Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Despite all the models on the market, and the rather cheap prices for All in ones, it seems to be impossible to find one unit that does everything well. It's sort of like finding a mate, you just might have to settle on some things.
I previously had the HP 7310 all in one, which I previously reviewed on here, but a lightning storm fried the fax board in it. The rest of the unit still worked, but I didn't want to get a separate fax machine. I called HP's customers service, and all they wanted to do was sell me a new expensive unit, at what they told me was a discount price. It was actually much cheaper elsewhere online.
This would be a five star unit if not for some major flaws. I chose this unit mainly because it has an answering machine and cordless phone built in. I also liked the glossy black look of the unit.
The unit has a very nice 4.3 lcd touchscreen which works quite well. Its responsive, has good color and easy to use. It tilts up and down, but this is largely unnecessary. The menus however, are a bit tricky to use, and it takes some playing with it to find out where all your settings and adjustments are located. Also when using the screen to scroll answering machine messages, I found it somewhat difficult to scroll back to listen to a previous message. It keeps taking you back to the beginning of the message you are listening too. It's actually easier to scroll forward and go back around, if you don't have many message saved.
The buttons on the front are raised and are the perfect size. They have good tactile feel and they allow you to easily change your functions, fax, copy, scan or photo capture.
There are some slots on the front of the unit for things like a USB flash drive which you can print your pictures directly from. It shows them on the lCD screen, and you scroll through them. It also is Bluetooth and WIFI capable, though mine is hooked with a wire, so I haven't tried these.
As far as the design of the unit, its mostly good. Its smaller and more compact then many units. It only features a 15pg Adf, versus the 30-50pg ones you see on some machines, but I rarely need to fax or copy more then 5pgs at a time anyway. What matters more is that this unit actually scans all the pages one at time, where my HP, frequently would grab too many pages and you ended up having to send them through one at time.
Faxing or printing in black in white was relatively quick, though trying to fax in color took about a minute per page. You do not want this unit for printing pictures. The people came out looking so red, it looked like they had been severely burned. Granted it was on regular paper, but I've printed decent pictured on regular paper before. You also will probably don't want this unit if you are going to do a lot of scanning photos. It has a 36bit scanner versus the 48bit seen on some other units.
The software in general I felt was good, but the OCR software sucked. It scanned all the words right, unlike my previous hp's software, but it completely ignored all spacing and format. Not ideal, if you want to scan and edit a form.
The power cord is not detachable from the unit, not a big deal to me, but it was datachable on my old HP. What I really didn't like was that the USB cord instead of attaching at the back, is threaded up inside the machine. Because of the bulb near the end of the wire, it requires bending and folding the wire some to get it attached and down in the triangle space provided. This is not good for the wire.
The paper tray which pulls all the way out, is rather flimsy, is made of cheap plastic and only holds about 100pgs. However, it's not as flimsy as some units such as Epson's Artisan 800, and a number of other units. More importantly though, I've had no paper jams and the pages don't drop on the floor after printing.
This unit like a number of Brother units, also supposedly uses it own ink to periodically clean itself. You cant shut this off, so even if not using the printer, you will find your ink is being lowered. You only have to replace one cartridge at a time though.
The real flaw with the unit is actually its biggest marketing feature, the fact that it has a built in 30 min answering machine and an attached cordless phone. I use my phone and fax on the same line and was tired of having my answering machine conflict with the fax. By having them in the same unit I hoped to avoid this conflict and guess what? It did. The machine knew when to pick up for messages or fax. No more conflict. Coodles to Brother for being the only manufacturer to offer a built in answering machine and cordless phone in some of their all in one units. Unfortunately, Brother apparently chose to use cheap mics or speakers for its built in phone system. So much to my disappointment, the answering machine messages come out garbled. Not all the time, but about half the time. Why bother to include an answering machine if you are going to do such an unacceptable job? I use my answering machine a lot and I don't want to have to guess what the message is saying. I tried just turning on my old answering machine, and turning off Brothers, but its fax then continues to try and pick up during calls. So I have to unplug the phone cord from the Brother, which means you cant use the cordless phone.
The cordless phone looks and feels nice, has raised buttons (though not backlit) and a decent orange backlit lcd screen and caller ID. Unfortunately the cordless phone also has speaker and or mic problems. Sometimes I can hear my echo while talking, and sometimes other people complained of static noise on the other end.
