Epson WorkForce ES-500WII

Is the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII worth buying?

Buy the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII at £375.53 if you clear batches of A4 and would rather press one button than sit at the machine: it scans 35 pages per minute, both sides in one pass, and sends the finished file over Wi-Fi to a phone, tablet, Mac or PC.

This is a home-office scanner, not a hobby one. Nine buyers rate it 4.7 so far, a strong score on a thin base, and the 300 dpi sensor and 24-bit colour are aimed at searchable text rather than photo restoration. If a week brings you a few letters and one invoice, £375.53 buys speed you will never use.

What does the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII cost per page per minute?

Divide the £375.53 price by its 35 pages per minute and the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII works out at £10.73 for every page per minute it scans. The ScanSnap iX2500 in white is £12.47 dearer at £388 and still lands at £8.62, so the cheaper machine of the two is the dearer one to run once time is counted.

The 35 ppm figure is duplex, so it means 70 images per minute with both sides captured in a single pass, which turns a 70-sheet report into two minutes of feeding. Auto crop, blank-page removal and background removal clean each scan before it reaches your folder, and the included OCR software makes the text searchable and editable.

How big is the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII and what comes with it?

The body weighs 4.58 kg, which is 1.08 kg more than the ScanSnap iX2500 in white and 0.36 kg less than the Epson WorkForce DS-1730. That is a fixed spot on a desk, not a shelf you lift it off when a job arrives.

It scans over Wi-Fi and USB 3.0, with Bluetooth on board as well, so a phone, tablet, PC or Mac can all receive files without a cable. Windows and macOS are both supported, OCR software comes in the box, and Epson backs the machine with a one-year manufacturer warranty.

Originals run from business-card size up to A4, and the feeder handles paper from 27 to 413 gsm in one stack, which covers receipts, invoices and ID cards without stopping to change a setting.

Where does the Epson WorkForce ES-500WII fall short?

It is the second most expensive scanner on its own page and it is not the fastest: 35 ppm against the £388 ScanSnap iX2500's 45 ppm, and £10.73 per page per minute against £8.62. What the £375.53 really buys is the cable-free workflow and the software, not raw throughput.

There is no flatbed, so a passport, a bound page or a crumpled original has to go somewhere else, because a sheet feeder takes flat paper only. The 300 dpi sensor draws the same line around photographs: crisp text, but not a print worth reprinting.

The owner base is thin. Nine ratings at 4.7 tells you far less than the 1,079 ratings behind the Brother DS-740D at 4.4, and at 4.58 kg this is not a unit you carry between rooms.

Epson WorkForce ES-500WII vs ScanSnap iX2500 and Epson WorkForce DS-1730

The ScanSnap iX2500 in white costs £12.47 more at £388 and scans 10 ppm faster, 45 ppm against 35, which brings it down to £8.62 per page per minute against the Epson's £10.73. Go for the iX2500 when the batch is the daily job; stay with the ES-500WII when the £12.47 upfront matters more than the extra speed.

The Epson WorkForce DS-1730 at £259.99 is £115.54 cheaper, scans 30 ppm duplex at £8.67 per page per minute and adds a flatbed that takes a single page in 7 seconds at 300 dpi. Buy the DS-1730 if passports, books or thick originals are part of the job, and keep the ES-500WII if everything you scan is loose A4 and you want it wireless.