Brother MFC-8420 Laser Multifunction Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I went through a slew of hp printers. I experienced lousy, "outsourced" technical support, and had two printers fail in the same year. This on the heels of my friends brand new color laser fiasco, which was three failures in one year (also HP). They used to be the best, with printers like the 4050n and other tireless workhorses, but I think other vendors are now making significant inroads, especially in this middle ground space. You'll find HP laser printers to be profoundly expensive for what they buy, with high print costs, and low ram. The 1300 is a fine example of where HP has gone wrong.
So, we took the plunge on this 8420 (we got the "one up" D model, which includes duplexing -- works like a charm, and at about 1c a page (as the cost of paper) it will pay for itself quickly).
The upsides:
1) Very cheap toner. Especially the high yield. 6k pages for 90 bucks, which is more than any other cartridge we could find (and you get get those cheaper than 90 some places)
2) Very convenient. You've no idea how awesome a 50 page sheetfed scanner with OCR actually is until you need it. ;-)
3) Comes with a full toner cartridge. My hp's came with 1/2 full "intro" ones.
4) Best-of-breed. For it's downsides (below), it really is the best you can buy for the money.
5) It doesn't jam.
The downsides are:
1) It's a little slow to copy
2) High end color scans are not that hot. A little flat. If you want high end color scans, drop 60 bucks and buy a Scanjet 5300c. The scanner is really designed for document processing, at which it excels.
3) It's a little pricey to buy in. The high end models are overpriced for what they buy (duplexing for ~100 bucks, network for another 100-150). Yikes.
4) The software is a little "clunky", but it works
5) The warranty pretty much stinks (1 year). If you can get an extended warranty, it's a [really] good idea. With so many components, all-in-ones have that much more of a chance to fail, and they do. ;-)
Remember, inkjet printers are sold practically at a loss by their manufacturers (especially cheaper ones). They are designed to make up their money in ink cartridges. This is important when you are comparing all-in-ones.
Despite it's minor downsides, I'd highly reccomend this ot a friend. If you need something to get your business off the ground like we did, and don't want to spend a fortune or worry about being in constant IT mode keeping everything configured and working smoothly, this is the way to go. Faxing is a breeze, scanning is easy (50 docs at a time is a LOT btw), and printing is very high quality.
We combined this with a cheap bubblejet, and now we have the best of all possible worlds. We reccomend this route!!!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Brother MFC-8420 Laser Multifunction

Winner of the prestigious Editor's Choice Award from PC Magazine and combining all the necessary office machines into a single box, the Brother MFC-8420 is an excellent addition for home businesses or small networks. Including a laser printer and copier, color and monochrome scanner, and a 33.6 Kpbs modem fax, this convenient desktop assistant offers all the functions you need to keep printing and mailing costs to a minimum.
The monochrome laser printer and copier produces letter or legal sized pages at up to 17 ppm, with an outstanding 2,400 x 600 dpi resolution. Up to 99 copies can be sorted or reduced or enlarged at a range of 25 to 400 percent; manual two-sided printing helps you save on consumables. The scanner operates in either 48-bit color or 256-level grayscale, enabling you to scan full-color photos or monochrome documents. Either way, with an interpolated resolution up to 9,600 x 9,600 dpi, your scans will be impeccably smooth.
The fax provides a variety of sending and retrieval options designed to improve efficiency. Broadcast faxes up to 390 stations, or speed dial to any of up to 300 coded numbers. The 50-sheet automatic document feeder frees you from having to baby sit the box, while the 600-page memory guards against paper shortages. The MFC-8420 includes a one-year warranty with instant exchange service.

Click here for more information about Brother MFC-8420 Laser Multifunction

Read More...

Brother MFC9600 Flatbed Laser Multifunction Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)We bought the MFC9600 in early 2000. It appears to have all the popular functions integrated into a nicely designed unit. However, after 3 months of light usuage, serious problems started to appear. First bands started to appear on the copied pages. Changing the toner cartridge did not help. Then the paper feeder for the flatbed started jaming paper. Forget about faxing multi-page documents. We started calling the "beast", the "paper eating machine". It does a "better job" in shredding paper than faxing or copying, if you have to use the paper feeder. Even the faxed document comes out to be with disappointing poor quality.
This product appears to have the right idea of including highly integrated office automation functions. It just does not have the quality that makes this to be the workhorse for a small office. We ended up buying an HP 3200 to do the faxing and laser printing and still trying to figure out what to do with the MFC9600 that we bought.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Brother MFC9600 Flatbed Laser Multifunction

