Hands on with the Fujitsu iX100 wireless portable scanner

The paperless office? Remember the brave vision of the future predicted more than a decade ago? Well, it’s 2014 and there’s still bits of paper to be filed – but these could easily be transformed in to eco-friendly PDFs, even on the move, thanks to portable cleverness of the ScanSnap iX100 from Fujitsu.

Last week I was given a show-and-tell presentation of the ScanSnap iX100 up on the 34th floor of London’s latest iconic piece of architecture, The Shard.

After wandering the extensive halls of IFA a few weeks ago and collecting a small forest of business cards, booklets and leaflets, it underlined to me the need for such a device that could easily convert the salient bits of folding info in to digital format where a photograph just wouldn’t cut it.

Not only would I not be weighed down by loads of literature, but it might convince more people not to make so much paper-based documentation which, after its brief moment of glory, is simply thrown in to the recycling bin.

Thankfully, Fujitsu and its award-winning ScanSnap line have been making strides in the paperless movement for years now and aim to make a further point with the help of their brand-new ScanSnap iX100.

Key Features of the iX100

• Compact Portable Lightweight at 14.1 oz.
• Battery operated via Integrated Lithium Battery
• Scan Anywhere via 2 Wireless Scanning Modes
  • Simple Home/Office WiFi Setup with WPS configuration
  • Direct Connect Access mode when WiFi access not available
• Fast 5.2 Seconds Per A4 Page
• Scan to Mac, PC, iOS, Android or Kindle Fire
• Dual Scan Mode
• Automatic Image Stitching
• Custom GI Processor

First impressions

I was impressed by how little it weighed and the fact that Fujitsu have not only managed to squeeze all the tech of an A4 scanner in to something just wider than the aforementioned paper (it measures about 5cm deep and 4cm high) but have also made it wireless.

Yup, the iX100 runs on a USB rechargeable battery and can squirt your scans over the air to your laptop, smartphone or tablet which also means that you and the rest of your party can share the scanner without having to keep passing the USB around.

It’s worth pointing out that while the iX100 will pretty much scan anything you feed into it, it’s not designed for photographs if you’re intentions are to publish them later at any decent level of quality. We were told, however, that people have used it to scan leaves (using a transparent pouch) out in the field whilst conducting a botanical survey, and that the iX100 could scan embossed cards up to a certain point.

This 300dpi scanner is more than capable to hand you accurate, crisp and clearly readable scans of colour documents, such as brochures and fancy business cards.

I was amazed that this little thing was able to take on paperwork of all sizes, from business cards (it can scan two-at-a-time using Dual Scan and separate them using software in to two individual files)and credit card receipts, to A4 pages. You can even fold A3 pages in two and the software will automatically detect that you’ve scanned two halves of a page and stitch them back together for you.

So, yes, this portable scanner can even scan A3!

Other handy tricks include that it can auto-straighten, and even flip documents that you’ve fed in to the iX100 after one too many business reception drinks.

I look forward to giving you a full review soon.

Fujitsu are currently running a competition for the most extreme scanning you can achieve with the iX100 in order to win a “top end tablet”.