Expensive to Operate if you follow Brother Recommendations!

We have been using our MFC-9420 for about 8 months so far and as of today have printed a total of 44,174 prints/copies/faxes with this machine in our Legal Office.

This machine was bought to replace an expensive Kyocera machine that continuously broke down on us.

About 3 months ago the printer stated that we need to replace the $350 OPC Belt. We have purchased a replacement but are not changing until the original actually stops working or shows quality issues. The color cartridges print approx 6600 pages each while the black does approx 10000 pages.

Replacement OEM cartridges cost $167 each. We found that http://www.RobsPcSolutions.com offers refill toner for this printer at a very good savings ($59 for each refill) and these are very easy to refill yourself and provide very high quality prints.

The included software for this printer is as usual useless. If you wish to scan to PDF the I suggest you DO NOT USE THE INCLUDED SOFTWARE! A 5 page document will become 4Mb when it should be less than 100Kb. Scan directly into a PDF from Acrobat to achieve the smallest file size.

I called Brother on this issue and they said it is an issue with their software. As the scan goes through each little program a little bit more data is added from each. Thus the final file size is enormous.

Overall I would suggest that if you purchase this printer that you purchase the replacement parts but do not put them in until you are forced to, not when it says to. And do not purchase the Brother toner, purchase refills. If you follow these rules this printer seems to be a decent office machine.