Brother MFC-8840D Laser Multifunction

• Printer, copier, scanner, fax, and PC fax
• Up to 21 ppm print and copy speed; up to 2,400 x 600 print resolution
• Automatic duplexing; reduce/enlarge 25% to 400%
• Fax forward/paging, 40 one-touch memory locations
• Parallel and USB interfaces, PC and Mac compatible

This the third Brother laser printer I''ve purchased in the past seven years. This machine was a logical first choice based on my good experience with this brand. I''ve had this one for about four months and have put it to heavy use. Simply put, this machine does exactly what it promises and without any glitch. I used it with both my Mac and Windows XP PC at home; the software integrates well. Four other positives are worth mentioning: (1) the toner refills are inexpensive ($60 for the 7,000 page version), (2) they can be reliably refilled once each with the toner refill kits off of ebay ($12-16 each; not a messy process), (3) mine''s not as loud as another reviewer''s unit seemed to be (or maybe I''m used to the level of noise from Brother printers;), (4) The duplexing works very reliably (not a single jam since I bought this unit). Highly recommended.

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Pros: For $450, getting a fax + copier + scanner + duplex laser printer is a pretty good deal. I considered buying higher quality printer, scanner and fax-modem components separately and then using my computer to integrate them, but there is something to be said for "press-a-button" copying and faxing that just works. I''ve found a lot of unexpected uses for the copy machine no longer need to tote the whole textbook; just copy the chapter I plan to read, etc. The N-in-1 feature is useful you can fit many textbook pages onto a single sheet. The printer is completely quiet when idle, though it takes a few minutes to fan down after printing something.

Cons: My biggest requirement in a printer was built-in duplex (double-sided printing). I couldn''t find another laser duplex multifunction device for under $1000. (For those deciding, if black & white text print quality matters to you, do NOT buy an ink jet or at least do a careful side-by-side print comparison. Laser is much better.) Anyway, I was pretty mad to find out that this printer only supports printing at 600 DPI duplex. There was absolutely no mention of this in the specs. There is a noticeable quality difference between 600 and the HQ1200 mode. Lots of jaggies in 600 dpi almost looks like my old deskjet, though slightly better. It''s still suitable for documents you''ll just read over once. The other con is that this printer is darned ugly. When photocopying a textbook it is almost impossible not to accidentally press at least 10 of the over 50 buttons littering the front panel. It would have been nice if the cover was removable I have had trouble scanning some textbooks that really aren''t that large. My experience with Brother customer service was pretty bad I had to literally wait 45 minutes on hold to speak to someone about the duplex issue.

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After much research and some looking and testing, decided to go for this Brother machine based on reviews and my other good experiences with Brother equipment. Bought this at Costco for somewhere around $375. Set up was a breeze -less than 30 minutes, and no problems with XP Pro. Networked it to my colleagues without problems. Works like a champ. Faxing is a breeze and sheet feeder is fast and well-designed. Copying is also slick. Printing has been fast with sharp text. Have not needed to scan anything yet. Toner save is a real plus for us b/c of the volume of faxes, copies, etc. that come through every day. Making command changes is a snap and pretty much intuitive. I thought the manual was very clearly written, and it''s easy to find command changes you want. The size of the thing is a little intimidating -I think it frightened away our other little inkjet, but I''m perfectly happy with it -in fact, I think we got a steal on this thing. If you''re looking for a sturdy, reliable, quick, 4-in-1 laser, take a look at this one. I think Brother has pretty much won me over -I still have HP''s, Epsons, and Canon printers around, but Brother is making some darn good quality stuff these days. I know there are a ton of 4-in-1 machines out there and prices are dropping quickly, but give this one a shot as you''re looking around. I''m sure glad I got me a Brother.

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I can''t say enough good things about this machine. I own a lot of devices (a LOT I''m a gadget freak) and most of them work fine, but few of them do as much and work as well as this one. It does everything I need copy, fax, scan, print almost perfectly. It''s super-fast at everything, and great quality. Ease-of-use is great, too.

The PC-based configuration tools are great for setting up the fax speed-dial list and the scanner macros.

Speaking of which the scanner macros rock! It''s great to be able to just drop a 5-page document in the feeder, choose "Scan to file" on the display, and a minute later have 5 files on your desktop with that whole document. Or "Scan to image" will scan it color and hi-res, and open it right in Photoshop in 1 step! Even handier are "Scan to email" and "Scan to OCR". Fantastic!

