Scanners aren't just used for scanning photographs. For many people, they're an invaluable tool for reducing the amount of paper they have to file. The ScanSnap fi-5110EOX is designed to fit this purpose and has a designer price to match.

It looks like a small printer and works by feeding documents through its sensor, much like a fax machine. Because of this design, the ScanSnap takes up very little desk space.

The most impressive thing about the ScanSnap is its speed - around 15 A4 sheets per minute can be scanned. Even on higher quality setting, the ScanSnap leaves traditional flatbed scanners for dust. Both sides of the paper can be scanned simultaneously, and the automatic document feeder can hold 50 pages.

The software supplied is also very good. ABBYY FineReader recognises text, tables and images in documents and can import to Word or Excel for editing. It will automatically rotate scanned pages to their correct orientation and leave out any blank pages. The Cardminder software recreates digital versions of business cards, allowing you to search through contacts digitally rather than by hand.

This is not a scanner for the casual user, though. For £468 you could buy a professional flatbed scanner. Also, the ScanSnap is only compatible with its own software and not the TWAIN standard that most image-editing software uses. Furthermore, while the ScanSnap produces excellent reproductions of text-based documents, its photo-scanning quality isn't that great.

The other drawback is that, by default, images are saved in PDF format. This is great for archiving, but not ideal for photos. It's possible to save photos in the JPEG file format and send them directly to your image-editing software. This is explained in the manual, but had us scratching our heads for a while.

The ScanSnap isn't a replacement for a photo-scanner but, for transferring paper to your computer, it is excellent.

Contact: Fujitsu 020 8573 4444
http://fel.fujitsu.com