner I can feed a multi-page, multi-sided document into and hit a fire-and-forget button and have it go automagically straight to Evernote, seems like someone has probably figured this out before me in 2018

 

Looking for a scanner for a paperless home.  Have some notes (about ~800-1000 pages, afraid to count) from grad school and a bunch of paper files (about another 300-ish pages) that I want to digitize for archiving, after that just basic home use: personal documents and correspondence, receipts etc.  Phone apps requiring manual shooting each page and cheap all-in-one printers aren't going to get the job done in reasonable time.  Even looked into renting one, but at $150 for the cheapest 1-week rental I figure I might as well buy something.

 

>Budget

$100 to about ~$400 max.  Less is better, but willing to pay for a quality long-term solution that gets this clutter out of my life

 

>Requirements

WiFi

Automatic document feed with duplexing (auto double-sided)

Scan direct to cloud services (Evernote) without a PC, phone, etc. intermediary having to be turned on.  Via email is good enough as long as it's not slaved to a PC.

Reliable scanning of pencil notes without manually setting contrast, exposure etc.

 

>Would be nice, but not necessary

Automatic OCR, but can leave that to Evernote or perform manually when needed

Ethernet just in case

 

>Previous devices

Epson XP-434 all-in-one that did a handy one-touch standalone scan to cloud to Evernote, but only one single-sided page at a time

HP 4652 all-in-one that's slow, requires a PC and too much manual interaction and babysitting for the initial high volume

 

>Models Already Under consideration

Fujitsu Scansnap ix500: nice, but EXPENSIVE for my needs @ $400+ (yikes!) and still requires link to PC

Epson Workforce ES-500W, $329 and still requires PC

 

No real preference between a standalone scanner and all-in-one printer as long as the all-in-one is up to the task

 

 

 

 

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I have the ix500 and, once I got it set up and running (which wasn't as seamless as they claim), it has been working great for me the last few years. It was well worth the money.

[TophatFire]

2 minutes ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

I have the ix500 and, once I got it set up and running (which wasn't as seamless as they claim), it has been working great for me the last few years. It was well worth the money.

Thanks, the Scansnap's reputation is what's keeping it under consideration.  But having to have a PC turned to catch the scanned data and having to interact with each document seems like a depressingly klunky solution in 2018.  The cheap old Epson 434 AiO it would be replacing had a 'scan to cloud'  function from its touchscreen that was reliably, likably brainless and only required a single button press and WiFi to work.  However, the 1-page, single sided nature made it great for receipts etc. but unsuitable for longer documents.  I have way too much stuff to scan to do each one manually and want something that will handle this for me without babysitting.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

While I don't scan to cloud, having the PC on to scan is not a problem for me since I normally have the PC running 24/7 anyway.

[TophatFire]

22 hours ago, Lady Fitzgerald said:

While I don't scan to cloud, having the PC on to scan is not a problem for me since I normally have the PC running 24/7 anyway.

I let my home PC sleep when inactive, and since that meets 99% of my other needs already I'd be reluctant to make my power bill take a hit for something that should be trivial for wear & tear and for eco-mindedness if nothing else.  Hell, a scanner in standy is way more efficient than running even a 200-watt PC 24/7.  I'm starting to feel like this might be a ready-made kickstarter project...  

 

And if you haven't looked at Evernote I highly suggest it too.  I've been using it since 2010 and been a paid subscriber for 3 years now, and it's worth every penny.  It's *despicably* handy being able to securely search notes, receipts etc. from any internet-connected device I like and let someone else worry about backups and such, which is why I'm so eager to migrate all this damn paper over to it.  Even the free plan is pretty capable and allows up to 60 MB/mo upload.

 

Referral link: (removed)

 

Non-referral link for those who prefer: https://evernote.com

[TophatFire]

So I bit the bullet and bought a new-ish Fujitsu Scansnap ix500 Evernote Edition from eBay.  Then tonight I saw this about Evernote: https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/04/evernote-premium-membership-death-spiral/

 

So now my whole plan is on its way out the window and I'm looking for alternatives, and may have just bought a $300+ doorstop.    RIP Evernote, it was a great run.

 

(Referral link removed above since I'm no longer comfortable recommending Evernote)

[Lady Fitzgerald]

4 hours ago, TophatFire said:

So I bit the bullet and bought a new-ish Fujitsu Scansnap ix500 Evernote Edition from eBay.  Then tonight I saw this about Evernote: https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/04/evernote-premium-membership-death-spiral/

 

So now my whole plan is on its way out the window and I'm looking for alternatives, and may have just bought a $300+ doorstop.    RIP Evernote, it was a great run.

 

(Referral link removed above since I'm no longer comfortable recommending Evernote)

Here we have an example of one reason why I do not depend on cloud storage for anything. Websites and services are emphemeral; they come and go.

 

The safest place for your data is on your computer, on an onsite backup, and on an offsite backup.