I will admit that when I first read about this scanner I was hopeful but sceptical, that said have had the scanner for a week now, feel that this is a very good purchase, I have started to archive a lot of old paperwork and am benefitting from the time that I have saved.

The Epson WorkForce GT-1500 ($349.99 direct) represents a new direction for Epson. As the name implies, this scanner is office-centric rather than photocentric, and it's aimed at small offices rather than any of Epson's usual target markets: home users, graphic artists, and photographers.

Low price for a flatbed document scanner; Scans directly to searchable PDF files

Automatic document feeder (ADF) scans one side of the page only; Manual duplex feature is hidden and somewhat cumbersome; Slow

The Epson WorkForce GT-1500 is an easy-to-install,  48-bit USB color flatbed scanner.

40-page automatic document feeder; Creates searchable PDFs

Doesn't perform duplex scanning automatically; Scanner

Epson WorkForce GT-1500 Epson's WorkForce GT-1500 is a color document scanner designed to simplify the tedious task of scanning stacks of text documents in an office environment. Easy to use and simple in its focus, the GT-1500 does an adequate job of photo- and document-scanning.

Fast; High bit scans

Clunky OCR software; No transparency- or slide-scanning

I really do like this scanner. It's fast, easy to operate, and does everything I need. I'm an educator and I use this to grade papers and return comments to my students. It saves lots of time and allows me to give them the amount of feedback they deserve. Best deal since sliced bread!

Had to return the product. When using the ADF, images had a black line down the right side. Could not eliminate. Assistance from Mfg was difficult and they could not correct. Also, the copy speed was so slow it was much faster to scan to desktop then print.

Easy Setup

Inaccurate Scans; Slow

A common complaint is this is not a duplex scanner. Actually, for a $200 scanner, duplex scans are quick and easy, but the documentation does not tell you how to do them. Here's the trick. When you click "scan" the "file save settings" dialog box pops up. Make sure "show addpage dialog" is checked.

ADF scanner with flatbed option for things that won't go through an ADF; For most documents, I use "office mode," PDF output with high compression, 300dpi (200 is only slightly faster, slightly smaller file size, but noticeably worse image quality), skew correction on (config>other).

I have absolutely no complaints about the scanner, but the documentation is terrible (hence 4 not 5 eggs); The on-line help has no index or TOC, although it does have a search function.

I am thankful I purchased the Squaretrade warranty because I have to return this scanner. From the outset it was a bad experience because the driver disk was too damaged to read. I downloaded a driver but it turns out there was more software on the disk.

The GT-1500 was bought for home use to replace an existing scanner. I needed to scan a whole lot of documents for archive purposes and the GT-1500, with its document feeder seemed to be ideal.

I searched long and hard to find the best scanner for clearing and organizing the piles of backlogged documents in my office. Unfortunately this scanner came without any CDs, paper docs or, most importantly, the OCR software (ABBYY app) that it's advertised with.