This year we've reviewed more combination sheetfed/flatbed scanners than we had in the three or four years prior, with models ranging from relatively slow entry-level devices to high-volume enterprise products and everything in between. That's where today's Fujitsu Image Scanner fi-8250 ($1,755) resides—in between. A $440-cheaper sibling to the Fujitsu fi-8270 reviewed here a few weeks ago, the fi-8250 is a direct competitor to our current Editors' Choice winner the Raven Pro Max, as well as the HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow N6600 fnw1. It's an excellent midrange machine ideal for small offices and workgroups, front desks, and document management applications. The only thing keeping it from becoming our favorite medium-volume sheetfed/flatbed combo scanner is its comparatively high price.
A Feature-Rich Hybrid Scanner
Like the fi-8270, the Image Scanner fi-8250 is made up of a slightly reconfigured sheetfed document scanner combined with a flatbed attachment. It's the humblest of three new Fujitsu scanners introduced this year, with the fi-8270 and fi-8290 offering similar features with higher speed and volume ratings, not to mention prices.
Whether in service or not, the fi-8250 measures 9.2 by 11.8 by 22.7 inches (HWD) and weighs just over 19 pounds. That's the same as the fi-8270, slightly smaller and lighter than the Raven Pro Max, and significantly bigger and heavier than the HP N6600 and ScanJet Pro 3600 f1 (another PCMag favorite). Compared to standard sheetfed desktop scanners such as the Fujitsu fi-8170 with fold-up paper trays, combination sheetfed/flatbed combos take up considerably more desk space.
The fi-8250's control panel lacks the color LCD that lets fi-8270 users set up and configure scans from the device, or select from pre-configured workflow profiles. Instead, there's only a monochrome digital display for scrolling through numbers corresponding to profiles created and maintained in Fujitsu's provided interface software, which we'll discuss in more detail below.
Similar Products
As it's primarily a small-office scanner, you'll most likely access the fi-8250 over a network, though many tasks (such as setting up and running basic scans, or selecting workflow profiles) can be performed from the control panel. As a rule, however, multipage scan jobs are usually executed from the automatic document feeder (ADF) over a network, while most flatbed scans—photos, book or magazine pages, fragile documents, and the like—are handled from the control panel.
Whether single- or double-sided, multipage documents are handled by a 100-page ADF, the standard for document scanners this size. This Fujitsu's recommended daily duty cycle is 8,000 scans, exceeded among the machines mentioned here only by its fi-8270 and fi-8290 relatives at 10,000 and 13,000 scans respectively. As I've noted before, reaching such a daily limit with a 100-page ADF takes some real devotion to the task. In this case, you'll have to load the feeder at least 80 times a day.
The HP N6600's duty cycle matches the fi-8250's at 8,000 scans a day, while the Raven Pro Max's max is 6,000 scans. The ScanJet Pro 3600 is a cheaper entry-level device with a 60-page ADF and a 3,000-scan daily limit.
Connecting to and Using the fi-8250
Fujitsu makes great hardware, but much of its scanners' appeal also comes from the company’s powerful and easy-to-use software. Before using it, you must connect to the scanner with either Gigabit Ethernet or a USB (2.0 through 3.2) cable.
Ethernet, of course, allows any device on your wired network to access the scanner; USB is a direct connection between the scanner and a single PC. Since this Fujitsu has no wireless connectivity, handheld mobile device support is extremely limited. The HP Enterprise Flow and the Raven Pro Max support Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct as well as USB and Ethernet.
Most of your scanning will likely be performed via Fujitsu's PaperStream software, a collection of apps and utilities that includes PaperStream IP Driver (TWAIN x32/x64/ISIS), WIA Driver, PaperStream Capture, PaperStream ClickScan, drivers for macOS and Linux, Software Operation Panel, Error Recovery Guide, ABBYY FineReader optical character recognition (OCR) for ScanSnap, and Scanner Central Admin. If you need enterprise document management or fleet administration, you can upgrade to PaperStream Capture Pro and PaperStream NX Manager.