Do you feel you spend too much time in your office? You can create more free time and increase your productivity with the Brother International MFC9600 three-in-one multifunction center, combining a fax machine, copier, and printer. It provides the solution for high productivity and creativity with black and white printing and copying and flatbed color scanning. These functions are designed to work together at the touch of a button, all without leaving your home or office.
The Brother MFC9600 multifunction center is designed to support speedy printing (up to 23 ppm), copying, and faxing. It prints on a variety of papers, including envelopes, transparencies, label sheets, and letter and legal at resolutions of 600 x 600 dpi and 300 x 600 in color (1,200 x 1,200 dpi interpolated resolution). Digital copies and scans are easy, whether you're connected to a computer or not. The copier makes 12 cpm, with reduction/enlargement from 50 to 400 percent in 1-percent increments. You can print and sort up to 99 multiple copies at one time. The flatbed scanner accepts books and magazines and includes the OCR software to convert printed text into a digital text file.
A high-speed fax (five seconds per page) automatically feeds up to 30 pages. With the included SmithMicro software, you can send documents as faxes directly from your PC, as well. And there are more features to the MFC9600: a 700-page fax reception memory allows you to scan in faxes and delay sending (and protects your incoming faxes in case the machine runs out ofpaper), fax forwarding and paging, remote fax retrieval, and auto dial.
Multitasking saves you time and dual access allows you to scan a fax into the memory while another is being received. Compatible with both Macintosh and PC, the Brother MFC9600 has a total memory of 8 MB. Brother offers a one-year limited warranty. --Barbara Price

Click here for more information about Brother MFC9600 Flatbed Laser Multifunction

Read More...

Samsung CLX-3175FN Color Laser Multi-function Printer Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I rarely write reviews, but I have always used Amazon's site to preview products and read others' reviews that I decided it was time I gave back.
So I purchased the Samsung Printer from another seller at $299.00, the price alone is worth 2 stars.
Just a little about my purchase decisions....I've owned 20 printers since 1994; the first Canon color inkjet, BJC-600, and then the Epson Stylus, and now 20models later, the Samsung Color Laser CLX-3175 ... I never really thought I would buy a Samsung for a printer, usually I buy Epson or HP. Epson is better with inkjet and HP I feel is the King with laser technology. So...Why a Samsung....For 2 years I've been searching for a color all in one, it had to be laser, I was sick of the drying inks, I did not print much in full color but when I did, the tanks were empty or clogged.
Until I saw the Samsung I decided on either the HP all in one, like the Color LaserJet CM1312mfp or the Color LaserJet 2820mfp. The size of those machines delayed the purchase, I didn't have the room for it so I figured I would wait until my older HP LaserJet 6p died and my Epson 980 needed a new cartridge. I was looking for a Plasma screen on Samsung's website and that's where my love affair began. Within 20 minutes I ordered it! It's probably the fastest purchase decision on an electronic device ever for me. I usually wait until I read a dozen reviews etc. . But the price had me thinking even if it's not what I expected, I would just sell it when it needs toner or, I could always give it to my mother as she needs an all in one as is not as picky as I am.
Anyway back to the review, I ordered my printer on Thursday and received it on Monday. I unboxed the printer and it was already assembled with the cartridges preinstalled. The unit was nicely taped in all the spots that would come affixed during shipping. You only must install the arm for the ADF. Earlier that day, before I received the printer I went to Samsung's website and downloaded the drivers and software. Samsung did an extraordinary job with the software and drivers. The Printing software, The Scanner software, and the Printer Console software were all separate packages. So you did not have to install all three packages on all computers. Also, you have the option of installing a Mono printing software package, this is extremely valuable! This mean if you have children or co-workers who may waste your toner printing color documents, you can restrict them by only allowing them to print in black and white, and they wouldn't even know HAHA.
The software is NOT bloated like HP software, the color drivers are less then 10mb and so are the Scanner drivers. The printer console software is about 80mb; this package is basically like a printer monitor and extended menus. Personally I did not find needing to install it since the entire Printer setup could be viewed by entering its IP number, web setup.
I have to give this printer another star just because the drivers are simple, to the point and consists of less than 100mb and 20mb if that.
System setup was simple! All I had to do was plug it in and connect the network cable as I use it over the network. I have setup my router set to use DHCP, so the TCP/IP settings are all done automatically. Assuming all your computers are configured properly. When you run the drivers the setup asks you if it's a local setup meaning USB or Networked, after that it automatically finds your printer by IP number.
I choose to print a test page and 20 seconds later... a nicely printed demo printout. I was amazed. To test the copy quality I decided to copy it and compare. WOW that's all I can say, it took me 15 seconds to figure out which was the original, I purposely mixed them up. If it passed that test, then I knew it was a keeper!
The next thing I did was setup the Scanning feature. I ran the second drivers package for the scanner and just like the print driver interface, so was the same, chose network setup etc. The next thing I did was go to the scanner's pc interface and selected where I wanted the scanned documents to be stored. I then went to the printer, placed 10 sheets in the ADF, pressed the scan button, and then selected "scan to pc," my laptop's pc name was shown, and selected it by pressing "ok" then chose the resolution etc followed lastly by file type, which I chose for my test PDF. About a minute later, in my documents folder on my wireless notebook, there was a 10 page PDF! Now that's what I love!
For around $300.00 this was an excellent purchase. I can now digitize all my documents in PDF, organize them so with a search and a few seconds, any document could be found. Printing is excellent too, I will not complain if this printer shoots out a color page in 20 seconds, because it really doesn't bother me, because inkjet takes longer. The print quality from 1-10 I would have to say about 8.5. After all the resolution is 600 x 600 and that's a given. I printed a picture and it looked amazing, why not a ten then? Well only because some color laser jets have 1200 dpi, and that means double the dots and precision so my rating is ONLY an 8.5 because higher resolution printers exist. If they didn't exist I would rate the quality a 10.
I haven't faxed yet, I usually receive faxes via email through a subscription based service. I mainly need to print and scan.
This printer is feature packed! Another two features I will write about are the Scan and Print via USB and the web based console. If you do not have your home or office networked it's easy for others to print or scan, honestly all you do is plug in your USB flash drive and select the file, that's it! Or choose Save to USB for scanned documents. Great for when you want to shut down your pc and others have to print and are not networked.
The web based console is awesome; you can setup the time, fax stamp, and ringer setup all over HTML vs. pressing the printer's menu button a dozen times and key all the factors one by one. Also if there is a problem, tech support can look at the printer the same way you do.
The reason I am not giving this printer 5 stars is sadly because it does not have a manual feed slot and I really used it on other printers as I hate writing addresses on envelopes. The solution I have is to use labels. The added plus by not feeding envelopes is no jams or wear and tear on the rollers. I guess that helps with the disappointment. If you print Letterhead then either use the watermark and or Letterhead feature or you will have to slide the trey out when needed.
I hope this review helps!
ONE LAST TIP!!! USE COLOR LASER PAPER, SERIOUSLY YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPOINTED YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY A TON FOR COLOR LASER PAPER EITHER, I PURCHASED A 500 PAGE REAM FOR $7.99 113 BRIGHTNESS!!!! 24LB. OFFICEDEPOT BRAND
UPC/BAR CODE 032476549257 I TRIED 3 PREMIUM TYPES AND THIS WAS THE BEST! FEELS EXPENSIVE!!! NICE AND SMOOTH AND OFCOURSE BRILLIANT!!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Samsung CLX-3175FN Color Laser Multi-function Printer

