Brother MFC 4800 Multifunction Printer, Scanner, Copier & Fax Review

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(More customer reviews)There is no multifunction machine that does everything as well a collection of individual machines. The MFC-4800 is advertised as a 5-in-1: Fax/Printer/Copier/Scanner/PC-Fax. Here's how it performs at those tasks:
Fax: At its heart, this product is Brother's well-regarded PPF-2800 laser fax machine. It does not require a computer connection to work as a fax, and it has the robustness to serve a medium-sized office. Its TAD/Distinctive Ring feature lets me use the machine to automatically receive faxes on my standard telephone/answering machine line. As a fax machine, it's a 10.
Printer: USB and parallel interfaces, as well as Mac and Windows drivers, make this a good, 9 PPM laser printer. Text printing is very crisp, and the paper feed works well. Two downsides: First, graphics aren't printed as well as other laser printers. They appear to print using dithered black and white, rather than grayscale. Secondly, this printer doesn't have any built-in networking features, although it can be shared using Windows printer sharing or a hub.
Helpful Printer Tip: If you use Windows XP and you only want to use the printer feature (without the scanning, OCR and PC-Fax), simply plug the USB cable from the printer into your already-running PC. Windows XP will automatically install its built-in driver for this printer - great for those of us who are wary of installing loads of software on our computers.
Copier: I purchased this machine because I needed a fax machine, and happily paid a little extra for the laser printing capability. I'm delighted that it has a handy and useful standalone copy feature -- simply load a stack of originals into the fax feeder and press the "Copy" button, and out churn your copies. As with the fax feature, no computer connection or software is used. However, if you're looking for a "real" copier, you'll want a color, flatbed unit. Using the fax paper feeder means you can't copy books, small, or fragile items. It also tends to twist vertical lines a little. For record keeping, it's terrific, but if you want to make 20 copies of a 20 page document that look as good as the original, you'll probably be disapointed.
Scanner: I didn't even bother. The scanning and OCR software it installed on my Win ME system has a distinctly Windows 3.1 appearance. There are loads of [$$] color flatbed scanners that can run circles around this unit. If black and white, fax-quality PC scanning is useful to you, well, go for it.
PC-Fax: I haven't tested this feature.
Summary: I'm completely satisfied with my purchase. At its heart, this unit is a fax machine with a very good laser printer engine. Within the limitations of its fax heritage, it's a useful copier, but those fax limitations are significant in terms of its scanning capability. Two last comments - no USB or parallel cable was included, and the toner cartridge is a 1,000 page "starter" cartridge.

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Brother contributes another smart machine at a smart price to the multifunction market. The MFC 4800 offers a five-in-one combination of laser-based fax, printing, copying, scanning, and computer-based fax capabilities.
As a printer, the 4800 can produce 10 pages per minute (ppm) at 600 x 600 resolution. As a fax machine, the 4800 has a 14.4K modem and a 2 MB memory buffer. The scanner offers 1,200 dpi resolution. When it comes to making copies, the 4800 can print up to 99 at a time at 600 dpi.
Additional features include a 200-sheet letter cassette that helps you avoid frequent refills. With both parallel and USB computer interfaces, the 4800 is cross-platform compatible, working with Windows 95/98/2000/Me/SE /NT 4.0 as well as the Apple iMac, iBook, G3, and G4 operating systems.

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Canon PIXMA MP810 All-in-One Photo Printer (1453B002) Review

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(More customer reviews)While I have only had this photo printer a very short time, I can already say that it is impressive.
I have never seen this good of print quality.
The 4800x4800 scanner delivered a beautiful 8x10 print from a 35mm negative with no adjustments or computer assistance. The copies were quick and faithful.
I am truly pleased to have purchased this MP810.
I did have some trouble installing the software from the driver cd. For some reason the installation would stall at various points and after 11 or 12 tries it finally installed completely. The drivers themselves work fine.
I have owned several photo printers and used Kodak dye sublimation printers. This high resolution printer simply beats all of my previous experiences.
The printer is Quiet and fast. The scanner is fast and incredibly sharp. Plus it has features that I do not even have time to talk about that are truly amazing. Too many good things to say about it.

