Epson America DS870 Document Scanner

I am not the primary user at the office but this unit has been fantastic and incredibly quick. (Not really a fair comparison but Epson plus fast PC totally smoked the former Fujitsu SnapScan plus old Dell gear.) Enough setting options for our use. Image quality has been good. I would say totally worth the cost, and I would buy this again.

Good luck getting any customer service from Epson if you purchase from this seller. This scanner is not a US based product. It came with a non functioning power cord. I purchased 2 scanners and it worked perfectly fine using the power cord from the other scanner. Epson is giving me the run around with just sending me a new power cord because it was not a US based product regardless if it has the Epson name on it. Corporate called me back and told me they will not provide support or replacement parts for the scanner. DO NOT BUY FROM THIS SELLER.

Fast machine

I have a home office that has been fully digitized. I scan everything, and keep almost no paper documents. Over the years I have scanned more than 6000 documents, and they are stored as searchable PDF files on my MacBook Pro. I used to have 3 filing cabinets full of papers. Now I have just a handful of paper originals that fit into 1/3 of a cabinet. If you haven't started scanning your documents yet, then you should start now. It'll completely change the way you manage documents.In this review I'll be comparing all of the scanners that I have used:• Fujitsu iX500• Epson DS-870• Raven Scanner ProFujitsu ScanSnap iX500I started with the ScanSnap iX500 several years ago. It was a great scanner back when I first purchased it. It was fast, accurate, and quiet. Unfortunately the iX500 software has become less reliable over time. Each time there was a new Mac OS update, I had to download the latest iX500 drivers, reinstall them, and fix compatibility problems. Then last Spring (2019), the iX500 required completely new software called ScanSnap Home. I didn't like the new user interface, and it had some annoying bugs, but I managed to tolerate it for a few months.Finally, Mac OS Catalina came out, and the iX500 took a turn for the worse. Once again I had to install new iX500 software. Unfortunately there was a significant bug this time: The drivers caused one of the CPU cores on my Mac to run at 100% all the time. This would happen whether the ScanSnap application was running or not. My computer was slower because of this, and the fans would run full-time to keep things cool. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers a couple of times, but that didn't help. In short, if you are running Mac OS Catalina, then stay away from the iX500.Epson DS-870Next I tried the Epson DS-870. It had some good reviews online, and it seemed quite promising. However, after using it for a couple of days, I can't recommend it for Mac users. The biggest problem is that you can't scan documents using the front control panel on the scanner. Each time that I used the front panel to scan documents, it would scan all of the pages, and then freeze. The only way to fix the problem was to reboot the scanner. I imagine this feature must have worked at some point, but it never worked for me. Perhaps it wasn't compatible with Mac OS Catalina? I'm not sure. I installed the latest Epson drivers that claimed to be Catalina compatible, but that didn't help.My workaround was to scan using the Epson Document Capture app on my Mac. That worked fairly reliably. However, there were a few times when the scanning software displayed communication errors. I was never able to debug what caused that, but it seemed to happen when I launched the software first, then turned on the scanner, and a tried to initiate a scan.Anyway, I found that I could get it working if I did everything in just the right order, and avoided using the front panel on the scanner. This all seemed too finicky, and I didn't have any confidence that the scanner would keep working with future Mac OS updates. I'll be returning this scanner soon.Raven Scanner ProFinally, I decided to try the Raven Scanner Pro. If you haven't researched this scanner yet, then go take a look. It's a completely new concept, and I freakin love it! This scanner has totally changed the way I do scanning. Best of all, it's 100% compatible with Mac OS Catalina. Why? Because you don't have to install any software.This scanner sends documents directly to the cloud. You don't even need a computer to use it.Most old-school scanners like the ScanSnap iX500 or Epson DS-870 are controlled by your computer. Naturally this requires drivers and scanning software, and that's where all of the compatibility problems come from. Well, the Raven Scanner Pro avoids those issues by scanning directly to the cloud. You can scan to Raven Cloud, DropBox, Evernote, Box, e-mail, Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, or