Stefan Mileschin

Fujitsu's been making scanners for years now, and it's even figured how to bypass the PC altogether so that you can send files straight to an iOS or Android device. The last time it released a phone-friendly scanner, though, it was more of a portable device, one that was only capable of scanning so many pages per minute. Now, the company's coming out with the ScanSnap iX500, a very similar product except for the fact that it's meant to live on your desk, and has enough power to scan documents twice as quickly. Thanks largely to a new feeder system, it can scan up to 25 double-sided pages per minute, compared with 20 ppm on Fujitsu's last desktop model.

It also packs a new processor that will help the scanner auto-rotate images and make other corrections more quickly. Additionally, Fujitsu claims this does a faster job at making PDFs searchable, adding all the appropriate metadata your computer would need to find the file. Finally, the main Quick Menu is now customizable so that you can pick and choose which apps receive scanned files. For instance, Photoshop isn't an option by default, but you can make it one through a short setup process. The scanner is available today and priced at $495: expensive, yes, but about what you would've had to pay for the last-gen model too.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/f...cansnap-ix500/