Brother MFC 7340 - multifunction ( fax / copier / printer / scanner ) ( B/W )

9/10 MFC7340 user review

Cadet01 - 09/01/09  (Edited: 09/01/09)

The main function of my computer work is storage and retrieval. I regularly use MS word, excel, access, PowerPoint and outlook as well as other business specific application software. I regularly scan to PDF (B&W, greyscale and colour), I rarely scan to any other format and my printing load is minimal however when I do print, it needs to be of the high quality that only a laser printer can deliver. With this in mind, it is hard to see how you can be critical of this printer. Its by no means perfect that's for sure but for the price, it fits the bill exactly. Fundamentally its not a flawed printer, its a good printer. If your requirements are more than what this printer can deliver, then buy a more expensive printer. If you don't then eventually you will. I've used many printers and scanners in my time and I rate this one highly particularly for the specifications at the price you'll pay for it. OK the fax may come in 'handy' at some stage but lets be honest, email has superseded everything that the fax ever did, ever will do and more. If you have large or regular print loads, then this may not be the printer you should be using, in fact I doubt that this printer is suitable for more than anything other than home use or a very small one person office(?). This is by no means a slight on the printer though. Is the print speed a problem, well, no. Commercial grade (higher cost) printers are certainly faster (and getting faster) but they are built for bulk printing, this printer is not. Why would you need to print more than the capacity of the printers holding tray in one print job? If that's a regular occurrence, then buy another printer that can handle the job, preferable one with 2-sided printing, unfortunately this means you'll have to shell out more money. If you want photo realistic printing, then this is definitely not the printer you should be using. Is this a problem, no, there are plenty of specialist printing outlets at your local shopping mall of which, you can take a USB stick along with you, and print photo's from there. I would suggest that this is more practical even if you have a printer that is capable of doing the job. I'll concede the following: not able to network the computer and no double sided printing. There is double sided scanning via the bundled software, a little inefficient, yes, a major problem, not really. I'll also concede that the colour scanning results are probably not the best either however how good do they need to be? For my requirements, the end result more than exceeds what I need. In summary, for the price you'll pay, this is a top notch printer. you can't go too wrong with this printer provided your individual requirements don't exceed the specifications of the printer