Canon PIXMA MX700 Office All-On-One Inkjet Printer

• All-in-one printer can preview, scan, copy, print, and fax
• Color resolution up to 4800 x 1200 dpi
• Automatic Document Feeder holds up to 30 sheets of originals to easily copy, scan, or fax large documents
• It has 1.8-inch color LCD photo preview display
• It has 1-year limited warranty

I bought this to replace my HP Photosmart 2710 that died after 2 years. I had spent 400 bucks on the old HP and for only 200 this thing blows it out of the water. A few specifics:

SCAN: The scan quality is noticably better than the HP and I also like the software a lot more. Note that I am using this machine on a mac so I can''t speak to what the PC experience is like.

FAX: The fax is much smarter. I used to have to unplug the HP so it wouldn''t answer the phone when I didn''t want it to. The Canon can simply be told that phone should take priority and it won''t pick up... at least not before my answering machiine does on ring number 4. This is nice because it means I don''t have to mess with phone cords when I want to send a fax.

PRINT: Works great. Set up three different computers to access on my network, although it did take me a minute to realize I had to use the "Canon IJ Network" option in the drop down for my computer to see the printer. If I had bothered to read the instructions it probably would have been quicker. ;)

COPY: Also seems to work great. Similar to the HP here although the quality of the print seems a little better.

I''ll try to come back and add more detail after more use, but since there weren''t any reviews yet I thought I''d add one now.

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I got this to replace a HP unit that had constant problems. At first I was in love with the MX700. Excellent print quality, fast scanning, network compatible, etc. However, today I needed to do a large copying and scanning job and love turned to frustration. At first the copies were coming out at about 12-15 seconds per page. But after about 30 or so pages it slowed down to about a minute per page making copies. Then I needed to do a large scan job of about 100 pages. Similar experience. Pretty quick on first 30 or so pages then slowed down to 70 seconds per page while scanning black and white text at 300dpi. Display frequently says "Scanner warming up..." Come on now, I am in Southern California and not Siberia. It is 82 degrees right now in my home office! Unless I got a defective unit I plan to return this printer. I will call Canon when they open to see if the slow down and frequent "Warming up" messages is "normal" or a defect. If this is normal, I would not recommend this printer/scanner unless you only do small print and scan jobs with it. Based on the review from another unhappy user, it appears that it slows to a crawl when the memory is filled up. Too bad as other than for that this would be a great unit. I got impatient waiting for it to copy a larger document and turned the unit off and then back on. After doing that it was fast again making the copies until several pages later when again it when into slow mode. I''d like to go to bed now but it is going to take about 40 more minutes for it to scan the last 40 pages! Arrrgggg!

Update: 10/2008 After a year with this printer I really don''t like it. My 2 star rating stands. The printer uses a lot more ink than it appears it should. While my Macs printed fine right away over the network, the mediocre Canon software was never able to get my PC or PC laptop to print over the network. Today I spent 90+ minutes manually messing with my PC to finally get it to print over my my network. 30 years of PC experience came in handy but this is something the Canon installation software should have done automatically. Also with my Macs I get inconsistent connectivity to scan. I can always print over the network but it is hit and miss for the scanner to work over the network. I also had to disconnect my fax line from the MX700 as it will at random take over the phone line when you are in the middle of a conversation. Despite setting the fax function to manual mode, it has a bug that makes the MX700 listen in on all calls and take over a call if it thinks it hears a fax tone. VERY ANNOYING! Although I was not a fan of the HP unit this Canon replaced, I may go back to HP after my experience with this MX700. Oh, and as far as that pesky "Scanner warming up" message when the unit slows to a crawl, well the Canon tech person said that it literally means that the unit is warming up as in getting too hot. So it slows down to allow it to cool off. Seems like Canon really went low budget on this unit...

Update: 05/2009

I have been wishing this unit would die to replace it with something else. The print quality started to get poor the last couple months. I figured it was the print head. I print quite a bit. At about $100 it was not worth replacing the head. But I found one on sale for $50 and replaced the head and now the print quality is good again.

INK TANK TIP TO SAVE YOU CASH : I discovered that there is often still quite a bit of printing capacity left when you get the out of ink warning. When the unit stops working you can force it to continue to print. Simple hold down the Stop/Rest button until the out of ink message goes away and it starts to print. By doing this you can even refill the Canon cartridges. Simply use a syringe to drip ink on the fabric/sponge opening of the cartridge. Don''t over fill it! Let it sit a couple minutes and put it back in the printer. If the out of ink message appears, hold down the Stop/Reset button to clear the message. You can now print until the tank runs out of ink. NOTE: You can damage a print head by running it dry. I recommend that every so many days/weeks you put several more drops of ink in the cartridge so it never runs out of ink. Now you can spend pennies refilling instead of bucks replacing the ink tanks.

Update 03/2010

Replaced it with a Brother color laser unit DCP-9040CN. The Brother printer is at least 5 times faster printing when there are images on the pages. Overall at least twice as fast as the ink jet. Cost was under $300 for the DCP-9040CN. Will never go back to ink jet.

Read Best Reviews of Canon PIXMA MX700 Office All-On-One Inkjet Printer Here

Unfortunately, Canon tried to get too smart and hurt the product offering substanially in this case. They were afraid of hurting the MP830''s sales so they removed lots of good features from this product. The MX700 cannot print double-sided unless you manually flip pages...my $60 Canon printer can do this, but not this one. Also, they striped the memory down so much that it can''t actually use the full 30 page capacity of the Automatic Document feeder. Put in 15 pages and the memory is full...and the scanning slows down to 1 page per minute...which is very very slow.

Overall, I do not recommend this machine. Buy the old Canon MP830 or go with the new HP''s. I''ve used both and feel they are a lot better values.

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A real bargain. Basic copy and printing works great with my Apple PowerBooks and the newly released OS 10.5.

One of the major reasons I bought this model is it can be networked via Ethernet. The directions were very good if you read through them and don''t try to jump ahead like I do. If you follow all the steps you''ll be up and running in no time.

You''ll need a A>B USB cord (not included) to get the thing set up EVEN if you plan to only use the Ethernet connection. Once you''ve got it on your network you can unplug the USB cord and put it away.

Other points for Mac users as of 11/8/07:

1. In order to support color management in Mac OS X v.10.5, an upgraded version of Easy-PhotoPrint will be available. The current version of Easy-PhotoPrint EX does support Mac OS X v.10.5.

