Brother MFC-9840CDW

2/10 Thank goodness for good return policies!

lmasterman - 05/23/09

I've had Brother MFDs in the past, and found them adequate, nothing special, but competitively priced. When I decided to step up to color laser printing, I went for this device. My setup was easy enough, and the wireless capability was nice while it worked. The engineering and construction seemed cheesy from the outset. Silly, easily remedied quirks like a front panel door that doesn't like to close all the way. The paper output tray is flawed in its design, so it makes it awkward to retrieve work. Brother's solution is a little foot that can be lifted up in the output tray to make it a bit easier, but the foot doesn't stay up well, and even at best offers only minor assistance. I found the printing on business papers good, but again not stellar. Using a heavier, extra bright paper helped the appearance of graphics more than I'd expected. The device was never capable of printing an envelope without creasing it at random. A call to tech support was disappointing, to say the least. They only tried to get it to print envelopes from the main drawer, when I repeatedly told them I only need to print them from the bypass/multifunction tray. Even at that, they were unsuccessful in resolving the issue, blaming my OS (XP Pro, SP 3). Their final solution for a machine that was a week old: "Google your problem and see if someone else can help you". I kept using the device for a couple of months while I decided whether to return it. During that time I found to my dismay that the "low toner" messages appear fairly early, and when the device decides that the toner cartridge is empty, it will not print at all. When the cyan cartridge was deemed empty, I could no longer print in black. An online search revealed a trick to defeat the cartridge's "empty" sensor, and I printed well over 1,000 additional pages in color after 3 of the 4 falsely empty cartridges had brought the machine to a stop. I never did get to a point of deteriorated print quality, so don't know how long I could have gone once I defeated Brother's shameless system to sell toner before its time. Finally, the wireless system went toes-up, and resisted all attempts to resuscitate it. This was the last straw, and I returned the device to the vendor for a refund. Brother has lost my business for good. The combination of shoddy engineering and construction and tech support that was worse than worthless has added them to the list of businesses that will never see another dime of my money. The saving grace of this whole adventure: Costco.com. Their price was the best I found, shipping was free, and they delivered the day after I ordered! I was dumbstruck by the quality of their service. Costco allows returns to go to any of their brick-and-mortar stores, and the return was absolutely painless. Brother gets 1 star because the prints looked quite good, but loses points for the myriad problems in all other areas. I wish I could give Costco.com 5 stars for their performance. They were excellent.