Office Printer MFC recomendation

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Adam Zucker
In my law office we currently have a Brother 8860DN MFC printer, scanner, copier, fax. We also have a large Ricoh machine for high volume jobs.

The Brother machine is several years old and sits next to my assistant who uses it for printing letters on bond paper and other documents on regular copy paper. She would also use it for light scanning and light copying as well as printing envelopes. My assistant and myself and another attorney can print to it via our in house wired network. two things I did not like about this unit was 1) It did not fuse the toner to the bond paper well and it would eventually flake off. 2) It scanned slower than molasses in February.

I think the machine is in its death throws as it sounds like it is cracking every time it prints a page. I want to get her a new machine but sadly I'm not getting much info on line.

Anyone have any recommendations for a replacement. It needs to have two trays one for bond paper and one for copy paper and a feeder for envelopes. Of course I'd like one with reasonable toner cost as well.

If necessary I could even live without the scan and copy functions if I could just get a great office printer with two trays and an envelope bypass feeder that could do labels.
 
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I have a Dell 2335dn that I like very much for heavy home use (wife is a teacher). The newer model is the B2375dnf and is reasonably priced and you can get up to a 5yr warranty on the units
 
If it doesn't stick well to your bond paper, the IR thing that cooks it onto the paper may be dirty.

I have both HP and Brother products (straight printers and MFCs):

What I like about the Brother units:
- can't kill them
- drum is separate from the toner, overall lower toner cost

What I dont like about the Brother units:
- startup power draw is high to dip voltage enough for the UPS to kick on
- sounds like it is dying, for about the last 2 years.
- gawd-awful installation of their drivers

What I like about the HPs:
- better print quality
- maintenance free

What I dont like about the HPs:
- expensive toner cartridges that dont last long

I once 'saved money' by buying a Lexmark MFC. Never worked right, ate a lot of toner, chucked it when I moved.
 
We have gone through multiple printers (dell, lexmark epson, and hp) in the office and keep going back to the Brother MFC printers for personal use (IE: between cubicles). They are cheap to purchase and when the rollers get worn (paper jams), I toss and replace them. They just aren't the fastest ones out there.

I have an engineering firm that runs the heck out of printers so every 3-4 years and I spend about $300 - $500 for a brother depending on color or scanner need. I would recommend anything laser over anything ink jet for consumables cost and reliability and brother has done us well, with epson in trail and dell last (maintenance, speed, and consumable cost)

The office does have a good Xerox unit that we have put over 500k 11x17 prints on but thats a whole different animal and a little more than $500.

I wish we could find printers like the old HP 5SI units running 11x17 but they are getting rare. We used to buy them on ebay for $300-400 and run them for 200k - 400k prints and throw them out and replace with another ebay unit, but these are not your typical HP home unit you buy at staples.
 
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I'll tell ya I really miss my HP 4Plus That printer was amazing a true workhorse.
 
AdamZ said:
I'll tell ya I really miss my HP 4Plus That printer was amazing a true workhorse.
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The old HPs were hard to kill.

I'd avoid Dell on any new purchase. I have a Dell 2135cn, and the last go-round with trying to get any kind of parts, toner, etc. was so bad that I said "never again with Dell". When it works, it works OK. When you need toner, go to Staples - never, ever, order from Dell.

Probably be HP for me next time - well supported.
 
I've got a Kyocera color laser in my NC hangar which has been going great guns since I put it there years ago. I have a Canon color multifunction laser in my office in VA.
 
My office uses Brother laser printers with good results. At home, I have a dead Canon and HP MFC inkjet. I'll never go back to an inkjet or those two printer brands. Planning to pick up a brother MFC laser for home use.
 
flyingron said:
I've got a Kyocera color laser in my NC hangar which has been going great guns since I put it there years ago.
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I had a Kyocera B&W laser which I bought for $89. When the 'starter' toner cartridge ran out, the replacement cartridge was $89 :wink2: .
 
wsuffa said:
I'd avoid Dell on any new purchase. I have a Dell 2135cn, and the last go-round with trying to get any kind of parts, toner, etc. was so bad that I said "never again with Dell". When it works, it works OK. When you need toner, go to Staples - never, ever, order from Dell.
Click to expand...

