The HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow 5000 s4 Sheet-Feed Scanner ($799.99) is a relatively fast and capable scanner designed for midsize offices. It's not quite as speedy as our Editors' Choice, the Epson WorkForce DS-860 ($1,225.00 at Amazon) , but it does scan and save to both image and searchable PDF formats at a good clip, not to mention that it lists for nearly $400 less than the Epson model. The ScanJet 5000 also comes with both business card and document management software, which the Epson and several other competitors do not. Given its low price, speed, software bundle, and accuracy, it's a good choice for moderate to heavy-duty scanning in a medium-size office.
Design and Features
Weighing just 8.4 pounds and measuring 7.5 by 12.2 by 7.8 inches (HWD) with its trays closed, the ScanJet 5000 ($282.65 at Amazon) takes up little desk space when not in use. Like many sheet-fed scanners, the top cover opens to become an automatic document feeder (ADF), and the output tray pulls out from the front. Both trays fully extended more than double the machine's depth, but you can save most of that space by letting the ScanJet 5000 dump your originals directly onto the desktop. Like the Epson DS-860, this ScanJet has an 80-sheet ADF and a duty cycle of 6,000 sheets per day.
The ScanJet 5000's control panel consists of a two-line, 16-character-per-line monochrome LCD and five buttons: Simplex, Duplex, Cancel, Power, and Tool. Unlike several competitors (including the Canon imageFormula DR-M160II ($572.99 at Amazon) ) that automatically detect whether a page is one- or two-sided, the ScanJet 5000 requires you to choose one or the other from either the control panel or from within the scanning software. The readout-like display shows the scanner's status, such as whether there's a paper jam, what profile name is in use, and so on. It even notified me when the testbed PC was powered down or not connected.
Setup and Software
As with most document scanners, you connect via a USB cable, though the ScanJet 5000 uses USB 3.0. Most competing models, including the Epson DS-860, the Canon DR-M160II, and the Xerox DocuMate 5445 ( at Amazon) (another Editors' Choice), support only USB 2.0. (Given that the other machines mentioned here are faster than this ScanJet using USB 2.0, even though USB 3.0 is significantly faster, it may be overkill for this or any scanner in its class.) If you want to add wireless connectivity to the ScanJet 5000 (or a few other ScanJet models), you can do it through HP's optional ScanJet Wireless Adapter 100 ($49), which plugs in to a USB 2.0 port on the back of the chassis. The wireless adapter not only allows your Wi-Fi–networked computers to access the ScanJet 5000, but when it's combined with HP's JetAdvantage Capture App, you can also use it to scan to your iOS and Android mobile devices.
Similar Products
The ScanJet's primary scanning application is HP Smart Document Scan Software, from which you set up profiles that define the parameters of your scans, including resolution, file types and where to save them, and where to send scans, such as to e-mail, an FTP site, or another application. There are also two other bundled programs: HP Scanner Tools Utility, which helps you configure scan profiles on the ScanJet 5000's control panel, as well as change power management settings, create profiles for use with non-HP scanning programs, and view information about the scanner's settings, status, and maintenance; and Nuance PaperPort 14, a popular document management program that includes Nuance Cloud Connector for porting your scanned documents to the cloud. Readiris Pro (an optical character recognition, or OCR, program for making scanned text editable) and Cardiris (a business card scanning and contact management program), are both from I.R.I.S. and downloadable via links on the HP Smart Document Scan Software's opening screen.
HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow 5000 s4 Sheet-feed Scanner
Scanning Speed
The ScanJet 5000's rated speed is 50 pages per minute (ppm) for simplex (single-sided) and 100 images per minute (ipm) for duplex (double-sided) scanning. I performed my tests using HP's Smart Document Scan Software on a Core i5 PC running Windows 10. Not counting lag (which includes the time between giving the scan command and the scan starting, and between the last page coming out and the completion of writing the file to disk), the ScanJet 5000 scanned our 25-sheet test document at 51ppm for simplex and 94ipm for duplex—quite close to its rated speeds. By comparison, the Canon DR-M160II scanned at 55ppm and 96ipm, respectively, and the Epson DS-860 at 73ppm and 146ipm.
In scanning the same test document to image PDF with the lag time included, the ScanJet 5000 came in at 43ppm for simplex and 79ppm for duplex. The Epson DS-860 was somewhat faster at both, with times of 54ppm and 91ipm, and the Canon DR-M160II was faster still (55ppm and 96ipm). Saving the same document to the more versatile searchable PDF format took the ScanJet 45 seconds, or only 12.5 seconds more. That's considerably quicker than the Epson DS-860, which needed a full 1 minute, 12 seconds, to complete the same task. (The DR-M160II and some other Canon scanners have almost no discernible lag.)
Mostly, the ScanJet 5000 scanned our test documents without incident, except that it could not handle sheets with frayed edges. Each time I included a page with a worn top edge to the stack of originals, the scanner picked more than one page simultaneously, immediately causing the scan to fail and display an error message on the LCD.
HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow 5000 s4 Sheet-feed Scanner
OCR and Other Tests
The ScanJet 5000's OCR accuracy on our tests was above average, making it more than acceptable for most applications. I got better results with the PDF utility that comes with Nuance PaperPort than I did with HP Smart Document Scan Software, however. With HP's software, both our Arial and Times New Roman test documents converted to editable text with errorless results at font sizes down to 8 points. Nuance's PDF Viewer Plus, though, converted the same Times New Roman text down to 6 points without errors, and Arial down to 4 points with no mistakes. The Canon DR-M160II and the Epson DS-860 converted both fonts at 8 points and 6 points, respectively.
I also tested I.R.I.S. Cardiris. It is complex, with far too many choices in terms of paper sizes and other options for its allotted task. For instance, its default page size is letter (8.5 by 11 inches), rather than the more logical standard business card size of 3.5 by 2 inches. The list of paper sizes is extensive, around 50 entries, with nothing that identifies business cards specifically. Granted, most of the paper sizes were envelopes, which makes sense for a contact manager (for scanning return addresses, for example), but several were not.
OCR, though, was accurate on the simplest of cards. While there are options for filtering out colored backgrounds and other design features that would interfere with the text recognition process, finding and using them is more complicated than with other business card software we've seen, such as NewSoft's Presto! BizCard. Cardiris is a competent business card scanner and archiver, but novice users may find the learning curve stiff.
Conclusion
The HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow 5000 s4 Sheet-Feed Scanner is a competent, accurate scanner, and it comes with a complete suite of software. That, combined with its speed, accuracy, and low price, make it a good fit for offices with midrange-to-heavy document scanning requirements, but if you need business card scanning and are new to it, be prepared to spend some time with the manual. If you need a faster machine, consider the Epson WorkForce DS-860; and should you need to scan more than 6,000 pages per day, Canon's DR-M160II has a 1,000-page-higher daily duty cycle. Even so, the $400 price difference between this HP model and its more expensive competitors, especially given the ScanJet 5000's inclusion of document and business card management software (even if it's complicated), makes this scanner well worth your consideration.
Need fast document scanning for less than $1,000? The HP ScanJet Enterprise Flow 5000 s4 scans and saves to searchable PDF format as fast as several of its more expensive competitors.
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Sign up for other newslettersAbout William Harrel
Former Contributing Editor
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