2. MP Navigator / MP Navigator EX are not compatible with Mac OS X v.10.5. Please check our Download Library for updated utilities/software. For now, please scan using ImageCapture or other TWAIN compatible application.

Picture print quality is very, very good. But, suggest you use Canon paper for the best results. I use their Photo Paper Plus Glossy 4" x 6".

The MX700 has no fax receive setting for "do not pickup". It instead has a "telephone priorty" for use on a line shared with normal voice use. Unfortunately this setting is unreliable and frequently the MX700 picks up the line either immeadiately, or after a minute or so into your call, or even if you change extensions which makes a little noise on the line. It then starts the fax tone in your ear. You can''t turn it off because it thinks it''s in the middle of getting a fax. Canon Tech support is no help. I''ve just had to unplug the phone line. The color printing and copying is not very good either with unsaturated color and non uniform color across the page. If I can find a way to dump my MX700, I''ll go back to HP.

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HP 933 Officejet Ink Cartridge Magenta Save 7% off

• Professional-quality color
• Water and fade-resistant ink
• Reliable results

Product is as advised. Excellent color quality. Prompt delivery. Packing, upon arrival is in excellent condition. Having purchased the product regularly--even in emergencies, arrival time has been always as promised.

Save 7% off

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HP 60 CD947FN#140 Ink Cartridge Save 23% off

• Individually factory sealed
• It''s a Genuine OEM Product
• One year factory warranty against product defect
• Recycling is made easy with HP Planet Partners Recycling Program

I bought a new HP printer to replace one that I had for over 4 years. The quality of the printer is exceptional for the price. I was curious, though, why the ink cartridges for this new printer were about half the cost of the ones for the old model, so it seemed like a really good deal. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that the new ink cartridges for this model last about half as long as the others. I agree with a lot of the recent press about the need for ink manufacturers to label their products with the quantity of ink rather than the number of pages they can print. It is impossible to compare prices and know for sure how much you are getting for your dollar. Nevertheless, I still recommend this printer. HP is a great company.

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I''d been saving the dual package in my wish list while I was checking around for the best price.

Well today I found it at wal-mart for $30.97 and in the package you get 2 black and 2 tri color packs. Can''t beat the deal. Amazon wants that much for just one black and 1 tri color. It pays to research and shop around. So glad I didn''t order it here, but I still find great values on other merchandise here. I love the printer, but the ink sure doesn''t last very long. Cheap printer that I ordered from amazon (and I like the printer), but expensive when you print as much as I do. Just wanted to pass the info for those that might need the #60 ink.

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Like everything HP ink related, these cartridges are overpriced. Runs out of ink after an insanely low number of pages.

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Best price I found for these ink cartridges. The HP 60 cartridges print good but do not last as long as the HP 60XL cartridges. Both are a good choice.

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I could not believe how few pages printed off of this set before it ran out -about 60 pages before the "low ink" warning and about 30 pages after. A total of 90 pages before colors ran out!

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Epson Erc09 Compatible Purple POS Ribbon (12 Pack)

• Epson ERC09 Compatible Purple POS Ribbon (12 Pack)

I purchased these ribbons in place of Epson brand ribbons and have not be pleased at all. I thought the Epson ribbons ran out too soon, two weeks, but these ribbons lasted maybe a week before they faded away. Sometimes namebrand is best after all.

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Brother Home and Office Labeler (PTD200) Save 50% off

• One-touch keys - quickly access fonts, symbols, frames and patterns
• Graphical Display - see how your label will look!
• 8 professional fonts for label variety
• Uses Laminated, "TZe" Tapes up to 12mm wide - great for indoor or outdoor use
• Easy-access memory, store up to 30 "Favorite" labels

I bought this item to help me reorganize my home filing cabinet and other documents. Having a printed-out label instead of a hand-written one helps a lot more than I thought it would. It''s great to be able to print them as I need them, instead of waiting until I have enough to do a batch job through my computer printer.

I chose this labeler instead of others because of the price and ease of use, and I''m happy with my purchase. Even though I only use one style, this labeler has a variety of fonts and styles in case I ever need them. There are also a bunch of pictograms and borders that can be used to decorate the labels.

It doesn''t take up much room in a drawer and its desk footprint is pretty small. It''s a bit too bulky to carry around on the job, so consider your needs before buying.

The only downsides I''ve come across are that it uses 6 AAA batteries, which can get expensive. There is an AC adapter available for it, although I think any 9V AC adapter from an electronics store should do the trick please correct me if I''m wrong on this.

Second, when printing labels, there seems to be a lot of extra room in the margins, which is wasteful considering how expensive the tapes can be. I''ve looked at a lot of labelers and they all seem to have this issue. The workaround I use is to set the margins as small as possible, then set it to "Chain Print" and do as many at the same time as I can.

I bought mine from an office supply store, and I see that it''s a bit cheaper to buy it through Amazon. The refill tapes are also a lot cheaper through Amazon. I''m thinking of buying a second one of these for my office.

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It is a nice unit but Brother is definitely schemed to make money off you in the long run. The labeler produce 1" margin minimum for everytime you print a label. This 1" is in addition to the so call "narrow" margin with your text. I call Brother and they indicate this was part of the design and mistated this description by using narrow margin. The 1" extra margin cannot be eliminated! If you print 12 labels, say bye bye to 12" of your blank label. If you have extra cash then buy more labels from brother. Even with my extra cash, I will not be wasteful. Boycott Brother labels maker and buy other brand instead like DYMO. I am returning my unit.

Read Best Reviews of Brother Home and Office Labeler (PTD200) Here

I purchased this to help label the cables and switches on my entertainment center. I had a few assorted 9-12 volt AC adapters that seemed compatible and thought I would try them with this unit instead of using batteries. The unit would not turn on with any of them, I am not sure if they just didn''t have a good connection or if they were no longer working. So, I purchased the 6 AAA batteries needed and set to work. The labels came out sharp and looked very nice. The font and styles are very easy to set and the unit functions quite well. I am very happy with the purchase and look forward to using it again.

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While the printer works fine and is priced right the overuse of tape is inexcusable. Basically it leaves a huge space before the printing and a huge space after this has 3 effects

1) more than doubles to triples your tape usage which costs more $$$ to use (also lines Mr Brother''s pockets)

2) means that you have to go back afterwards with scissors and cut the label so that it is not ridiculously large this is a big waste of time and means that if you are walking around making labels (as I do) you must carry scissors

3) If you believe that we live in a world of scarce resources, isn''t this just plain wasteful?