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9600 x 2400 dpi maximum resolution, using microscopic droplets as small as 1 picoliter
3.0" high-definition TFT display delivers sharp previews of your images, viewable from up to a 170º angle
Borderless 4" x 6" prints in approximately 21 seconds
Functions as photo printer, copier, and scanner
High-resolution CCD technology delivers exceptional scans up to 4800 dpi with vibrant 48-bit color depth
Reprints directly from 35mm film
5-tank ChromaLife 100 ink system for beautiful, long-lasting prints
Prints 4" x 6", 4" x 8", 5" x 7",8" x 10",US #10 envelopes, letter, legal, and credit card size
Built-in 2-sided printing and second paper tray for convenient paper selection
PictBridge and IrDA compatible; optional Bluetooth adapter
Supports CompactFlash, Memory Stick and variants, SmartMedia, MMC, xD-PictureCard, SD and miniSD
17 11/16" W x 8 1/8" H x 16 13/16" D
Includes 5 ink tanks, Matt Photo Paper (For print head alignment), power cord, and software

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Sharp AL-1655CS Digital Laser Copier, Printer, Scanner Review

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(More customer reviews)Sharp AL-1655CS
I have just purchased this Multifunction as a replacement to a 3-year old inkjet multifunction. It was 370$ after a $200 mail in rebate and a $30 on-line coupon.
Wow. What can I say? I've had this Sharp for only a week now and I am extremely impressed with it. I have to say, I was unsure of how it would be because the online reviews and even the Sharp site do a miserable job of telling you what its features are.
I was looking for a black and white laser that could print/copy/scan. I am tired of swapping out inkjet cartridges and paying too much per copy and polluting the world with plastic in the process. The fax function is, to me, better kept to a separate machine. I decided that I don't use color enough to warrant the expense of running a color machine - my old inkjet will now back up this Sharp and be used for the occasional color print. Further, I didn't want color laser because it strikes me that there are way too many parts (4 toners?) and that, in the long run, they are going to be difficult to maintain and be unreliable.
So when I saw this Sharp, I was interested. At 370, I was really interested. I had paid 350 for my multifunction inkjet, which did the job, but needed far too much babysitting.
My one week review of the Sharp starts with the setup -
There was a lot of packing material, so physical set up took 15 minutes - lots of tape and bits of foam to remove. For the software, if you want to USB it to your computer for all functions, it's simple and you'll be done with setup in a few minutes. If you want to hook it to a LAN for printing, as I did, it's a bit more involved, and it is not particularly user friendly. That written, it's not impossibly hard, either, and when I called Sharp on the phone, they were responsive. As it turns out, I was picking the wrong option to set up the networking, and once I figured that out (between the time I called Sharp and when they called back), it was easy and I had all five machines printing to the Sharp in a few minutes. I would describe the installation software as directed to a network tech guy rather than a home user. Unfortunate, but perhaps correct when you consider that this machine is really a horse that can easily handle all the needs of any small office. After I got the network printing set up, I connected the USB to my machine, and installation of the software for scanning and control was simple.
Printing - Fantastic. Quick start from almost completely powered down. The quality of print is high. They don't advertise this well, but there are two paper trays, and it takes a full ream between the two- awesome! I only use letter sized, so for me it's nice to put a ream in and forget about it for a week.
Copying - Fairly fast. The sheet feed is only 30 pages, which is, in my opinion, small. I think 50 pages would be better. The copying features are outstanding - you can two-side copy, for example. Another nice feature is that you can copy a 20 page document to make 5 copies, for example, and it will scan once and then make 5 copies, with each copy collated and physically offset about a half inch from its neighbors - Nice! The printing feature will also, I think, allow the offset stack feature.
Scanning - It took about 10 minutes to figure out the scan settings. After that, very easy. The software is solid. You open the software, click on imaging, click on new image, click on one of four presets (I use the OCR text scan setting at 300dpi), and click scan. The scanner scans fairly quickly, and then you have an image on the screen that you can save as a TIF file. The TIF file can be easily converted to other types of files, for example, PDF, with easily obtainable, free software. Also, the TIF can be viewed and printed on any Windows machine - the viewer is built in. I do a lot of scanning, and, because the advertising wasn't clear, I wasn't sure that this device would work as I needed it to - I am very happy to say that it has been great - no misfeeds, and quick, good image, easy.
Cost - I haven't done the math, but on the Internet the toner and drums for this unit are relatively cheap, so the per page cost of this unit is going to be very low.
Summary - I love this thing - it is quick, efficient, and, best of all for me, I do not have to baby-sit it - I load a ream and I forget about the paper. The output area can hold almost a ream, so you could almost print 500 pages and not have to add paper, toner, or remove the copies. The scanning features are more than adequate if you don't have to scan hundreds of pages a day. In short, for heavy personal use or as an exclusive unit in a small office or as an additional unit for a large office, I very highly recommend this unit - plan on a bit of time to get set up, and then, after that initial investment of time, this unit will be a horse for you - get on and ride it. I love it so far - will update as needed . . .

