Best scanner/laser printer?

[Deborah M.]

I have an all-in-one color printer that I used for scanning, but it's not very fast and can't take a lot of pages.  I want a good, fast scanner/printer, either color or black-and-white, prefer laser but a good inkjet could work if it's high quality.  And I'd love it to do auto duplexing.  All the reviews I read talk about the printer part of it but not the scanner.  Right now I print my roughs and finals on a small HP LaserJet 1020.  My main thing is a good scanner/printer.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Scansnap scanner (not a printer) is the greatest thing ever.  Everything scans and OCRs to PDF and it's easy to "scan to picture folder" to create a jpeg.   I'll be buying a new printer in 2014.  So far the choice is HP LaserJet Pro M401dne.  

[Janiece Young]

Yes, that's what I meant, Marge.  I see I typed "printer."  I meant "scanner."  Where should I buy it?  Any suggestions?

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

I bought it at Amazon.   Here'a link to the one I bought in May 2012 for $414.  Today it's an older model and costs $609.  But you'll see there to the updated model which you should buy, the ix500 model, for $410 with great reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-Instant-Sheet-Fed-Scanner/dp...

I scan all exhibits and put them on dropbox.  I haven't gotten much love from agencies for doing this meaning no one is falling all over themselves plotzing with gratitude that I'm doing this but no matter.  It's more for myself and I'd think that agencies appreciate it.  There's nothing better than doing a copy/paste/edit when they're reading large portions from an exhibit.  I say edit because the OCR doesn't always get it right so that must be carefully looked at.

[Janiece Young]

Thanks, Marge, you are a doll.

Janiece

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Happy to share, Janiece!

[Janiece Young]

So excited.  I just ordered my very own Fujitsu Scansnap!!!  Can't wait to get it.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

You will love it.  I scan greeting cards, letters, things that I'll never look at in a storage box so maybe I'll look at it on the computer and so I can recycle and purge.  If in doubt, scan!!  And now it's even more important to have your backups done religiously and fanatically.  Can't be losing stuff.  I have 3 external hard drives plus Carbonite. Each night I back up to a different drive using Second Copy and every night at 3 a.m. Carbonite is set to do its thing.   Second Copy is great.  I create the profiles, turn on a drive, SC recognizes it and asks if I want to back up all the profiles to D drive, which is the letter that an external drive is assigned when it's turned on.    I step away from the computer or go on internet and let it do its thing.  

I scan business cards, name them completely and put in a folder and recycle the card. Can't be having piles of paper in the house!  I'm not paperless necessarily but have a lot less than I used to.

You're going to love it, Janiece!

[Janiece Young]

Marge, 

I am going to get a Cloud back-up system.  I was considering Carbonite and I also am checking into iDrive.  I would love to hear your input.

Yes, I am so excited about the scanner.  It's going to be so nice when I cover jobs for out-of-town firms and I need the exhibits, no need to wait for them to scan them back to me.  I can scan them so my scopists have the exhibits right away.  I can't wait for it to get here.  I have been using a flat-bed scanner which does the trick for a small amount of exhibits, but this is going to be so much better when I have a massive amount.  Yea!!!!

 

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Janiece, you will never use the flatbed scanner again.  Whether 1 page or 200 pages, ScanSnap is the way to go.  I still have my flatbed connected in case I want to scan an object, but all it is now is a 2-inch-higher top of a bookcase where I put things.   Scanning a picture, for instance, don't bother with the flatbed.  ScanSnap scans to a PDF and then you easily move that PDF into a folder in My Pictures and it knows to convert it to jpeg.  

Yes, a cloud backup in addition to external hard drives, gotta have it.  But for me it's a last-ditch backup.  When I get a new computer, it's 100 percent using an external drive files to copy files onto a new machine.  And when I have an oddity going on, I turn on an external drive to check things out.  But I like knowing that Carbonite is there.  I bought a 5-year plan for $200.  When it expires in August 2015, I'll check prices.  

idrive is running a special:  300 GB for $24.75 for the first year, $49.50 after that.  My Carbonite backup has 187 GB, so I could probably do a 300 GB deal rather than the unlimited Carbonite.  So we'll see when the time comes pricing- and review-wise.  At $40/year for unlimited backup with Carbonite, I've been very pleased. Haven't used any of my online backup but I presume it's fine.

[Janiece Young]

Thank you, Marge.  As always, great information.  :-)

[Deborah M.]

I've been using iDrive for a while.  I like it.

[Janiece Young]

Thanks, Deborah.