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I hope the people at Brother read this review.

Apparently, they think they have a smart system to sell more tape/ink by leaving a one inch space on both ends of each label. This creates a giant 2 inches of extra space on each label you print. You cannot change the margin to less than 1 inch.

Not only do you have to buy more labels over time, but it makes the label making process time consuming and cumbersome. You have to manually trim each label to get it to fit on a standard file folder or to suit other purposes. When you''re in the middle of a project, you''ll often need to make a lot of labels. This aspect defeats the purpose of getting a label maker to help you make labels efficiently.

The reality is that this wasteful business strategy is probably not profitable for Brother because I took the thing back to the store and got my money back. Now I won''t be buying ANY labels from Brother in the future. There are several other reviewers on this site that did the same.

Plus, these negative reviews are not helping Brother sell label makers to new customers.

I bought a Dymo LabelManager 280 instead and found the margin to be more reasonable.

The other thing that this label maker needs is an included AC adapter. The one they sell costs $20 which almost doubles the label maker''s cost. You''ll want an AC adapter because putting, "get batteries" on your task list every time you want to use the label maker for a project is also counter-productive. For me, I bought a label maker to increase productivity, not add more hassles.

If Brother would correct these two easy things, this would be a nice label maker.

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HP Laserjet M1319F Mfp Printer

• Multifunction laser printer that prints, faxes, copies, and scans
• Print and copy in Black-and-white at speeds up to 19 pages per minute
• Powerful 240 MHz Tensilica on-board processor with 32 MB of memory
• Scan documents in full-color as large as 8.5 x 14 inches
• 250-sheet paper tray, 10-sheet priority tray, and 30-sheet ADF

I had an HP Fax 1010 for my home office, and it was a trouper always worked great. But then HP had a recall due to potential fire hazard, and offered a rebate on several of their faxes and multifunction fax/printer/scanners.

So I went for the M1391F MFP. I don''t really care about printing I''ve got a color duplex laser printer for that. I wanted something that would fax, copy, and scan with an auto-feed.

Here''s what it''s good at:

1. Scanning letter-size pages (although their Mac software could use some work).

2. Copying letter-size pages.

3. Faxing letter-size pages to U.S. recipients.

And the document feed works great.

Here''s what it won''t do:

1. Scan legal-sized pages

2. Ring or make any kind of noise when it gets an incoming call, from a fax machine, cell phone, or land line. Even with all the volume settings turned to high.

3. Receive an incoming fax or phone call. At all. From anywhere.

The capper tonight was that I had to fax a time-sensitive document to New Zealand, and this piece of work thinks the NZ dial tone is a busy signal and won''t connect.

I tried to access HP''s live chat help desk, but nobody picked up in over a half-hour. So now I''m having an extended, hours-between-installments email correspondence with Nigel from Bangalore, and he''s asking me to verify the model number and what version of Windows is on the attached computer and am I using USB. Well, there is no computer attached, Nigel, I''m using this as a detached fax machine. But as someone who''s written printer drivers for your own company''s printers, and fax software for your competitors, I can assure you that if the attached computer is preventing this unit from receiving faxes or recognizing international dial tones, you need to look for another job.

I dug out the old 1010 and it sent the fax just fine.

This unit has a wonderful feature set. If only it worked. It''s useless to me, and I''m going to have to start looking for a fax machine that works.

When I was in grad school over 20 years ago, HP sold the best lab equipment money could buy. You knew if you got an HP gas chromatograph, or infrared spectrometer, or oscilloscope, you had the highest quality available on the planet.

Now... I''ve bought probably a dozen HP laser printers since 1990, and never even looked at another brand, with one costing over $10,000. But after this hunk of junk, I will certainly look at alternatives in the future.

Buy HP Laserjet M1319F Mfp Printer Now

This unit was purchased as a replacement for an HP1010 Fax Machine which was recalled by the factory, and an HP1010 Printer which was not recalled. Despite negative comments by others, I have found the M1319F Printer to be more than an acceptable replacement for both machines. It is in regular use and I have had no problems thus far. It has never failed to print, copy, or fax for me. I have found the print quality to be excellent.

The printed documentation that came with it was a little too spartan, but the manual on the installation CD is more than adequate (177 pages if you care to print it). As a bonus, the M1319F uses the same ink cartridge as the HP1010 Printer so for me, I only have to stock one cartridge for both.

Thus far, I have no regrets with my purchase, and I believe HP did me a favor by recalling the HP1010 fax which I did not like. The only reason I rate the M1319F 4 stars is because HP makes much heavier, more durable machines, albeit at a higher price.

Read Best Reviews of HP Laserjet M1319F Mfp Printer Here

The machine worked well for 3 weeks. Then it started to jam every now and then. It would try to grab too many sheets of paper from the tray. Changed paper and it happens less frequently.

Last week the fax section started to act up. It dials, hears the other machine answer then takes forever to send even the first page. Oddly, sometimes it will send multiple pages but doesn''t indicate that on the display. I have confirmed that the receiving fax machines were working fine. I send faxes to these other machines on a regular basis and now I can not. The light just flashes away and my phone line is tied up forever.

HP LaserJet M1319f MFP Multifunction ( fax / copier / printer / scanner ) B/W laser copying (up to): 18 ppm printing (up to): 18 ppm 280 sheets 33.6 Kbps Hi-Speed USB

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It definitely affects my confidence in HP printers. I used many HP printers in the past. This is the first one gave me so many problems. Give you one example: after installation I found it can only print portrait not landscape. After three sessions with HP technical persons, all together about 6 hours, it was finally fixed without knowing why. I am not going to list all the other problems. Some of them are minor. It is finally working at the moment. But I am worried about other surprises could hit me anytime.

Nevertheless, my experience with HP service personnel were pretty good. They were as patient as I was during the conference sessions. One of their supervisor or manage call me afterwards, asking if there is any other problems need help or want to exchange a new one. I told him if more problems occurs I probably would like to change to a new model, perhaps a more expensive and better one. I am still not very sure I should keep it.

Chung Ting, Los Altos Hills, CA

I bought this printer new for $215 from CompuBiz and I was disappointed with the scanning software that came with it. I bought it because of the low price per page to print and also because I like to scan documents into PDF often. When I tried the scanning software included, Readiris Pro 11, I was thoroughly disappointed. I have since learned that I can scan directly from my Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard and it works awesome. I immediately un-installed the Readiris Pro 11 that came with the printer and I am now a very happy customer. I don''t know why HP would partner with such a bad software provider. I therefore recommend this printer, but only if you are going to use Adobe Acrobat for the scanning software. Enjoy.

