Apple Briefs

One of the first things we bought when setting up my wife’s law practice was a Fujitsu ScanSnap. When my wife first told me she needed a ScanSnap, I responded that we had a scanner – you know the kind, one of those free printer-scanner-copiers you can get when buying a Mac (both the Apple Store and MacMall frequently offer this promotion). I was then informed that preparing an estate plan requires lots of scanning – to the tune of a few dozen of pages for each estate plan. A flatbed scanner clearly wasn’t going to be sufficient, so we got a Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M.

MacWorld posted a review of the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510M over the weekend. Our experience with the S510M has been generally positive, but it hasn’t worked as well for us as it did for the MacWorld reviewers.

When the S510M first arrived, I was pretty amazed. The scanner was fast, pretty easy to use, and came with a copy of Adobe Acrobat. There have been a few frustrations, though. The MacWorld review states that the S510M is “much less prone to sending through multiple sheets at a time.” I don’t know how well the earlier ScanSnap models performed, but the S510M could still use some improvement. Pages that were stapled, paper-clipped, or three-hole-punched will sometimes go through the scanner together. Fixing the problem usually involves either several tries or carefully feeding the sheets in one at a time.

Overall, we’re happy with our ScanSnap S510M. Even with the sheeting feeding problem, using a ScanSnap is still much faster than using a flatbed scanner.

Save on a Scan Snap: Through the end of the day today, MacMall is offering the ScanSnap S510M at only $390 after a mail-in rebate. I wish that promotion had been going on when we bought ours. If you miss the special, the regular (non-rebate) price of $440 is still a pretty good deal.

Rumor has it that Apple will be introducing a sub-notebook at Macworld San Francisco in January. The new device will supposedly be ultra-thin (on account of not having an optical drive) and sport a flash memory drive. Flash memory is more expensive than a traditional hard disk drive, but it is faster and uses less power (spinning a disk 600 times per second uses a lot of power). The best news is that the entry price point will apparently be about $1500. Still, I imagine that a fully-loaded model will still run at least $2000, if not more.

I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to buy a new sub-notebook. I currently use a 15″ MacBook Pro. Before that, though, I had a 12″ PowerBook (which, I have on good authority, will bend when you drop it from a height of four feet onto a wood floor). After using a 12″ PB, I barely consider my MB Pro a “portable.” I can technically take it places, but it always feels like I am carrying luggage with me. I barely noticed my 12″ PB. I also have a very sleek backpack from my 12″ PB days that I hope will be big enough for the new sub-notebook. I normally try to avoid first-generation Apple hardware, but I think I might make an exception in this case.