With the document feeder and duplexer, (standard on this specific model,) it seems like it can do anything the super-copiers at Kinko''s can do. And more... with the manual feeder tray and the straight-thru tray in the back, it does envelopes and thick stock like a champ!

Two small weak spots:

1. The scanner. It''s fast and produces razor-sharp images, but its default brightness/contrast settings tend to produce very washed-out images that lose highlights (detail in the lighter shades). Luckily you can use the PC-based config tools to tweak the defaults to compensate for that. After you do that in the right places, you should get great-quality copies and scans every time.

2. The PC software isn''t 100% intuitive, but it''s all simple and easy enough with just a little exploring.

...but both of those are non-issues for me now, so I''m extremely happy with this machine!

this thing is great. its my first laser printer. its my first fax machine. its my first sheet-fed scanner. previously i had been using my built-in fax modem, inkjet printer, and portable flatbed scanner (cannon 1650 which i actually really like). i use all sorts of laser printers, fax machines, and scanners at the office so i know what i was looking for. the brother mfc-8840d is great. i considered how much space i would need if i got a standalone sheet-fed scanner and laser printer and just reallly felt the combo in one unit was a good idea.

and i feel like i was proven (mostly) right with this machine. i''ve used it to laser-print (30%), to make copies(30%), to fax (10%), and to scan documents (30%).

copying works great. i find it a little confusing to figure out how to set it to copy from two one sided pages onto one (2->1) which i like to do to save paper and bulk. but making a straight-up photocopy of something is a piece of cake, fast and easy. i haven''t spent the time to figure out all the copying related features though; the control panel is a bit daunting with all those buttons.

faxing was no problem. i found this easier than copying. still a little too many buttons and options but to just send a regular fax is very straightforward. i''m not sure if i''ve ever tried to receive a fax, i think i tested it once just for kicks, but it seems like that would work just fine too. it has all sorts of options for use with an answering machine or a distinctive ring tone where it will answer the phone and wait to see if it is a fax before ringing through. these features are too complicated and not really useful unless your set-up matches their ideal set up perfectly. and they don''t work if your phone line has voicemail instead of an answering machine. but if you''ve got a dedicated fax line you''ll be fine.

printing: absolutely amazing. never had any sort of problem. i configured the low-toner mode, duplex mode, all sorts of stuff very easiy. this is where this machine REALLY shines. the updated print driver i got from the brother web site is an improvement over the one i got in the box, but they both worked fine. its fast (the first page is a bit slow as the printer needs to warm up for a bit i print only about twice or three times a week so i turned the power-saving mode to maximum and it is always snoozing when i wanna print) but every single page after the first flies out. i printed out 15 copies of a 2 pg document, collated, and it was lightning fast. granted it was only 30 pages total but once it got started i felt like it was already done. (i didn''t use the duplexer for this one, but i usually do and it works great.)

so in summary, printing is a 10, faxing and copying are 8''s, and scanning.... well lets talk about that for a minute.

scan quality is an 8. scan speed is a 7. scan software a 6 (i somehow got paperport 8 instead of 9, bummer.) but (here''s the big BUT) the scanner driver is a 2!

i use the fujitsu scansnap 5110EOx2 at the office. it is a marvel. put your document in, push the scan button, get back to your desk and the document is sitting in your scan directory in pdf format ready to go. i love it. i didn''t expect the brother mfc 8840d to be quite as good.

but i didn''t expect it to be so labor intensive either. the scan quality is fine. scanning speed is fine. adf is fine. paperport 8 is fine. i''ve used a few other software packages and they work fine as well. but for some dopey reason every time you scan something the scanner driver pops up a window asking for all kinds of information about the document to be scanned and how to handle it. and it defaults to all kinds of crazy settings! I always want to scan the same way, black and white, 200dpi, letter sized paper. the scanner driver defaults to full color, 300 dpi, a4 sized paper. every new scan job i do i have to click down to customize settings, change the paper size, change the resolution, and change the color settings. this makes the scanner almost useless for my purpose, which was to scan in all sorts of household and business paperwork and toss the originals in the basement. brother''s website blames this horrible driver on microsoft by claiming that MS requires this for the MS hardware compatibility logo! its in their faq! (...) i don''t know if thats true or not, but i''ve used plenty of scanners before and they ALL have let me choose some default settings and stick with them for one button or one click scanning. (...)

this is the one and only thing keeping me from giving this otherwise wonderful MFC a full 5 star review. and its so silly and easily fixed. hope they fix it!