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Brother TN-115M High Yield Magenta Toner Cartridge Save 34% off

• Yields approx. 4,000 pages @ 5% coverage on letter size paper
• Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging

These toners are easy to install. One thing though, after the first warning of these toners being low I take them out and check the little round window to see if there is still toner. If there is, I wind back the gear with a peg on it back to its original position. I recently did this with all three colors as it was reported they were going low. After winding back the gears, the printer performed perfectly for another month with a moderate amount of color printing. Finally, the low toner warnings went off again and since there appeared no more toner, I installed new ones. I have a closet full of these consumables and look forward to many great years printing with these printers. (We have 6 of them)

*EDIT 12/20/10*

We''ve 3 more of these 9840cdw printers now. Here is something important you should know along with the above information:

Hidden Menus for Brother 9840cdw

**Toner Reset Menu Open front door of printer. Press the ''clear'' button once or twice. There are two capacities for each color. It will start counting down from whichever you choose.

**Everything Else Reset Menu Press ''3'' and ''9'' at the same time. Hidden reset menu will appear. Select item, select reset.

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This is the OEM High Yield toner for some Brother printers. Do not buy refurbished or re-filled toners from other sources. Don''t be tempted to save a few dollars with these inferior toners. Print quality and toner life are not the same, not to mention possible printer damage. Don''t be too quick to replace your OEM toners when the printer tells you to. These toners use a timing wheel that count down based on the number of pages printed, not the amount of toner left in the cartridge. There are many articles on the web on how to reset the cartridges. Do a google search on Brother Toner Reset to find an article for your printer.

Read Best Reviews of Brother TN-115M High Yield Magenta Toner Cartridge Here

I bought this cartridge to replace the exact same item purchased just 6 months and 3400+ copies ago (both from Amazon), because that exact same item decided to leak all over the inside of my printer, and was on all the rollers of all the other colors. All my pages had magenta dots and big splotches along the right margin. I see other reviewers with the same problem with this magenta cartridge. I''ve purchased all the colors from Amazon more than once with no problems, and they seem to be genuine Brother cartridges, so I''m not sure what the problem is with this magenta cartridge. New one seems to be working fine one week later, but I guess we''ll see with time.

**Update** one month after using the new magenta cartridge it too IS LEAKING ALL OVER THE INSIDE OF MY PRINTER. No recourse with Amazon as the return window has just passed customer service could not guarantee a full refund. What a rip off. Order these from another vendor.

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The yield claimed by brother is contrary to my experience with my printer.

I''m getting a bit less than half the life claimed per toner cartridge by Brother.

Before you buy a brother printer, calculate the ink cost. My estimate is about 20 cents per page to use this printer just for ink when doing color, about 6 cents when doing black and white.

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The cartridge appeared to be OK at first. But after a couple of month''s use, the cartridge begin to make tiny rain drop type of stains on the print. So I took the tray out and then each cartridge. As soon as I took this one out, the toner powder spilled everywhere. All other cartridges are genuine Brother. I did not even know where the source of leak was. It is not the first time I got bitten by a "compatible" toner. But I thought merchants on Amazon are more honest. I was wrong. The merchant is "toner 100".

Amazon should also be blamed for part of the problem. They put all the knockouts (so-called OEM) and genuine toners under the same item and call it "compatible". So some may be lucky and get genuine replacement parts and others get cheap knockouts and in the end it just confuses customers.

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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.

Read Best Reviews of Brother MFC-8840D Laser Multifunction Here

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!

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Brother HL-5040 Laser Printer

• 2,400 x 600 dpi resolution with HQ1200 technology
• Up to 17 pages per minute print speed
• 8 MB memory, upgradeable to 136 MB; 250-sheet universal paper cassette
• Supports optional 10BaseT external Ethernet print server
• USB 2.0 and parallel interfaces; PC and Mac compatible

I purchased my Brother HL-5040 from Amazon.com for $190.00 delivered, including the USB 2.0 cable, and the TN-530 3,000 page "starter" toner cartridge and the DR-500 drum rated for 20,000 pages. I am an English professor and generally use it for printing out my papers (15 to 30 pages) and drafts of books (up to 500 pages), and master copies of handouts and exams and the like for my classes (I have an HP DeskJet for color printing). The Brother HL-5040 printer has a nice compact footprint: there is no hideous projecting tray or paper catcher as with several of the competing models, and the output area on top holds fifty or more printed pages without spilling them. The printer is also low enough at "9.9 inches" to fit under a foot-high shelf in my work room (so it doesn''t take up the valuable real-estate on the top shelf) The 12 point text (which is the standard in my field) is very sharp, and the old (circa 1880s) political cartoon images I''ve reproduced from scanned photocopies of newspapers look great: I''ve no banding or dark areas.

Having read the other reviews, I want to share some of my thoughts that may shed light on the differing views regarding the Brother printers. This printer replaces a Brother HL-1240 model I''ve owned for over two years. I replaced that printer (it was given to my sister) because its drum was failing, after making approximately 12,000 copies. Until the drum began to fail, I never had a single problem with the printer: it never ever jammed even once (my previous laser printer, an Epson 1400, jammed all the time). For $110 I could have replaced the drum unit (as my sister did), but for $190 I upgraded to the HL-5040. So, while I''ve seen the critiques of the Brother printers because of their drums, and I have in fact elected to replace my HL-1240, I still don''t think the harsh criticisms directed at Brother for this situation are fair.

Here''s what I think: it is not likely that very many $200 laser printers will ever print out 100,000 or even 60,000 high quality copies over their lifetimes. I say this in part because I suspect the paper transport mechanisms in all the printers in the personal use category are likely to be at least somewhat degraded by the time the printer approaches that number of copies, and once that happens--as anyone who''s ever tried to nurse an aging photocopier knows--the point of ever diminishing returns has been reached. And I say this also because many, if not most, small office and home users like me are unlikely to use a $200 printer often enough to generate 60k to 100k copies in less than five years. At my rate of use, I will have to own my new printer for 8 years to reach the upper number. Given the rate of technological change, as good as it now is, I seriously doubt that I''ll want to have this printer for that long.