a USB stick.At first I thought this would be a problem for me, because I don't like storing too many documents in the cloud. It's too much of a security risk. After all, what will happen if somebody hacks into my DropBox account, and gains access to everything that I scanned during the last few years. That sounds frightening.Well, here is what I do instead. I scan directly from the Raven Scanner to DropBox, the files magically appear on my Mac a few moments later. Then I rename the files, and drag them into folders on my Mac. They only exist in the cloud temporarily. In other words, I'm just using the cloud as a conduit for getting files from the scanner to my Mac.This scanner completely changed my workflow too. Previously I would do this with my old-school scanners:1) Turn on my Mac.2) Launch the scanner app.3) Turn on the scanner.4) Drop a document into the scanner, and scan it.5) Wait for image analysis and OCR to finish.6) Save the document.7) Turn off the scanner.8) Turn off the Mac.My new workflow with the Raven is so much simpler:1) Turn on the scanner.2) Drop a document into the scanner, and scan it. Walk away, I'm done.Then later in the week, after scanning documents over multiple days, I finally turn on my Mac, rename and move the files around, and I'm done. I basically use DropBox as an in-box of scanned documents, and I wait until a few of them have accumulated before I organize them.All that being said, the Raven Scanner Pro isn't perfect. Here are a few issue:• It takes up a little more desk space than the ScanSnap iX500 and Epson DS-870.• The scanning quality is good, but not quite as good as the Epson.• It can't scan receipts that are longer than 15".• It has a bright flashing blue light when it's asleep.• DropBox uploads are pretty slow.• When uploading to Raven Cloud, your web browser doesn't refresh automatically to show the new file.• Scanning at 400 DPI or higher is quite slow.• It makes some fan noise. It's not crazy loud or anything, but it's not silent like my other scanners were.Fortunately I found some solutions:• If you have receipts longer than 15", just cut them in half before scanning.• There is a product on Amazon called "LightDims". Use it to dim the flashing blue light, and that problem will be solved.• You don't have to wait for DropBox uploads to finish. Just keep scanning other documents, and it'll upload in the background.• Scanning at 400 DPI or higher doesn't seem necessary. 300 DPI looks great, and it's very fast.• Set the scanner to sleep after a few minutes. That will shut off the fan. Or you can put the scanner to sleep by pressing the button.I also had good experience with their tech support. I sent them some questions online, and received helpful answers within 20 minutes.I also get the impression that their software is being actively improved. When I first purchased the scanner it only had options for 200, 400, or 600 DPI. That was a problem initially, because I wanted at least 300 DPI. The 200 DPI setting was too low-res, and 400 DPI was too slow. Well, now they offer 300 DPI and it's really fast. Based on my experience so far, I bet we'll see additional improvements at a decent rate.Anyway, in case you can't tell, I really love the Raven Scanner Pro. I'll never go back to old-school scanners that require drivers on my Mac. I would give the Raven scanner a star rating of 4.2, but I'll round that up to a 5.And if you're running a Mac with Catalina, stay away from the ScanSnap iX500 or Epson DS-870.

By all the specs and reviews this looked like it would be a great machine to replace my 12-year-old Fujitsu scanner. Regrettably, after receiving a new machine and trying to get it to work with my computer, and then spending 1.5 hours on the phone with Epson tech support (which was good), we could not get this scanner to communicate or work properly with my newer Dell desktop Windows 10 machine. Seems Epson has some pretty buggy software for this machine. I was also not impressed by the quality of the machine itself, which definitely does not look or feel like it's worth twice as much as a new Fujitsu ix500. Had to return the machine after wasting a lot of time.

The scanner I received wouldn't power on at all. I contacted Epson directly for support and after further investigation they found this is not a US model and they could not help me. They told me to call Japan. Sending back!! Ridiculous and false advertising to claim this is America made!!

$800 and the printer was dead in the box. Cable was bad, they sent a replacement after many emails. Then the scanner started jamming chronically even after many cleanings. This is a light duty scanner not worth the price by far.

Power supply was rated for 200-220v input.unless you use this on a plug that's got that output, it won't work. due to that feature, I was unable to use.