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The unique network and paper handling features of the Sharp AL-1655CS digitial copier/printer/scanner make it the perfect choice for any small office. The Sharp AL 1655 Copier compact office machine contains a 16 ppm copier, up to 16 ppm printer, sheet fed color scannner, offset stacking to separates sets, hands-free two-sided/duplex copying. The Sharp AL 1655 Copier also has an automatic document feeder and 2 x 250 sheet paper drawers and network ethernet connection for printing. 3 year limited warranty.

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Lexmark X8350 All-in-One Printer Plus Photo Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one terrific printer. It was easy to install, though it would be nice if they'd include a USB cable. One of my first impressions of it was that it was very sturdily built. Unlike many other machines in the same price range, this has a solid feel. The controls are very easy to use, and the color screen is a great feature. It's got easy to follow menus for all functions.
The list of features goes on and on. Everything works great as a standalone. The basic features function exactly as they're supposed to; dig a little deeper and you'll find some pretty neat options. For example you can make a simple copy, or reduce or enlarge, or take one image and duplicate it multiple times on one page. Or it will take multiple different pages and combine them onto one page.
It can read from memory cards, show the pictures on the screen, and print them without turning the computer on. It will also read from USB memory sticks, and can connect directly to some digital cameras.
Print quality is excellent in both black and white and color. I haven't used it much for photos yet - one drawback is that to really do photos you need to swap out the standard color cartridge for a color photo cartridge. With the standard cartridge, color pictures are just acceptable.
Paper handling so far has also been very good. Envelopes and invitation card stock paper work just fine.
The only feature I wish this unit had was network capability. But all in all, a highly recommended product.

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Item #: H79200. Lexmark X8350 Office All-in-One Plus Photo gives small office/home office (SOHO) customers an easy to use, best-in-class combination of performance, functionality and photo features.The Lexmark X8350 is the first All-in-One in its class to combine a 2.4-inch color LCD and photo card slots, offering full photo capabilities along with the ability to print, scan, copy and fax, as well as manage and share color documents and photos.The Lexmark X8350 demonstrates business-class performance as it leads this class of products with up to 25 pages per minute (ppm) black and 19 ppm color, and an automatic document feeder (ADF) capable of handling a maximum of 50 pages, for hands-free fax and copy.All this is packaged in a small, compact design. Like other Lexmark printers, the Lexmark X8350 features superior ease of use both in standalone operation and when using a personal computer. Intuitive buttons help simplify and make tasks easier to execute.The X8350 features Lexmark's exclusive Productivity Suite Software, making it easy for users to manage a variety of different print and electronic document formats, including creating and searching PDFs and scanning printed documents into editable text.With the Lexmark X8350, users can print directly from their PC, memory cards, and digital cameras using Pictbridge or from a convenient USB flash drive. Users can also easily edit photos directly from the X8350's color LCD screen using crop, rotate, color fix and red-eye removal features along with popular photo effects such as sepia and antique gray.The Lexmark X8350 is network capable, with optional Ethernet and wireless network adapters, so users have the flexibility to position the printer virtually anywhere in the home or office for access by multiple users. Product Description: Lexmark X 8350 - multifunction ( color )Device Type: Fax / copier / printer / scannerCopier Type: DigitalFax Type: Plain paperDimensions (WxDxH): 10 in x 17.6 in x 14.9

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X2650 Color Printer 3-IN-1 Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a decent enough printer. Performance is good, the ink seems to last a reasonable time but the cartridges are fairly expensive. Scanning is good. Software is frankly an annoyance.
However, don't buy if you're looking to refill cartridges like I was. They are protected. Not all manufacturers do this but most do just now. My situation was worse because no matter what I tried, I couldn't get the printer to print only in black and white even after Googling the issue a whole day, so the colour ended up running out even without my wanting to print in colour. From what I've heard about Lexmark, ink is their business and this would explain why the printer was so cheap and why they have built the printer in such a way.
For your average user, I give it 3 stars as perhaps a moderate user would be happy paying for the ink. Myself, as a programmer and systems developer who bought this printer in a hurry upon arriving in a new country, I need to print rather more and it has been a waste of my money and frustrated me for two whole days. I have bought a few Lexmarks in the past but after this experience, I doubt I'll try them again.