Get 13% OFF

Click here for more information about Samsung CLX-3175FN Color Laser Multi-function Printer

Read More...

Brother MFC-7225N 5-in-1 Monochrome Laser Multi-Function Center with Built-In Networking Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I've had the Brother MFC 4350 for 7 years and loved it. I finally decided to upgrade to a new Brother MFC 7225N. The printer installed very easily. The printer quality is very good and overall, I think I'm happy with the purchase. Two pet peeves:
1) The machine is much louder than the MFC 4350 when its printing. If you have home office, you probably can't print a large document and talk on the phone at the same time because of the noise.
2) The top and the bottom of the printed pages curl up. For home use, this will probably be ok. If you are printing proposals or official business-related stuff, this may annoy you. (not as professional looking)


Click Here to see more reviews about: Brother MFC-7225N 5-in-1 Monochrome Laser Multi-Function Center with Built-In Networking

Get 28% OFF

Click here for more information about Brother MFC-7225N 5-in-1 Monochrome Laser Multi-Function Center with Built-In Networking

Read More...

Brother MFC-9120CN High Quality Digital Color All-in-One Printer with Fax and Networking Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this Brother printer to replace an HP 2840 color laser. I like the Brother. It's smaller and quieter. It doesn't have to calibrate a couple times a day either. Scans are way faster than the HP and the scan quality if far better than the HP. Copies and printing are great, as expected. I don't ever fax so I can't address it's capabilities there.
I found one limitation with this printer that prevented me from giving it five stars. The printer can only be used as a network printer attached to the router via an Ethernet cable or it can be a workstation printer supporting one PC attached via a USB cable. If your using Windows networking to share the printer (i.e. it's connected to one PC via USB and enabled for print sharing), it's not supported. What? You got it. Brother won't let you share the printer other than to have it setup as a network printer attached to the router.
This is an issue if, like me, the router is nowhere near the printer and you want to do a lot of scanning using the PC based utilities vs. the little screen on the printer. You can scan with it as a network printer but you can only do it using the function keys on the printer itself. You lose the benefits of the PC software based approach. If you do any volume of scanning, you want the PC utilities enabled.
I was able to work around the problem and get it working like I wanted but it took a couple days working on and off to sort out. I called Brother technical support. They kindly told me the printer doesn't support what I wanted to do and I should return the product. What? Unbelievable!!
To get it to work as a shared USB attached printer, you have to go through the CD install process on each PC. That's okay once you understand that's the process.
The only remaining limitation is quickly setting up a temporary shared user. Say your brother-in-law is in town for the weekend and needs to print. He can't use the Windows "Add a printer" function and get to your Brother printer. You have to go find the CD and do a full install for your brother-in-law to print his Mapquest directions home. It's not a huge problem but Brother should not have designed it this way.
Hope it helps somebody.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Brother MFC-9120CN High Quality Digital Color All-in-One Printer with Fax and Networking

Get 42% OFF

Click here for more information about Brother MFC-9120CN High Quality Digital Color All-in-One Printer with Fax and Networking

Read More...