Brother MFC-7840W Laser Multifunction Center
by Brother Printer
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List Price: Our Price: $309.99 You Save: $140.00 (31%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $150.00 (click here) Category: Office Product See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Brother MFC-7840W Laser Multifunction Center
Customer Review: Great printer for small office
Summary: 4 Stars
I did a lot of online research before buying this for my small business. It's easy to set up and works well.
It's a good machine for a small business. I have to do a fair amount of copying, faxing, and printing each day, but not anything like a large office. It can really only print about 20/30 pages at a time at most because the tray for the prints/copies, as well as the feeder for the fax, can't really handle more. I do occasionally have to print/fax/copy larger documents, which means I have to babysit it. However, for the price and how often I need to deal with this, it's perfect for me.
I am not a big fan of the hand feed tray, which I've tried to use to print envelopes. The envelopes come out looking like they've been ironed, where wrinkles get flattened out. Again, for the price and how often I print envelopes, it's not a big deal.
The wireless setup was generally pretty easy, though it gets a little funky if you add more than one machine, particularly if you're scanning images to a computer. It seems to point only at one computer at a time, so I've had to reinstall the software to get the scanner to work from one machine to another. As a result, I just scan images from one machine. Again, not a big deal if you're a one person office like myself, but probably not a good fit for a larger office.
One of the the main things I was concerned about was trying to find the cheapest toner, since I'm crazy cheap. When I bought it, about 2 years ago, the toner was probably the least expensive out there, which had a lot to do with why I bought the machine, and then later on when the economy crashed more, I noticed that places like Staples almost doubled the price. I solved this problem by buying off-brand toner cartridges for about $15, from places here on Amazon. I also tried to refill the cartridges, but I don't recommend it because the print quality is poor.
Hope this helps.
Customer Review: MFC 7840 - Great Printer with a Horrid Software Interface
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this wireless printer to make one printer available to everyone on my whole-house Mac-based network. The wireless setup was near-automatic [as usual on a Mac] and the printer works fine from all network stations. But then there is the Control software to configure the FAX, Scanner and Copier. It is the most unintuitive and clumsy user interface I've seen since the days of single-tasking DOS software over 20 years ago. On my other USB-connected Brother MFC 7020 I could use the MAC Image Capture software. It presents a preview window on the left with a long panel on the right allowing the user to select all necessary scan functions - flatbed or feeder, Bits, color or B&W, resolution, destination, file name [and even some other special functions. In that way the settings appropriate for each document are instantly adjustable: If I'm scanning a document into my medical file at 100dpi and then a photo into my genealogy file at 600dpi it takes about 10 seconds to reset the scanner. Not so with the Brother control panel with the 7840 printer. Each scan using a different setting requires leaving its uninformative tiny preview panel, going 3 layers deep into the control panel window and changing the settings. There is an option to preset settings for up to 4 document types, fine for a workgroup with specific and limited functions, but inadequate for a home user who scans every document that has anything to do with a multitude of things that affect life. I requested Brother to modify its interface to use a convenient sidebar with the necessary settings. For a view of a practical user interface look at the preview panel of the MAC image capture application - which, however does not work with this wireless printer, or I would use it instead.
Don't buy this printer if your intent is to easily scan or fax from a variety of networked computers. As a pure networked printer it is fine.
Customer Review: Surprisingly easy Set up over a complicated network
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this a few days ago. At the time Amazon was listing it for 100$ more than today, so I ended up buying it from an office supply place. After their coupons, it came to $213. I see Amazon almost exactly matched the price today.
I have always been afraid to buy third-party products given the complexity of my system. I have a Mac book Pro, and an Airport wireless network. We also have a Windows XP computer attached to the Apple network. Generally, with the all-in-one printers, the print function works fine, but the scanning never does. In this case, after following the instructions and installing the CD to my Apple, there was a glitch. The computer didn't recognize that the Brother was connect to the network. I had to fiddle with it for about an hour. Finally, I updated the airport software, and lo and behold the printer was on the network. Getting the brother connected to the Airport network was pretty easy. The printer recognized the network, and allowed me to enter its password. Both printing and scanning to the Apple are very easy. I've run into no problem so far after the initial installation problem. You can either scan directly from the Brother, or from the Mac. It scans directly into e-mail as well which is nice.
The next trick was getting our Windows machine to work with it. I thought this was going to be complex given that the Windows machine was connecting over an Apple Airport network. I ran the CD, the machine immediately recognized the Brother, and I was able to scan and print with no difficulty within 10 minutes, using the Windows machine over the Apple network. We have Bonjour installed on the Windows machine, and I'm not sure if this is what made it so easy. I know we needed bonjour to make wireless printing work with our old printer.
All in all, a remarkable performance so far. I will update any developments.
Customer Review: Great Deal For The Money
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought the Brother MFC-7830W about 11 months ago now. I did some pretty heavy research before making the investment and decided that this was what was the best bet within our budget.
We use it in a home office, but have not set up the fax yet. We only needed this as a copier, scanner and laser printer. As far as those two features go this has been a great deal for the money. The print quality probably isn't the best possible for photos but it does a decent job for text and it photocopies sheet music quite well. What do you need a black and white copier for photos for anyway?
We've used this thing fairly heavily for a home office. I just checked the counter and it is at 4,203 copies. I have two computers running to it one is running Windows Vista and the other is an iMac OSX 10.4. Both of them print and scan to/from it without any problems via a wireless router.
The only negatives I've run into with this is that we've gone through the initial toner cartridge and a hi-capacity cartridge in less than a year. My guess is we're about half way through another Hi-Capacity cartridge. Also the glass is a little small for copying large books, so it can be a bit of a struggle capturing things like sheet music at times. I actually decided it was faster for me to scan 15 pages on my Epson flat bed scanner and print it out of Adobe InDesign. My girlfriend is a teacher and uses it to photocopy text books for worksheets etc. She never complains about that so it probably will work for most applications unless your a picky print/graphics snob like me. The Brother MFC-7830W scanner doesn't produce a very high quality scan so don't expect to use its scanner for professional quality graphic design work. However, it will work in a pinch if you're on deadline and your Epson flakes out.
All in all a great buy for the money.
Customer Review: Not good for envelopes
Summary: 2 Stars
I purchased this printer and then returned it for the reason noted below. If you rarely print envelopes or other media that require the single sheet paper feed, it would be a nice machine. If you regularly print envelopes, you should know something unusual about this model.
In order to print an envelope one must open a door on the back of the printer -- the kind of door normally used to clear paper jams. The envelope will be drawn in through the single-sheet feed and ejected from the back of the machine rather than in the normal "out bin." This provides a straight paper path but has several bad consequences.
- The "compact" printer needs to be positioned 8" or so from the wall, which makes it not compact in reality even though it is described as such.
- You need to reach over and behind the printer to retrieve the envelope, which is very awkward.
- If you print a run of envelopes (think holiday cards), you need to simultaneously feed each new envelope into the feed slot and remove the previous one from this back door. If you print a document containing an envelope followed by a letter on 8 1/2" x 11" paper, you need to rush to the printer and retrieve both from the door at the back. If you are not fast enough, the output dumps itself on the floor behind the printer.
This is bad design solution, and other manufacturers have been able to get an envelope through the normal paper path and into the out bin where output belongs.
In addition, I had misfeeds about 1/3 of the time with envelopes. Even though there is no real jam (just a slightly skewed envelope in the infeed that can be easily pulled out), you need to open the printer and remove the toner cartridge every time to make the printer realize that you have cleared the jam.
Taken together, these left me disappointed.