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Fast! Up to 22 ppm black and 16 ppm color printing Laser quality text and graphics with print resolution up to 4800 dpi

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Canon PIXMA MP150 Photo All In One Printer Review

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(More customer reviews)This printer is a question of value. Clearly, there are higher quality printers even from Canon. Likewise, there are printers that are less expensive. What I am most interested in knowing about when shopping for something is the relative value of the item. In that way, the MP150 should receive 5 stars. It is an extremely good value for what it is: a quality, at-home moderate use printer.
Printing quality is fast and of high quality. Borderless 4x6 photos are what I would call very good (I have not yet printed larger). I have seen better photos, but not at this price point. You will be very happy with the occasional or semi-frequent picture you print off for friends, family, or yourself. Pictures seem a little skewed to the beige, but I don't notice any grain or lines. It will not quite replace a photo studio or online provider, but with the low cost of printing digital pictures at your local drug store, 90% of us should not be overly concerned with very, very high quality, at home printing. The Pict Bridge is nice and Canon claims pictures will not fade for 100 years if stored in proper albums.
Normal document printing is good too. Not quite laser, but anyone who need regular business printing should invest in at least a low cost laser. No ink based printer will do what you need if you have a business office in your home.
Scanning is very good and easy. Their software allows for all sorts of imports and scanning, while not lightning fast, is quite good. Copying is a breeze: place your document on the glass (and with an auto-adjusting top, you can easily copy books up to 1-2 inches thick), hit the black or color button, and you're done. No need to have the computer on.
The paper tray leaves a little to be desired, but not too much. It's a bit flimsy and doesn't give you a great deal of confidence that it will pull paper correctly, although it has so far for me. I like the non-turning path the paper takes. Paper goes in the top and comes out straight from the front. This makes labels easier and more successful. The printer seems very good at pulling your paper media quite well without the stutter or mistakes of some HP printers.
Canon offers four ink cartridges for this printer: PG 40 (black) and PG 50 (black high capacity) as well as CL41 (color) and CL51 (color high capacity). Some have said that it won't accept the high cap cartridges. I haven't tried yet.
As for what I would have liked to see, the printer, while somewhat fast, can take forever to start printing. It almost always takes enough time for me to think the printer is not going to print. When I then go to remove the paper and try again, it starts up just before I get there like it was waiting for me to make the first move!
The tray is rated to hold 100 pieces of paper. No way. More like 50 if you're lucky. Ink is high quality and the heads are part of the cartridge, but ink use is higher than average. Normal cartridges are rates for around 200 pages and, because there are not multiple color cartridges, if you run out of one color, you run out of everything.
Finally, when compared to its competitor (HP1401), it is both more expensive and bigger. However, I would take the MP150 over the HP (and since I have both, I should know).
Photo Print Quality: A-
Letter Print Quality: A-
Scanning: A
Copying: A+
Ink Usage: B-
Ink Cost: B
Overall: B+ to A-
Essentials:
USB cable (sold separately)
Replacement Cartridges
Photo Paper (comes with a few 4X6 glossies)
CD/DVD Rom for install

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Print, Copu and Scan with Camera Direct Printing.Print up to 4800 x 1200 color dpi with microspcopic Droplets as samll as 2 picoliters using FINE cartridge

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Brother MFC-5100c Multifunction Review