The TWAIN and ISIS drivers mentioned above connect the fi-8250 to the numerous third-party programs (including most Adobe, Google, and Microsoft Office apps) that support scanning into them directly. My experience here and in the past with PaperStream Capture is that it's a straightforward, fairly intuitive front-end scanning utility. Corporate users can upgrade to PaperStream Capture Pro, which Fujitsu says provides "an efficient yet easy way to convert paper documents into digital files for high-level data indexing and extraction." But it comes at a Fortune 500-worthy price of $470 per seat.
Similarly, PaperStream NX Manager is a built-in server solution designed to integrate centralized client-server document management systems.
Testing the fi-8250: Respectable Speeds, Competitive Accuracy
Fujitsu rates the Image Scanner fi-8250 at 50 one-sided (simplex) pages per minute and 100 two-sided (duplex) images per minute (or ipm, where each page side is a separate image). That's the same speed as HP's N6600. Most of the other scanners mentioned here have somewhat higher ratings, such as 60ppm and 120ipm for the Raven Pro Max. The Fujitsu fi-8270 is rated at 70ppm/140ipm and the fi-8290 at 80ppm/160ipm. The HP ScanJet Pro 3600 brings up the rear at 30ppm and 60ipm.
To check its performance, I connected the fi-8250 over a USB 3.2 connection to our Intel Core i5 testbed PC, running Windows 10 Pro and PaperStream ClickScan. First, we clock the scanner and its software as they capture our one-sided 25-page and two-sided 25-page (50 sides) text documents and convert and save them to image PDF files. The Fujitsu processed the one-sided document at 53.3ppm and the two-sided pages at 104.2ppm, slightly above its rated speeds. That's close to the HP N6600's throughput, and roughly 10ppm and 20ipm slower than the Raven Pro Max, and 20ppm and 40ipm behind the fi-8270.
Next, I timed the fi-8250 as it scanned our 25-page two-sided text document and saved it to the much more versatile searchable PDF format. The Fujitsu scanned all 50 sides and converted them to the desired format in 28 seconds, again matching the N6600. Frankly, this is almost as good as it gets. Some machines have shaved a few seconds off that time—the fi-8270 did the job in 25 seconds and the Raven in 24—but not enough to matter much.
Another part of testing a scanner's performance is to assess its OCR accuracy. This part of the job hasn't delivered many surprises in recent years; the Fujitsu fi-8250 joined the fi-8270 in reading text as small as 6 points with no errors in both our serif (Times New Roman) and sans-serif (Arial) font tests. You probably won't encounter many documents with text too small to stump this scanner—or most others, as the other machines mentioned here offer comparable accuracy.
We don't usually run speed tests on flatbed scanners, since they're not designed to capture stacks of multipage documents. But to test the fi-8250's output quality, I put several colorful drawings, business graphics, full-color brochures, and photos of different sizes on the scanner glass to assess the Fujitsu's scanning detail and color accuracy. The flatbed's 1,200dpi resolution is double that of the ADF, as is its 48-bit color depth. Nearly everything came out with impressive detail and brilliant and accurate colors. Not every scan was perfect, but I didn't have to make many rescans or color adjustments. As I said about the fi-8270, I've no complaints about this flatbed's performance.
The Verdict: A Good Value, Especially on Sale
I liked the Fujitsu Image Scanner fi-8250 quite a lot, though at $1,755 it's not a great value compared to the $1,000 Raven Max Pro (our current Editors' Choice sheetfed/flatbed combo). If you can find the Fujitsu for a few hundred dollars off list price, however, it's a good match for nearly every machine with similar specs, and you can't beat Fujitsu for hardware longevity and software quality. The fi-8250 is a terrific scanner with no feature or functionality shortfalls; it just missed being a top pick because of its relative cost.
The Fujitsu fi-8250 is a well-made and capable sheetfed/flatbed combo scanner ideal for front desks, small offices, and workgroups.
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Sign up for other newslettersAbout William Harrel
Former Contributing Editor
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