Review of the Brother MFC-8460N

I waited a few weeks before I thought I would write down my impressions for the Multi-Function Printer. I wanted to familiarize myself with all the bells and whistles.

Packaging.
9/10
Nicely packaged in a sturdy cardboard box with Styrofoam protective corners on all sides, top and bottom. All accessories were on top of the Styrofoam top cover protected with a heavy cardboard lid. Anything that could move, open or shift on the machine was taped down.

Set up
9/10
Following the quick set up guide was fairly easy. Instructions were good explaining the set up and operational features of the machine. After the cable connections and with the software loaded, I was printing copies in minutes. I connect to the machine using the parallel port on my laptop computer.

Copy features:
9/10
Very fast copies with no problems at all using the ADF. Copies were as good as the original. Copies were what you should expect from a laser printer, clean and crisp. I hand draw kitchen and bathroom design plans and the copies are excellent. Sometimes I accidentally pick up a “copy” of a drawing, thinking it’s the original.

Copy Tray
7/10
One problem I had was when printing 10 or 20 copies at a time is the paper would curl up on the sides due to the heating element drying the toner. I sit right by the machine when it prints so it’s not a big deal for me to reach over and grab the copies before they end up on the floor, but in an office of 3 or more people printing on a network it would be extremely frustrating. I tried 28 lb laser paper and the curling decreased substantially.

Scanning
8/10
It’s a bit slow for high-resolution images but all in all it does a good job scanning my drawings for email. This is not a scanner for an office that requires lightening speed scans. There are other professional scanners out there for that purpose.

Faxing
9/10
Nothing really to complain about here. You load the ADF with a copy of something you want to fax, dial the number and it goes through. It has more than enough autodial memory for my needs. 40 preset numbers

PC Faxing
5/10
I’m giving this a lower score simply because I have not yet figured out how to send or receive PC faxes. The Icon for PC Faxing is on the taskbar and everything seems to be functioning but for the life of me I can’t get it to work.
I’m sure it has something to do with hitting a button on the machine itself but I haven’t figured it out yet. I gave it a low score simply for the frustration and lack of clarity/remedy in the instructions.

Software
9/10
Really good software packaged with this machine. The Paper Port software has a good deal of tweaking features that many people will find useful. Again this is more then adequate for most home office users. You should get professional editing software elsewhere if needed. A Paper Port page opens when you scan an image and after setting the contrast and brightness and other “ fixes”, you can drag and drop the picture into a number of icons that have built in functions like email, word documents, PDF files, Imaging, Paint, etc. The OCR document reader missed only 2 or 3 words out of 10 pages.
Build
8/10
This is a machine that will be more then adequate for a single, 2 or even a 3 person home office for basic scanning, copying and faxing functions. The machine is sturdy enough for the way most people should use it. The Scanner lid does slam down a bit hard so you have to be careful when you lower it.

NOTE:
The biggest frustration I had with the machine was when printing from the computer I kept getting a “No Paper” signal with an alarm beep. I wanted to print from the main tray but the machine wanted to print from the hand feed tray. After a while I realized that my word document settings were set to print from the wrong tray. Problem solved. It was then I realized that the people who designed this machine are a lot smarter than I am.

There are features on this machine I haven’t even begun to realize. Check out all the features on Brother’s web site to see if they will fit your needs

I purchased the Brother MFC 8460N from PC Nation for $368.00 including tax and shipping. A heads-up to PC Nation for getting me the machine in 2 business days. Very Impressive.

Would I buy this machine if I had it to do all over again? Yes!

Overall rating 8.1 but once I figure out how to PC Fax I’m sure that will go up a bit. Good luck.