Full Review

I needed a new FAX machine and I've had good luck with my Brother printer, so I thought I'd try a Brother FAX machine. The idea of having a color printer thrown in also influenced my purchase.

Unfortunately this machine doesn't meet my FAXing needs. The most important need is to be able to use one phone line for a phone/answering machine and the FAX machine.

The only way this FAX machine works with one phone line is A) while recording your message on the answering machine, you have to leave at least a five second silence at the beginning of the message. People are expecting someone to answer the phone or hear a message; when they hear the silence, they hang up. Or B) include at the end of your message 'if you want to send a message hit [some key] and then the pound sign. While I have a home office I deal with some national businesses, and this indicates to me a degree of un-professionalism I'm not willing to accept.

In general the machine is the most flimsy office machine I've ever purchased. E.g., the paper tray is made of plastic that is more flimsy than a corrugated box.

The tray for received FAXes is not large enough to hold more than one piece of paper, so received FAXes end up on the floor.

The copying function works well for letter-sized paper, at least in B&W; (I didn't try the color printing). Although here too tray that receives the copied page is too small to hold a page of paper. So that page and the copied page both end up on the floor and you have to sort the pages to separate the originals from the copies.

With earlier FAX machines I've been able to make copies of receipts that are smaller than letter-size. Not with this machine. I tried to copy the store receipt I got when I purchased the machine and it immediately jammed the machine.

Lastly, a small thing, but to me very irritating: the copies pages come out of the machine upside down. So even if you stand at the machine and catch them, you have to remind yourself to turn them over as you're collating them.