Epson WorkForce GT-1500 Document Scanner

Best 4 DOCS ONLY - Must Play w/Settings

Ok, so my review is going to sound negative, but I do like this scanner. I just wish I knew what I was getting into before I purchased it and how to resolve Windows...Read complete review

Ok, so my review is going to sound negative, but I do like this scanner. I just wish I knew what I was getting into before I purchased it and how to resolve Windows 7 driver issues.

I owned only HP scanners before purchasing this Epson. I liked the fact that Epson had an Automatic Document Feeder and a Flatbed. I upgraded from not having a ADF. By doing this, I sacrificed some computer processing speed, but gained manual labor speed, which was definitely worth it. My HP was very fast with pictures, but the Epson is considerably slower, which was not an issue for me, but may be for someone using in rushed situations. I had worried about purchasing a non-photo scanner, but the Epson preformed well with photos. I wish this Epson scanner came with the extra software their photo scanners had though.

I like the size of the unit and way it fits on my desk. The ADF works well, but much slower than expected and as a YouTube video showed. This scanner greatly decreased the amount of time and effort it would have taken me to scan the items I scan in comparison to my old scanner, which ironically was more powerful and processed quicker.

I was also worried that two-side documents would be a pain, but as long as you don't mind flipping it manually, Epson thought about this and it works well, unless ALL you documents are two-sided, then you might want to get a more pricey scanner.

Affordability is the main BENEFIT of this scanner compared to similar scanners.

The MAIN PROBLEM I experienced with this scanner was the Windows 7 driver not working properly. It allows the first few scans without much of an issue, but then you must restart computer or deal with extreme slowness depending on the scan type. It works great in Win XP and Win XP mode for Win 7 (not to be confused with compatibility mode, which did nothing). I should note that not all Windows 7 computers can handle Win XP mode for Win 7, but mine can.

Even in Windows XP, the scanner can be slow if you are not using black and white mode with speed priority selected. If you do select speed priority, you can hardly tell the difference, but the PDF OCR fine reader software performs much better when speed is off.

ANOTHER PROBLEM I experience is in regard to PDF's. I have the scanner setup to automatically PDF all items in each scan to one PDF. If something happens to the scanner or I want to edit the position of the PDF or add/delete pages, it can't be done without the pay version of Adobe Acrobat., which I have and therefore was not a major inconvenience, but it may be for others.

As for other issues, I had some issues at first, but most of them went away. This included a streak that appeared randomly and went away randomly after a few scans closer to the time it was new. I have scanned well over 4,000 pages in the few months I have owned this and the only reoccurring thing (other than the Win 7 driver issue) I can complain about is if you try to scan many pages in gray scale, the scanner locks up. It doesn't matter what OS you use or how long you let it sit, the scanner makes a "power draining" sound like it go the command to scan, but is broken. This might be a problem with my specific scanner though, may need to get the warranty honored.

If you are not sure what you scanned, you have no way to check without stopping your scan. This could be a simple fix if Epson would allow a "continue scan" button after going into "edit" scans mode, but it only says "cancel" or "accept/ok." Also, some of the options in the menus are not self explanatory, may take some people some getting used to.

Not sure if Epson could change the design or not, but the flatbed flips up in such a way that scanning a thick book is difficult.

Overall though, this is a good scanner, I would recommend this scanner to anyone who needs to scan lots of black and white documents and only occasional color or grayscale items. I would not recommend this to anyone with Windows 7 who cannot access Windows XP mode (like a computer within a computer mode). I felt the price was good, not great, for what I got from this scanner and I paid less than $200. If you are considering a scanner, consider this one...In my opinion, if you can get this for $175 or less, it is worth every penny. If you pay more than $250, I would really think about it.

This review was written 07/11/2011.