We've had very good results with the Dell printers. We've been purchasing them at work for about 8 years or so. I find Dell direct to be very reasonable with their toner prices. We purchase each unit with 5yr Advanced Replacement warranties and the price point is still very reasonable and if they fail outside of the warranty period they just get replaced with a newer model.
 
I've been using a Lexmark x544 at home for about three years now. Light use and no complaints. I haven't run bond paper through it. Use one tray for legal and one tray for letter. Toner very reasonable.

On the business side we put one in a field office and it has worked great in a tough environment (dusty, no cleaning).
 
weilke said:
I had a Kyocera B&W laser which I bought for $89. When the 'starter' toner cartridge ran out, the replacement cartridge was $89 :wink2: .
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That's not too uncommon. The cartridges for my Canon ran almost as much as the printer.
 
a) I have a ancient Brother MFC-7840W - works - it just works. The network is a pita to set up - but - the scanner / printer / fax works great. Toner is usually always on sale somewhere and runs about $40. My cost has been very very low - combined with Acrobat it really reduces the cost of storage and even printing.

b) We just - as in today - set up a networked Brother HL-3170CDW LED 'laser' printer. Its color - gives me the option to include color in things - print web pages and while its not a photo printer - it can print the occasional 600dpi photo on glossy paper. . . the cheapo knockoff replacement toner cartridges here are $60 or so for all 4. So its not bad.

I mean, if someone wants a color print from a photo - you can upload them to Walmart and print a 4x6 for 9 cents . . . . if I want something fancy we can get it - but the garden variety photo for an album is pennies compared to dollars printing using an inkjet. Plus - laser 'ink' does not dry out in 2 weeks.
 
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The real trick with the smaller MFC units is scanner speed if that is your primary complaint, they're all the same 'pretty slow' that I see. If I have more than a few pages or pictures, I go find a pro machine to use. All the machines I see with fast scanning ability are expensive machines.

Brothers Laser printers need semi frequent cleaning, especially in dusty environments, to keep them working good.
 
Big fat Canon in duty at my place at Tony's recommendation here years ago. It's a tank. Wifi for both printing and scanning works, any size paper in the big trays I want, laser so no screwing with ink, and legal sized multi page sheet feed scanning which is a pain to find.

Downside: Buy Canon toner and eat the cost the other stuff prints like cheap crap.

Newer models than mine out now appear to use the same solid hardware foundation and add support for AirPrint and newer wifi standards and what not.

Similar to this one...

Canon imageCLASS MF8580Cdw Wireless 4-In-1 Color Laser Multifunction Printer with Scanner, Copier and Fax https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BS6WWVU/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_rqz0ub0K8H99A
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BS6WWVU/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_rqz0ub0K8H99A
 
Our MFC 9560CDW has 80,000 pages and counting. The commonly needed replacement parts are very easy to swap out.
 
Denver's Canon link is exactly the one I have. Got it on sale a bit over a year ago.
 
Are you using third-party toner cartridges or original Brother? I've found the flakey print issue more with the cheap third-party toners. They don't appear to fuse property to some papers.
 
I'm a big fan of the Epson Workforce series. I have two WorkForce 840's, which handle duplex printing and scanning and have two paper trays. Network setup is stone-simple, and the large capacity cartridges last a long time and lower the cost per page to a pretty reasonable number. We also use a couple smaller WorkForce printers in the field, powered off inverters in our trucks, and they seem to hold up to some abuse pretty well.
 