That said, this time I intend to keep the printer long enough to replace the drum unit at least twice, and, assuming I get the same 12,000 copies out of each drum, that puts me in the 36,000 copies range. When I crunch the numbers (the drums presently cost $140.00 and the 6,500 page toner cartridges run $75), my cost per copy for the first 16,000 estimated copies (using the included DR-500 drum and the TN-530, and purchasing 2 TN-560 toner cartridges), works out to 2.1 cents per page. Of course, as we all know, the estimated yields are highly inflated. Assuming I get 36,000 copies out of the 3 drums (including the one included with the printer) and 5,000 copies from the TN-560 toner cartridges, plus 2,000 to 2,500 from the included TN-530, I''d need to buy 7 TN-560s to get to that number. This would add up to a $995.00 total investment and would mean my actual per copy cost would be approximately 2.8 cents over the "life" of the printer.

This is not the low 1.3 cents per copy figure I''ve seen in one magazine review, but once all the inflated estimates are cut down to size, I suspect it is quite competitive with what the other companies can offer.

Buy Brother HL-5040 Laser Printer Now

I have been staring at the Brother model HL 1440 for quite some time. It was Consumer Reports number one pick. I decided to go with the HL-5040 because of the additional ram and extra fonts. When I read the owners manual it showed me that a lot of other features are built in as well. I like the fact that it prints a page so fast, and only costs 2 cents per page. My Lexmark X83 multifunction does a nice job in color but has a single page print cost of 6 cents to $1.50 when printing a full-page photograph. Now I think nothing of whipping out a 20-page document. The speed is another practical issue. At a max of 17ppm the paper is coming out so fast that one page is settling in the print tray, while another one is coming out right on top of it

To be critical of the unit is to cite the comments in C Reports, and ZD Net reviews as to the medium quality results when printing graphics. I think that is due in part to the print per page cost being the lowest out of all of the printers. The HL1440 was rated a little higher in graphics, but the same in text. I think black and white photos mixed into an MS Publisher document look fine for black and white. The laser gives you an acceptable printed photo for a few cents. Make up a single 4-page flyer, and make a hundred copies, and you can see that the laser printer could pay for itself in a single printing next to an inkjet. Makes you want to market your tail off with the economy of the laser.

I networked the house, and put the brother HL-5040 in my home office, and now have the option of printing from any one of the machines.

It comes with 8 Meg of ram built in, that is permanently installed, and you have one expansion slot for a single added ram chip. I went into Boogle.com and found a supplier with a 128 Meg ram chip that is generic. The 128 was only thirty-six dollars with free shipping. The printer will work fine with the 8 Meg it comes with, but if you send it a 50-page PDF file, the extra ram is a good idea to help prevent bottlenecks.

I love the fact that it has a 250-sheet paper tray. The additional 250-sheet tray for a total of 500 is an option.

The 5040 was listed in Consumer Reports as being the loudest of the laser printers, but I find it to be very quiet.

The big bonus is that with a laser printer your ink never dries out. It is a powder to start with. My friend bought an NEC in the mid 80''s and did very little printing, and just last year his cartridge ran out. The problem with my Lexmark inkjet is that the darn cartridges wear out so fast even if you don''t use them, and they are expensive.

You do not want to move this machine without removing the drum-toner cartridge first. Brother has big warning messages on the toner bag, stating you can do irreparable harm if you don''t remove it first. I imagine that the toner can spill into the workings of the printer and do come damage. Some people commenting on streaking may have done just that. If you move it into the next room, treat it like nitroglycerine, or remove the cartridge first.

The bottom line is the price. (...)the reduction in price to start with, this printer is a super buy. I noticed that Brother has a 5140 now to replace this one. It has the same results on graphics, has the same print resolution, and only a couple of pages per minute improvement on the print speed. I saved the extra money by buying the 5040 and put some of that savings, into the 128 Meg memory expansion chip, and still had some money left over. The 5140 does come with 16 Megs instead of 8 like the 5040.

Bubble jets and inkjets will give you a slightly darker and larger text. The laser is smooth, and truly fuzz free, even under a microscope. I find it easier on the eyes to read. I am keeping my Lexmarks X83s for when I want to print photographs, and when I want to print something out right where I am, instead of going into the office.

I''m not into yeah this, and boo that. I think if I had to have just one printer, it would be a full featured bubble-ink jet, so I could do color too. Adding a laser to your arsenal is the ultimate conclusion. With the price of these Brothers, and the high ratings, (...), makes them a must have. Highly recommended.

Read Best Reviews of Brother HL-5040 Laser Printer Here

I work as an independent paralegal, doing research and preparing documents to file with the Courts. I purchased this unit about 6 weeks ago because my inkjet printer was too slow and too expensive for big projects.

Like the other inexpensive Brother laser printers, this one is a very good value, and has features of more expensive printers. It does have some cheap plastic parts, but this is to be expected in this price range. Other inexpensive laser printers look feel cheap in comparison.

On the good side, the printer has the 250 page paper drawer located under the printer, where it belongs. This way, you don''t have an unsightly flop [sic] of paper on the desk in front of you. It also has a front door for feeding single sheets so you don''t have to open the drawer and replace the paper, reset the paper guides, and so forth, simply to print a single envelope. It also pops printed paper out of the top into a proper paper recepticle, or you can open the door at the back of the printer and let the paper feed straight through.

The printer is fast, at 17 pages per minute, and warms up fairly quickly so you don''t have to wait too long for it to start. Print quality is good, and small fonts are legible with no bleeding. The grayscale for graphics is good, with nice even printing and little graininess.

The biggest problem I have with this printer is that the drum and toner cartridge are replaced separately. This is not as much a problem as an annoyance. The printer drum has to be changed every 20,000 copies or so, and costs almost as much as the printer itself. The toner is inexpensive relative to other printers, but the drum is around $100. Despite having this unusual expense every four or five toner cartridges, the per page cost is still only about 1.5 cents per copy. This is comparable to other laser printers, and is significantly cheaper than inkjet printers. In comparison to inkjet printers, this laser will pay for itself in the first 5,000 to 10,000 copies.

For a home or small office, this printer gives a lot of bang for the buck. Given the high quality of the black and white print, the low per page cost, and the speed, this printer is a steal.

