15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Not Bad
Date of Review: Apr 10, 2007
The Bottom Line: This is a cheap unit, but it works pretty good. About what I would expect.
I have been lucky and have not had the same problems others have had. I use this all-in-one unit several times a week and used it a lot right after we bought it.
I bought it last minute and with a budget in mind. We were buying a house long distance and needed a fax machine and scanner quickly for scanning documents for the bank and sending and receiving faxes with the bank and our realtor.
Unpacking and Assembly
Packaging was good and the unit assembled easily by following the big quick start guide.
Installing the software took a long time for some reason. It installed without problem, I just think it took longer than usual for something like this.
Operation
Installing
The software is confusing. I had to spend more time than I wanted to reading about it. I realize this is an all-in-one unit and does more than one thing, but the software interface seems a bit overwhelming. I would consider this to a usability issue. Printers and fax machines should be easy to use right away while more advanced features can be researched later.
Faxing
I could not figure out how to use the automatic cover page feature with the software and opted to do that part the old fashioned way. I feel like I can't be sure what is being sent unless I am in control of the cover page.
Faxing is easy the old fashioned way. I don't use the software for faxing.
I believe you can fax a document straight off the computer, which would save you from having to print it. I'm sure that spending more time reading the instructions would shed some light on it. I'm just not too interested in studying the manual. I have more important things to do and learn.
Receiving faxes is straight forward. You can program whether to answer automatically or manually and you can control the number of rings. These are all standard features that I'd expect and am glad they are there.
Scanning
Having a flat bed scanner and an automatic feeder is a very cool feature that I use all the time with no problems. The software works well in this department. I feel like I have to click a few more times than should be necessary to get the job done, but it never fails me.
I have scanned 20+ page documents into pdf format with no troubles and the flat bed works as expected.
The image quality is very good. I don't have a need for super high resolution scanning, but for photos and miscellaneous documents it works great.
The preview pane allows you to make adjustments or crop before you save the scan to disk, which is good.
Printing
I am able to print in black and white or color without a problem by selecting the appropriate options from the print dialog.
Printing is reasonably fast but hangs for a bit every so often. It's not bad with plain text but images get pretty slow. I assume this has something to do with small buffers or memory in the printer. I am not displeased with this as I did not pay much for it. Just be aware that you are not getting a high speed printer when you go cheap.
Copying
Copying is easily achieved right from the console. The controls are easy to understand and are very similar to other copiers. You can adjust the darkness, paper size, number of copies, etc. You can also shrink legal size down to standard letter size. There are other zoom features that are typical for copying as well. I found this easy to operate with no aggravation.
Conclusion
You can easily spend several hundred dollars for an all-in-one unit. For the price this thing works for me. The software is a bit clunky, but it works fine when scanning. My problems with faxing via the software may be unique to me and my lack of interest in getting a degree in simple office equipment operation.
Ink cartridges are reasonably inexpensive by comparison and easy to find just about anywhere. I get reasonable life out the cartridges.
The paper tray is a bit limiting because the out-feed tray is right above it thus limited the amount of paper you can load.
I am unsure how to print envelopes. This is not a task I encounter often, but it's not obvious to me how one would accomplish it. Again, probably a usability issue.