LDJones said:
Are you using third-party toner cartridges or original Brother? I've found the flakey print issue more with the cheap third-party toners. They don't appear to fuse property to some papers.
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I am using Brother Cartridges.
 
momalley said:
We've had very good results with the Dell printers. We've been purchasing them at work for about 8 years or so. I find Dell direct to be very reasonable with their toner prices. We purchase each unit with 5yr Advanced Replacement warranties and the price point is still very reasonable and if they fail outside of the warranty period they just get replaced with a newer model.
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My last go-round with Dell Direct involved ordering the toner & getting a confirm email that I could expect them in 7 days. At the 6 day mark, I get another email indicating a further 3 week delay. 1 weeks later, my existing yellow toner runs out. At 1 days prior to those 3 weeks, I call & am told they can't tell me anything more than the website, but they would be glad to cancel the order.

Staples had them in-stock. I canceled the Dell order, and got them from Staples and had them in less than 48 hours. Dell couldn't care less.

It's toner for gosh sakes, toner.
 
Laser is the only way to go. All the ink jets I ever owned had very limited pages before requiring expensive refills - that is just not the case with laser printers.

I have a Brother MFC8820DN. Granted I don't use it commercially, but it just will not die. I would like to replace it with the newer wireless model but when the old one works perfectly, it is hard to justify buying another.

Anyone want to buy a perfectly functional MFC machine with probably under 10,000 page count so I can buy the newer model? And yes, I will be buying another Brother.
 
I am trying to decide on which printer to get for home use. I bought the HP6600 a few years ago. Ink Hog if there ever was one. I bought some outlaw cartridges and now it won't print. It is headed for the trash can. Anyway, my son tells me to get a laser and I want color and cartridges that won't break the bank. I doubt I print 1000 pages a year.
 
RJM62 said:
Here's my review of the last Brother product I bought or will ever buy.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1WBX242O96ATD/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm/?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B001FBIWHQ

Rich
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Thanks for the review. I'll consider your opinion when choosing.

But I think the broader problem is with the inkjets designed for home use. My last MFC inkjet fiasco involved an HP that suddenly would not feed paper. This was after approximately a year and a half of extremely limited use. Less than once a week, sometimes once a month. After disassembling the printer myself, I found that one of the cheap plastic gears that they use in these things had cracked. A bit of superglue would have fixed it, except I managed to superglue the gear to one of the rods around which it was supposed to spin freely. I trashed the whole thing in frustration.

Following that I purchased a Canon MFC inkjet that is now LESS than one year old. It suddenly started printing blank pages halfway through a copy job, with plenty of ink in all cartridges. I've tried everything I could Google to get it working, short of beginning to take it apart. I refuse to endure an hour of foreign tech support as they take me through the steps I've already taken. Plus, it appears to be perfectly engineered to cause all off-brand inks to horribly clog the nozzle and print head. I'll gladly sledgehammer the thing, Office Space style, just for the principle of it.

I won't be purchasing an inkjet again. I'll spend the bit extra to buy a color laserjet, and despite some limited horror stories, anecdotally I've received more in-person positive reviews of the Brother MFC laserjets than any of the others. I believe laserjets to be better suited to light-duty home use, if for no other reason than the ink is much less resistant to drying out as it remains dormant during infrequent print jobs.
 
The only inkjet I have left is a portable Canon IP100. Pretty slow and only takes 5 sheets in its flimsy little hopper, but to print a letter on the road it works well.
 
I use inkjet for high quality photo work, but a laser for most everything else.
 
I had an old HP GX85 multifunction but they don't build them like that anymore. Not only did that thing work for over a decade in my office before it finally died, but I used to take it on the road with me when I was out doing ham radio exams. The only key was NOT to buy cartridges in advance of needing them. They have a distinct shelf life (which I have to believe HP programs in to them).

The HP MF that replaced it died (with evidentaly a common problem) within six months. The printhead to fix it cost more than the unit cost me.

I've been happy with my two color lasers (Kyocera off Woot a few years back and my Canon).
 
Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?!

PC Load Letter?!
 
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