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I read most of the reviews on the Brother HL 5040 and there were a few criticisms that concerned me. People wrote that it was loud and handled envelopes poorly. I decided to take my chances since the printer was only $150 with no tax and shipping included. In its defense, I must say that my printer does a great job printing envelopes. I ended up printing out wedding invitations and envelopes. It printed the outer envelopes, inner envelopes, and RSVP envelopes as well as the card stock for the invitation cards, maps, and RSVP cards for 120 invitations!

It was easy to feed them through the manual feeder. I had to do it one at a time, but if you''re on a budget, it beats paying for it to be professionally done (and hopefully, I''ll only have to do it once in my life). It''s also a very speedy printer and so manually feeding the hungry Brother was relatively painless. There was a tendency for envelopes to curl when they came out. It wasn''t a problem after they had been stuffed. I believe that curling problems would happen with any laser printer since the paper gets heated up while being run through the feeders. The graphics for my maps were sharp in the "HQ 1200" mode and I did not have to purchase extra memory for it. Text was sharp in all modes. Paper would jam when I was dumb enough to try to feed paper, cards, or envelopes through the manual feeder that weren''t completely flat. Unjamming was a piece of cake. I''ve also not had a problem with it being too loud. I don''t keep it on all the time and I don''t print while someone is trying to sleep. I''ve never experienced any high-pitched squeal that others have written about.

The only criticism that I do agree with is that it takes a large amount of energy to operate. When I print, the lights start to dim and I turn off other energy guzzling appliances. But if you''re the type that likes to blow-dry your hair with the microwave on while printing on a laser printer all at the same time, you might want to consider... a gas-powered microwave!... or... the "wet hair look!"

To sum it all up, my printer works wonderfully and I was pleased that it did not exhibit some of the nasty things some of the reviews had mentioned. Good luck!

I''ve been struggling to keep my Apple Laserwriter 16/600 running with linux for several years. It''s been fantastic. But after my last upgrade to SuSE 8.2, I ran into several problems getting the drivers installed and configured. So, I finally decided it was time to get a new printer. I chose this printer because it is well supported under linux, prints very fast at 17 pages per minute, has a fast first print time (under 10 seconds) and unlike the HL-1440 comes with 8MB of memory for printing larger files. It''s also PCL6 compatible so it will work with just about any operating system. I had this printer out of the box, plugged in, configured and printing a PDF file in less then 20 minutes. It''s also dead silent when not printing.

The only problems I''ve noticed is that fields of solid black appear to have nearly invisible faint gray lines, and text could be printed a bit darker. But this could be due to the newness of the printer, toner saver settings, etc.

If you''re looking for a great laser printer for a home linux system seriously consider this one. ...

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Ion ISC12 Document Scanner Save 23% off

• Handheld Scanner For Books, Papers, Photos &
• Other Documents
• High-Resolution, Color Scanning In Jpeg Format

With Amazon''s stellar return policy I decided "what the heck," and ordered the copycat scanner. I think all hand held scanners basically have the same plus and minus attributes.

Pros:

light

easy to use

even though the product description says the sd card isn''t included, I not only had the mini sd card that fits the scanner but an sd adapter card to be able to use it on my computer in the package, that was, as one of the previous reviewers said, an unexpected surprise:)

comes with a cloth sheath so you can carry it to the library or wherever or keep the dust off at home.

There is editing software, or, since it is saved as a jpeg it can be edited by your own software, from some super fancy 500 program to freeware like Gimp. The image can also be edited in programs like word using OCR though I haven''t played with that feature yet.

*****************

Obviously flat picture would be the easiest to scan. Figuring out how to get a book to lay flat enough, keeping your hand steady and the scanner straight takes some practice. If the scanner goes crooked the picture will be crooked. I don''t consider this a negative unless you consider getting a piano and not being gershwin the first time or several times you try to play:) this is just a matter of practice and wiggling the book around and lining up the arrows that are on the sides of the scanner and realizing that is how much will be scanned, plus the scanning light is in the middle so you have to remember to start above where you want to scan and follow through all the way down.

For books I have found using the non skid kitchen mats that go under cutting boards also keeps it fairly steady so I can concentrate on using both hands to keep the scanner straight and not worry about the book sliding around.

However, in just a few days I can see how much my scans have improved. Don''t be afraid to scan sideways either if that makes the fit easier, you can always turn a sideways picture straight with the software. Even go from the bottom up, which has helped on some of the pages I''ve tried to scan.

The clarity and quality of scans I''m getting make me happy. I have a ton of cookbooks and I want to scan them, upload them to Living Cookbook 2011 and make some room in my overcrowded house. This scanner is going to be a perfect help.

Also, because it is light, it could be easily carried to the library and copy pages from book that can''t be checked out, it would be perfect for students, say you need to borrow someone''s notes, you could literally scan them in a few minutes, hand the notes back, the notes are in the sd card, and bring them home to upload.

The only negative is the spines of the books have to be pretty flat and I could see damage, on the other hand, copiers I have used also require the book to be squished down.

The scanner comes with software, usb cables, batteries, a carrying case, a white cardboard to calibrate, easy to read instructions (and let me tell you, easy to read from me means something, I am so far from a tech wizard it''s sad, and even I could understand this)

You can be set up and happily scanning in minutes. Proficient in a few days.

Buy Ion ISC12 Document Scanner Now

I have now bought three of these scanners. I bought them for a specific purpose; to scan newspaper cuttings. I have collected newspaper cuttings for years which require, cutting them out and then scanning them. This two stage process is not ideal. Firstly it leaves the newspaper full of holes and no-one else can read the paper. Secondly the separate scanning process is time consuming and more often than not is not done. This hand scanner was a wonderful solution to newspaper cuttings. Scan while you read and process at the same time! The problem is that all three scanners stopped working. The first after 1000 pages, the second after 300 pages and the last after 444 scans. In all three cases the failure start the same way. Firstly when you push the button after making a scan the green light does not go off. If you keep your finger on the button then the scanner is switched off at this stage the scanner can still be used. The next phase the scanner ''freezes'' with the screen showiing "8888" and that is the end of the scanner! I have reformatted the SD disc but it makes a no difference. The scanner is a great idea all that is now needed it to get it to work.

Read Best Reviews of Ion ISC12 Document Scanner Here

After a few scans, you get the twist. Perfect if you need a portable scanner or you need to scan something that doesn''t fit in a fixed scanner. Came with a sd card (I did not expect that and I appreciated it)

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This is my first hand-held scanner, so it has been a learning experience.

As other reviewers have said about the hand-held scanners, they work best if what you want to scan can be laid flat.

