Best all in one Printer???

UTTER_FILTH · 5 Mar 2009 at 22:29

Hi Guys,

I'm going to start doing some free-lance work and I need a all in one printer/scanner/fax/copier. I have a budget of around £250.

Does anyone have any experience with these? If so which would be the best choice?

Thanks

Ricky

bremen1874 · 6 Mar 2009 at 03:03

I've personally always had good experiences with Canon kit.

Unless it's going to have very light use stick to devices that use seperate cartridges for each colour.

If you only need B&W then look into a laser based device rather than an inkjet.

edGfaCTor · 6 Mar 2009 at 04:02

With a budget of £250 you really don't want to be looking at the all in one units separate units would be far better.

What do you need it for?

bremen1874 · 6 Mar 2009 at 04:53

With a budget of £250 you really don't want to be looking at the all in one units separate units would be far better.

I can't say that I can agree. For a home office type user a decent multifunction device is ideal.

Apart from the fact that separate devices would take up massive amount of desk space, you’d also lose out from a functionality/convenience point of view. For example doing a pseudo photocopy on a multifunction device is quick and easy, doing the same with a separate scanner and printer is a pain and requires that the computer is switched on.

You do get the problem that these devices tend to be a bit 'Jack of all trades, master of none' but with a budget of £250 this shouldn't be a major problem.

UTTER_FILTH · 6 Mar 2009 at 08:52

Ok,

After reading everyone's points here, I had a look at some reviews on different models/brands and have decided to go for the HP Officejet Pro L7680..

Managed to find it for £188 with 2 day delivery, which isn't too bad I think.. I'll let you guys know my thoughts once I receive it.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Ricky

pduk · 6 Mar 2009 at 10:30

Well, this is probably too late since you've ordered already. I had the same requirement recently and ended up buying a Brother MFC-490CW. I love it! And the best thing is that the software (which works on both PC and Mac) works very well. It's wireless too so that's one less cable to clutter up my home office. They also do models with a wired and wireless telephone handset if you need that; I didn't.

One feature that I hadn't expected was that you can set it up to listen for fax tones even if it doesn't answer the phone. So if someone calls from a fax machine and it goes to answerphone, the Brother picks this up and takes over the call to receive the fax. Very useful if you only want to receive faxes once in a blue moon and so don't have a separate phone line. I paid just over 100 quid plus vat, which seems like a bargain to me.

Paul.

deshepherd · 6 Mar 2009 at 12:21

pduk said:
One feature that I hadn't expected was that you can set it up to listen for fax tones even if it doesn't answer the phone. So if someone calls from a fax machine and it goes to answerphone, the Brother picks this up and takes over the call to receive the fax. Very useful if you only want to receive faxes once in a blue moon and so don't have a separate phone line. I paid just over 100 quid plus vat, which seems like a bargain to me.

My 11 year old HP officejet does this! For many years its been relegated to being a fax machine only so my father can fax me there travel itineraries etc ... he's still happier printing and faxing than sending email!