I sent my first one back, and ordered another one from a different place thinking maybe I got a lemon, but its has the same problems. Brother's customer service line was of no help at all. So now I'm torn, the unit looks nice, prints text fast and well, and faxes text quickly. Those are the main things I use it for, so I've thought about keeping it despite its major flaws. However I don't like the idea of keeping a brand new unit that comes with one of its major features being defective. Every unit on the market seems to have some types of flaws or problems, so I'm not sure where to settle.
UPDATE 9/5/2009- I decided to keep the unit, and for the most part I am content with it. I would probably raise the the star rating to 3 or 4, despite the problems I mentioned. I managed to change the settings so that the fax doesn't always try to pick up and only does so now when I actually get a fax. I rarely use the cordless phone due to its speaker problems, and I keep the answering machine off.
The USB port displays the pics from my flash drive on the LCD screen, but takes awhile to load them, and they are difficult to scroll through to find the ones you want.
I still haven't tried the wireless and probably won't since it's hooked to my computer. The paper tray needs to be a little bit bigger, as I find I have to refill it a little too often. Also be warned, this machine really burns through ink with it's automated cleaning process. I've had to replace the black ink a few times already and the color inks are all half empty despite the fact I almost never print anything in color. I do think the text print quality was slightly better on my old HP, but it's not a major difference. The scanner door feels like it isn't properly attached, like it's going to come off, but I beleive this is so you can lay bulky items on the scanner bed and still lay the door somewhat flat.
Overall I like the design of the unit and it has performed well with black & white printing and faxing, which are my primary uses for it.
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Brother MFC-990CW Color Inkjet All-in-One with 5.8GHz Cordless Handset and Wireless ConnectivityThe Brother MFC-990CW Color Inkjet All-in-One with 5.8GHz Cordless Handset includes a 5.8GHz handset and prints, copies, scans, faxes, and more in one sleek, compact device. And with its built-in wireless networking, you can easily set up the printer to work with all the computers on your home or office network.
Built-in 4.2-Inch Touchscreen for Easy Menu Navigation The MFC-990CW features a 4.2-inch touchscreen that makes it easy to navigate menus, preview faxes, and preview/edit photos directly without a computer. You can edit and print photos directly by using either the built-in media card slot or by connecting a PictBridge-enabled camera or USB flash memory. The media card slot supports compact flash, memory stick, memory stick pro, SD, SDHC, xD, and xD TypeM/TypeH.
Print Top-Quality Photos and Documents Fast The MFC-990CW prints both documents and photos at up to 6000 x 1200 dpi and can reach speeds of up to 33 ppm black and 27 ppm color. The printer has two separate trays: a 100-sheet tray for documents, and a separate 20-sheet bypass tray for 4 x 6-inch photos. The printer supports paper sizes up to legal size (8 x 14 inches) and can print borderless photos. It uses separate ink cartridges for each color, so you only replace the color that runs out.
Built-In Networking Lets Everyone Use the Printer The printer has both wired and wireless networking built in, making it simple to set up the printer to be shared by everyone in your office or home. The built-in wireless supports 802.11b/g and features one-button wireless setup for simplicity. Security standards supported include SSID, WEP 64/128-bit, WPA-PSK, and WPA2-PSK. For those without wireless, there is also a 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet port.
Copy and Scan with the Same Device The MFC-990CW lets you copy and scan as well as print from the same device. The stand-alone copier doesn't require a PC and can make both black-and-white and color copies at a speed of 22 cpm black and 20 cpm color. It can scale copies from 25 to 400 percent of the original, and it supports sorting and 2-in-1/4-in-1 copying. A 15-sheet automatic document feeder lets you scan and copy pages unattended.
The flatbed scanner has a maximum optical resolution of 1200 x 2400 dpi at 36-bit color depth for high-quality scans. It works with both Mac OS and Windows, and includes Scansoft PaperPort v11 SE with OCR software for Windows and Presto! PageManager software for Mac.
Send and Receive Faxes and Take Calls Cordlessly A high-speed Super G3 33.6K bps fax modem lets you send and receive black-and-white and color faxes at up to three seconds per page. A 15-sheet auto document feeder lets you fax documents unattended. In addition to functioning as a stand-alone fax, the unit also works as a PC fax.
A built-in 5.8GHz cordless telephone handset offers clear conversations when you roam around your home or office, and you can expand its functionality to up to four optional handsets. The device also has a full-duplex speaker phone for hands-free convenience. The built-in digital answering machine holds up to 29 minutes of messages.
The MFC-990CW measures 18.4 x 7.1 x 14.8 inches (WxHxD) and weighs 18.7 pounds. It is Energy Star certified and is backed by a one-year warranty.
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