I have found that if I start at the binding edge (if that is the correct term) of a book and scan outward, across the page, it will give a fairly readable image.

The only problem that I have (so far) is that the "NimoDoc Lite" software that came with the scanner seems to lose the last scan. I will admit that I have been too lazy to ask the company about this. I just make an extra scan, which works for what I have been doing.

Save 23% off

So, I love this scanner...it''s easy to use, scans quickly and clearly, and you can take it and use it anywhere. I would have given this five stars if not for one problem: the software is NOT Mac-compatible. What a disappointment. So, I can load the scanned images onto my Mac, but I can''t cut and paste anything into a Word doc or anything. I guess I could pull out my old PC, but I had hoped never to have to use that again...

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Ilford Paper, Smooth Pearl, 17 X 22, 50 Sht Save 14% off

• Smooth glossy surface
• Instant dry porous surface
• Superb photographic image quality and consistency
• Heavyweight look and feel of a real photograph
• Excellent compatibility with all good quality pigment and dye based inkjet printers

I know that many of today''s digital photographers are using a variety of paper/canvas/gilcee products, but I find that this product provides the type of print that I prefer. Mostly I shoot 4X5 Transparencies and while trying other products and finishes I find myself coming back to Ilford for paper that suits my needs and style. I''m selling these prints as Fine Art while using all Archival products in mounting, matting, etc.

Buy Ilford Paper, Smooth Pearl, 17 X 22, 50 Sht Now

I use both an Epson R1800 and a Stylus Pro 4800 and the prints come out looking beautiful! Colors are accurate and rich and the surface catches light just right. Can''t go wrong using this product.

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50 Receipt Paper Rolls for First Data FD400 and Nurit 8000 Credit Card Terminals

• 50 rolls of thermal receipt paper for the First Data FD400 and Nurit 8000 credit card terminals
• 2-1/4 inches wide
• 1-1/2 inches in diameter
• 48 gr basis weight
• 1/2 inch diameter core hole

The rolls did not fit the First Data FD400. I spoke with customer service, and they offered me $4 to keep them. Less that satisfactory!!

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Paper rolls did not fit. Had to remove about half of the roll to make it fit the machine. (Nurit 8000)

Read Best Reviews of 50 Receipt Paper Rolls for First Data FD400 and Nurit 8000 Credit Card Terminals Here

I was having difficulty finding the correct size rolls for our credit card terminal in local office supply stores. I found these and they are the perfect size and fit for our machine.

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Southworth Exceptional Resume Paper (R14CF)

• Nothing equals the rich texture of Southworth''s 100% Cotton paper
• Watermarked and security date coded
• Remember to use Southworth 100% Cotton Envelopes and Resume Folders to match your resume papers
• Great for Resumes, professional looking

I bought this paper to print a copy of my PhD dissertation. It is very high-quality paper and it looks like it will last for a long time :) Highly recommended for theses and dissertation printing as well as for resumes.

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Like one of the other reviewers, bought this paper for my Ph.D. dissertation. Ordered a total of three boxes. The paper quality is nice and no complaints with the look of the paper. Did think the paper would feel thicker, but as it is standard 24 lb paper, can''t complain. The paper is watermarked on each sheet in a different spot (some sheets on the top, some in the middle, some at the bottom), which I believe is typical of such paper. I have to disagree with the other reviewer as the watermark doesn''t look bad in the least. It is apparent, but not overwhelming and the printer ink covers these areas just fine. The watermark is definitely not 1/4 of the page, more like 1/8 of the page. The packaging is different from the image displayed on Amazon, so maybe Southworth changed their product recently for the better. While waiting for the paper to arrive, I learned my dissertation needed to be printed on acid-free paper and was contemplating returning the product. But was pleasantly surprised to find the back of the package lists this paper as acid and lignin free for archival quality :) I took one star off because one of the three boxes arrived damaged with the upper left hand corner of the paper squashed and unusable for printing. Order the paper early if you have a deadline as you may need to replace!

Read Best Reviews of Southworth Exceptional Resume Paper (R14CF) Here

At first I thought it was too thin, but as soon as I was able to compare it with a a regular printing paper, I realized it was just perfect. It feels great...

I didn''t like the ivory color, so decided to take the white.

The watermark is not big at all and you can barely see it before printing on the page or after.

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Resume paper is expensive and to be, this was worth the money.

I''m a college student in business school and this paper was enough to get me multiple internship offers from top companies because when it comes down to it:

1) Recruiters don''t care about the feeling of the paper, the fact that it is resume paper is good enough

2) Recruiters don''t care about the watermark, the fact that it is resume paper is good enough

For a poor college student, this was worthy investment.

keep exceptional quality paper and envelopes on hand for special occasions but I have found myself using this paper to write too friends. It is classy and adds a personal touch.

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HP ScanJet 5590 Digital FlatBed Scanner Save 39% off

• Up to 2,400 dpi optical resolution
• 48-bit color depth, 256 levels of grayscale
• 5-button front panel for everyday tasks
• Transparent material adapter
• Hi-Speed USB interface, PC and Mac compatible

I have been looking for a reasonably priced duplex ADF scanner for some time now, I want to scan a file cabinet of documents and shred the originals. I thought this HP was it, it isn''t. I spent several hours over a few days giving this guy a workout. I scanned stacks of bank statements (30-35 pages at a time) (8.5 x 11) and mortgage documents (8.5 x 14) both single sided and double sided. Several times the ADF jammed (roller slipped and eventually gave up) and I had to man handle the stuck page out, I could find no way to release its grasp of the paper. These were not glossy pages, just typical bank statements. Other times one or two pages of a stack of 35 would scan in only a third of the page. It cannot scan duplex pages longer then 12 inches, I don''t know why. Duplex scanning takes more then twice as long as simplex because it has only a single scanner and must flip the page (I think it does this flipping twice). The software wasn''t smart enough to handle scanning mix length pages, if I had a document (for example: mortgage papers) with a mix of letter and legal size pages I had to tell the software that all the pages were 14 inches long otherwise it truncated the legal size to 11 inches. It all boils down to a lack of trust for me. Before I go shredding originals of these documents I need to be able to trust that I have good electronic copies and this scanner/software didn''t establish that trust.

Buy HP ScanJet 5590 Digital FlatBed Scanner Now

Sorry for the juvenile review title, but there''s really no other way to put into words the frustration that I have experienced from trying to work with this stupid thing.

