I have been tasked with getting a new printer/copier/scanner for the office. Right now we have a Toshiba e-Studio that is The Suck. I’ve researched our options and believe I have an answer, but I’m not an IT professional so am running this by the Dope for feedback.
There are only three of us in this office and we are currently networked to the printer/copier. We are not heavy users, maybe 3,700 pages per year. A handful of scans per week. Only two or three larger copy jobs per year. I need auto duplex printing and copying, scanning to email and ftp, sorting, an ADF and legal sized platen glass.
We have two Windows 7 users and one XP user.
My boss wants to purchase instead of leasing. He wants a fast printer, that’s all he cares about. Well, and value.
Based on what my bosses want and what I want, I am leaning towards the Brother MFC-8890DW.
Otherwise, we are looking at your standard office machines (ie - Konica Minolta) through a copier company and spending at least three times that much.
I don’t think we need a full-tilt-boogie printer/copier like you normally see in an office. I think we need something between a basic desktop printer and a $2400 machine. A professional class machine, but not something designed for an office with 50 users. Is the Brother a reasonable solution? It seems to have all the specs I need, gets good reviews. I’d be responsible for maintaining it and getting it fixed if it breaks. This makes me nervous. That and the anxiety of never having done this before. I want to make a sound business decision.
I would personally be more comfortable with a regular copier through a regular copier company, but that’s only because I know I can get a technician out here if I need it. But is that worth a ton more money? I doubt it.
Thoughts?
Also, any ideas on what we can do with the old printer/copier? We own it. How do we get rid of it? (Beyond taking it up to the roof and pushing it off which doesn’t sound half bad.)
I have a Brother all-in-one device in my apartment. It works fine, although I doubt I print more than one hundred pages in a year. We’ve used Xerox all-in-one devices at work as well and haven’t had very many complaints. As for repairs, the big things that are likely are jams and needing to replace the toner and/or fuser. Jams can be a pain, because if it’s a small piece of paper, it might be in a spot that requires you to take the machine apart to find it.
Some of these devices cost so little ($200-400) that they’re really not worth hiring someone to fix. So if it gets really jammed, and it’s been a year or more since you bought it, it might be simpler just to buy a new one.
We use a lot of Brother DCP-350c printers at work. The reason is that when me and the other person in charge of picking stuff for the office were hired, there were at least 20 of them in storage here from a previous program that was grant funded but has ceased to exist. Instead of buying all new printers, we resolved to use these, buy ink, and if any administrator from the previous program ever came back with a reasonable explanation, we would just give them back. Mine is only mine, and it works great. There is one that runs about 4 computers and it works fine. There are two that are other in individual offices that have issues, but I worry it is the operator, not the printer (these particular employees have a technical issue with any piece of technology that they may have to actually work with on a daily basis, including a basic cellular phone from ATT). The two in student labs have held up well, considering the use they get. For a while, we had one similar to this in our upstairs office, but to connect wirelessly, we should all be on one network, instead, we are on three in the same building, and the two employees who don’t always play nice with technology, they were in charge of installing it and making it work. We returned it and went back to the individual thing.
At home, I just bought this HP wireless, and it works wonderfully so far. We would print much less at home than 50 employees, probably, but it seems simple enough - plug in, connect to the wireless network, everybody print!
In honesty, although my wife dislikes all Brother products at most times, they work. They hold up in our situations around the office, and that is slightly crazier than a normal office (think, for example, that our building is not an office building, but a converted farm house, so wiring and spaces are weird, as are heating and cooling)…
Why do you want a new printer/copier/scanner? Do you want fax as well?
If all you want is add scanning capability, you might just buy a scanner.
I’ve noticed that Brother printers tend to be cheaper than most others. Do they sacrifice quality somewhere or are they just cheaper without being worse?
I’m in a three-person office, with similar printing/scanning/copying needs.
We’ve been using a Brother MFC-9840CDW for a few years now. It works well for what we need. The only problem we have is that some of the black toner cartridges have been leaking.
Definitely read the reviews on both the machine and toner. And shop around; I found our machine for about $400 cheaper than the listing on Amazon!
No, we need the printing, copying and scanning. (The fax function is superfluous and we wouldn’t use it.) We are replacing a standard office copier/printer/scanner.
Yeah, I was trying to find what Brother’s competitors are at this class and price point, and the only thing I found were some HPs (which don’t get good reviews at all) and one Cannon that doesn’t have any reviews as far as I can find.
I noticed the price thing, too. My impression from reading reviews is that Brother wants this market and is willing to provide value to get it. For example, the Cannon I was looking at is hundreds of dollars more expensive and for the life of me I can’t see why.
Ah, perhaps that’s why Brother printers are cheaper. Maybe Brother is going with the cheap razor/expensive blade strategy. Going for cheaper toner and more expensive printer will likely pay for itself quickly enough in an office.
Or maybe Brother really does give you as much for less without screwing you over with toner prices.
More data!!
