Epson FastFoto FF-680W: The World’s Fastest Personal Photo Scanner

Epson has just announced the new FastFoto FF-680W, a wireless high-speed photo scanner that the company says is the world’s fastest personal photo scanner. If you have boxes and albums filled with old prints you’d like to digitize, this scanner is designed for you.

The FF-680W can scan batches of 36 prints at a speed as fast as 1 photo per second (for 4×6 prints at 300dpi in landscape orientation). This means the scanning time for 1,000 prints (not counting the time between batches) comes in at as little as 16.66 minutes.

A number of different media types and sizes are supported beyond standard prints — you can digitize things like postcards, 3-foot-long panoramic photos, and Polaroid-style instant photos.

There’s an Easy Auto-Upload feature in the scanner’s software that makes it easy to share scanned photos to cloud services such as Google Drive and Dropbox.

The FF-680W is a followup to the FastFoto FF-640, a highly-reviewed photo scanner that can also scan at upwards of 1 photo per second.

“Epson recognized the need for a fast and easy scanning solution that enabled people to digitize photos held captive in shoeboxes and albums stored away in closets and attics, and vulnerable to natural disasters, fires and floods,” says Epson product manager David Hawkes. “FastFoto unlocked a new market with the introduction of the FastFoto in 2016, making it affordable and feasible to preserve a family’s legacy. The new FastFoto FF-680W incorporates feedback from customers with a host of new features, making it easier to bring memories of yesterday back to life using the latest digital technology.”

The latest FastFoto goes beyond the original 600 dpi TIFF archival resolution and now offers 1200dpi scans for enlarging.

Other features include second-generation scanner software, USB and Wi-Fi- connectivity, photo improvement software (auto enhance, color restoration, red-eye reduction, de-skew, crop, and rotate), and the ability to capture handwritten notes on the backs of prints in the same scan.

The Epson FastFoto FF-680W is available now through Epson’s website and from major retailers such as Amazon for $600.