The interface is cumbersome and largely unnecessary. I bought it because, at the time, it was just about the only reasonably-priced multi document feeding scanner I could find. I don''t need this multi document feed for office work, like most people; I need it for animation. If you''re at all familiar with the process of animation, it requires that MANY MANY MANY pictures be used, and I was looking forward to cutting down on my work time by having the scanner do most of my paper loading for me. Oh, foolish little me!

Not only does the paper jam 60% of the time, but the scanner always wants to scan it into the stupid software that came bundled with the scanner. So even if I''m trying to scan an image directly into Adobe Photoshop, I first have to go through the "HP Gallery" or whatever, copy the picture, and bring it in that way. I set it so that it automatically scans into Photoshop, but when I turn off my computer, it forgets its new instructions and goes back to uploading everything in the HP Gallery. It eats up time, desktop space, and PATIENCE.

Oh yes, and the TWAIN drivers that it supposedly comes with won''t work on my Macintosh. Sure, it specifies that NOW, but back then when I was doing tireless research on the product, it didn''t tell me that you can only get the drivers on a PC, so I basically wasted $500.00 on a piece of machinery that isn''t compatible with my platform, my animation program, nor my sanity.

HP wasn''t much help; they advised me to download some free software from their site that would install the TWAIN drivers that I''d need to work with my animation program, even though the software was originally for a digital camera and not a scanner. "It should still work, even though it''s not technically for that hardware," says the guy. Well, no, quite frankly. It does not, in fact, work. All that it does now is confuse my scanner for a digital camera and refuse to upload anything into Photoshop or any other program for some bizarre reason. In uploading the digital camera software, by the way, it completely wiped the existence of the scanning software that I already had on my computer so that I had to manually upload it again.

I can''t wait to sell this thing and get at least a portion of my money back. This thing is such a headache, please don''t waste your time with it.

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Had to chime in on this one. We got the scanner about four months ago to replace a discount-bin flatbed Canon. It''s true that the thing occasionally locks up on me and requires a cord-pull. (Anybody else miss ''off'' switches?) The ADF also spazzes on some pages no rhyme or reason to it, just about 00.5% of the docs I scan it can''t grip or something.

The good news is that for what I do (making PDFs from official letters for business records)it works great. The front panel buttons can be set up to output to a PDF without any additional input or software interference I just tap in how many pages, press the ''scan document'' button I''ve got tweaked, and it doesn''t bother me until it needs a save name for the PDF.

I do a mix of Letter and Legal, which could be a headache the scanner can''t do duplex Legal, or Letter and Legal in the same job. However, the workaround is easy. After each scan job it asks if I need to scan more pages into the document. I scan the first set, then click more and scan the next. The ADF recognises which type it''s dealing with, so there''s no reconfiguring going between stacks of Letter and stacks of Legal.

Would I recommend this scanner? Not for everybody. It''s not optimised ''out-of-the-box'', and it''s twitchy enough that you kind of have to know your way around to keep it running. I''m a pretty competent tech, and I like it just fine, but I don''t know if Grandma is going to put up with its'' shenanigans. This would be less of an issue if the HP tech support were helpful, but I haven''t been able to get a straight answer out of them regarding my issues, and I speak the lingo.

This is a great scanner, but it is not User Friendly.

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REVISED 11/12. We have retired this scanner. Physically, it still works but the HP software (Windows Vista) is a nightmare. The interface frequently hangs; there have been firewall issues; we have found it necessary to uninstall and reinstall the entire software package more than once. If you absolutely need an automatic or double sided scanner, then this may be one of the few ways to go. If a one page at a time scanner is satisfactory, then there are clearly better alternatives.

Rating should probably be revised down to 2* because of the poor software.

Not recommended.

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Windows XP. SP2. Single Gateway Profile computer. MS Office. Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional. USB Connected.

Mostly used for scanning documents directly into *.PDF files WITHOUT using the OCR feature.

We bought this scanner a few months ago to replace a 7 year old HP Scanner, also with a document feeder.

The HP Scanjet 5590 is not something you can expect to work right out of the box; it isn''t as plug-and-play as we would have liked.

The included software is extensive and takes a long time to load (and to repair!). It may also require some tweaks to work at all, one of which we got from HP on the telephone and another (to improve scans into PDF) we found on their web site.

Once working, the software is still not "intuitive". There are many complexities to scanning and the HP software has a significant learning curve.

The scanner warms up quickly; the document feeder is fast and reasonably reliable but can jam if it doesn''t like the paper fed through it.

The double sided scan works but again, the paper must be be good quality.

We have had no difficulty scanning a dozen or more pages either through the document feeder or indivual scan into a single PDF file. We have also scanned single photos into *.jpg with good results. We have not scanned slides or negatives.

We only use the software controls and can''t comment on the button features.

We have not yet had to partially disassemble and manually clean the document feeder and have no comment on this feature either.

In summery: If you have some computer experience, especially with scanning and you have time to sort out the glitches, you can probably make the 5590 work for you and get good results. If you are a relative novice, this may not be the right place to start.

Add: 09/08. We purchased a new computer running on VISTA (former had XP) and attached the scanner. A software download was required. The unit installed easily and worked faster and with fewer glitches than previously.

UPDATE early 2010. We began to have software issues when the computer kept saying that certain files were unavavilable.

The solution (per HP) is to download the proper software, move it to a SEPARTATE FOLDER, click to open and EXPAND the files and then do the installation.

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I use this scanner at work, even though I''ve tried to convince them not to order these. This scanner and the HP 550 below it are horrible. The software that comes with it takes up a ton of memory usage and is just generally bad. The OCR reader software and scanner are really poor and it is almost easier to just re-type documents yourself. Another issues is that the scanner is constantly being removed from the scanner list in Windows. We use about 6 of these scanners at work, and as the IT guy, I constantly have people calling me and telling me that Windows says they have no scanner installed. I have to "reinstall" them by removing the USb cable and plugging it back in so Windows will recognize it. Additionally, the document feeder james and sucks up multiple pages constantly.

The biggest problem however is that this scanner DOES NOT WORK with Adobe Acrobat. The software is incompatible. You can scan 15 pages of a document, but the software will only return the first page to Acrobat. You cannot do multiple page scans with Acrobat unless you do each page separately. If you visit the HP help forum you''ll see this is a common problem with several of their scanners, and has been for over two years yet it still hasn''t been fixed. The only way around this problem is to install a third party driver.

I would stay away from this unless you can find it really cheaply.

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