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(More customer reviews)3.5 stars.
I just picked up one of these Brother units almost on a whim, as the several that I played with in the stores were unacceptable with extremely poor print quality, for both text and graphics, color and B&W. I was worried that the description given by the one-star reviewer below was accurate. However, I gambled (well, not too much - the store has a 14 day return policy) that the demo units in the stores did not have anything close to the optimum settings, clean print heads or full ink cartridges. My gamble paid off, as the contrast between the well-used-if-not-abused store demos and my new machine is huge.
First, as a frame of reference, I had an old HP Deskjet 500 (the original inkjet printer) and currently own a five year old HP Deskjet 712 I use for text printing, and a two year old Epson Stylus Photo 780 that I have yet to master and attempt to use for photo printing.
I thought the 5100's set up and software install went about as quickly and well as I could expect - the directions were clear and simple, and I encountered absolutely no problems at all. I'm running Win 98SE, though, so I cannot comment on the complaints about XP compatibility. There are separate detailed instructions for XP installation but some of the scanning software (a third party's, not Brother's) may not be XP compatible. However, it does seem that Brother specifically addressed XP issues with the current models. It should be simple if you follow the directions exactly, rather than just diving in and mucking around.
As far as text printing goes, this unit has average, acceptable quality for an inkjet printer. If one looks closely, the individual pixels are somewhat visible even at the best print quality. I would say its text quality is nearly identical to that on my Epson Photo 780 and similar to what a 300dpi laser printer from a decade ago produced. It's sufficient for business correspondence and probably just good enough for printing resumes, but it's not as crisp as the text printing from my HP 712. However, I have never seen any inkjet print better text than the 712, old as it may be, including the newest HP's I've seen in stores. If text quality is of paramount importance to you, no other inkjet printer brand on the market can compete with HP, so you should stick to that brand. The MFC-5100 is twice as fast at printing text as my HP 712.
Copy quality is this unit's biggest shortcoming. It has pretty low resolution on the B&W setting, roughly what I got from my scanner printing out on the HP 712, or draft on the venerable HP Deskjet 500. It's debatable if the copy quality is sufficient to use for sending copies to other parties with business correspondence, but is ok for maintaining personal or home records. In the black and white mode, I see almost no difference in print quality between the Fast, Normal and Best copy quality settings, which may be a minor defect with my unit. It's pretty fast, though - prints in about 30-40 seconds from hitting the copy button, with subsequent copies coming much faster - figure five copies per minute in the real world beyond the first copy. Color copies are pretty nice and at a higher resolution than the monochrome ones.
I haven't done any color printing of signs and such, but have printed some photos and have been quite pleased. I've managed to get a few excellent, highly detailed photos lately with my 2.1mp Canon A20 digital camera and they came out very nicely on the Brother, much better than anything I could print with my 600dpi HP 712. At 5" x 7" size, pixels were only noticeable at close inspection. Larger 8.5" x 11" photos had very similar resolution and beyond a distance of 18" appear to be as good as any enlargement I have seen from a 35mm autofocus camera. My Epson Photo 780 prints at a higher resolution (2880x720 - individual pixels are not noticeable even on close inspection of an 8.5" x 11" print) but has lousy, inaccurate color (at least as far as I've been able to tweak it). The MFC-5100C's color is vivid and very accurate and I prefer its photos to those from my Epson at this point. I'm not sure if I'm printing at the 5100's claimed 1200 x 2400 dpi highest resolution, though, as the settings don't allow for that specific of finetuning. The generally thorough manual is a bit lacking on photoprinting, but I think I've been using best photo settings. The individually replaceable cartridges (black, cyan, magenta and yellow) are also a nice feature and black cartridges are a third less expensive than HP cartridges.
The fax function works perfectly and is as simple as anyone could want. The document feeder works like a charm, also.
In summary, this is a pretty nice unit for the price and there is nothing in the market comparable until you spend 50% more. If this Brother only had print quality comparable to the HP units, I would give it an enthusiastic five stars. The HP 6110 is the cheapest HP multifunction flatbed with a document feeder, it does print noticeably better copies and text than this Brother, and appears, from what I saw in the stores, to have fewer compromises. In fact, despite the fact that the HP 6110 costs 62% more than I paid for the Brother, I liked its better print quality and faster fax enough that I ordered one, will compare it to the Brother MFC-5100 and update this review soon.

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Brother contributes another smart machine--at a smart price--to the multifunction market with this five-in-one combination of full-color fax machine, printer, copier, and scanner, with computer-based fax capability.
As a printer, the MFC-5100c can produce 10 ppm (pages per minute) of black and white and 8 ppm of color, at up to 2,400 x 1,200 dpi resolution (naturally, the higher resolutions are a little slower printing). As a full-color fax machine, the MFC-5100c features 4 MB of memory (storing up to 200 pages) and 14.4K modem speed, delivering one page roughly every six seconds. A fax broadcasting option is also provided, letting you fax up to 90 locations at a time. In addition, the MFC-5100c is equipped with a PC fax driver, enabling you to send faxes directly from your PC.
The MFC-5100c's scanner function scans at up to 9,600 dpi (interpolated; optical specification not available). When it comes to making copies, the MFC-5100c can print up to 99 copies at a time at 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution, and comes with a 100-sheet letter cassette. Copies can be reduced and enlarged from 25 to 400 percent. With both parallel and USB interfaces, the MFC-5100c is cross-platform compatible, working with Microsoft Windows and Macintosh iMac, iBook, G3, and G4 (cables not included). It comes with a one-year limited warranty.

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