Brother MFC-845cw Color Photo Inkjet Flatbed All-in-One with 5.8GHz Cordless Handset

by Brother

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 15 x 19 x 7 inches ; 19.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 24 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000J2K086
• Item model number: MFC-845cw
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 17, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description The Brother MFC-845cw is a powerful color multi-function center with wireless (80.211b/g) networking capabilities, making it a great addition to your home or small business office.

Color Printer
The MFC-845cw features a flip-up, 2.5-inch color LCD so you can control all of its functions at a glance. Enjoy up to 27 ppm black and 22 ppm color print speed, as well as photo quality printing up to 6000 x 1200 dpi. With a droplet size as small as 1.5 picoliters you can be assured of fine details and color accuracy. The unit's front loading paper tray holds up to 100 sheets, while a photo by-pass tray holds up to 20 sheets of 4x6 glossy paper. Borderless photo printing is possible, and USB, ethernet, and wireless 80.211b/g interfaces are included. The printer works with Windows and Mac operating systems.

Color Copier
With a versatile flatbed design, the MFC-845cw offers easy copying. No PC is required for copying, and you'll enjoy up to 20 cpm black and 18 cpm color copy speeds. The copier also offers up to 1200 x 600 dpi resolution, as well as multi-copying for up to 99 copies. Reduce or enlarge your copies from 25 percent to 400 percent, in 1 percent increments.

Color Scanner
Use the MFC-845cw for flatbed color scanning at up to 19,200 dpi (interpolated) resolution, and up to 600 x 2400 dpi (optical) resolution. The unit includes award-winning ScanSoft PaperPort SE with OCR Software for Windows and Presto! PageManager for Mac.

Photo Capture Center
Use the color LCD display to preview, print images or even an index--all without a computer. The MFC-845cw features convenient digital camera media card slots for high quality photo printing (Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, xD-Picture Card Type M/Type H, CompactFlash, Secure Digital, and MultiMediaCard). The memory card system also works as a removable disk drive, and there's also a PictBridge interface to print photos directly from your PictBridge-enabled camera.

Color Fax
When it comes time to send a fax, you can choose black and white or color faxing using the ITU-T30E standard. A 10-page auto document feeder makes big faxing jobs a snap, while the 14.4 Kbps high-speed fax modem delivers your documents quickly. The fax machine supports caller ID and distinctive ring modes. No PC is required for faxing. You can also take advantage of 100-station auto dialing, and 32 MB of total memory means you can store up to 480 pages.

PC Fax
The MFC-845cw comes with the Brother PC Fax Driver for sending and receiving faxes from your computer. The software supports fax broadcasting from your PC, as well as network PC fax send and receive. PC fax functionality works with Windows and Mac operating systems.

Message Center
The MFC-845cw's built-in digital answering machine records up to 99 messages or up to 29 total minutes. The unit features a built-in 5.8Ghz digital cordless telephone handset which is expandable to four handsets, as well as a full-duplex speakerphone for hands-free operation. Volume controls for both the handset and speakerphone are provided.

Product Description

Featuring a 5.8Ghz digital cordless handset (expandable to a total of 4 handsets), a 10-page ADF, a 2.5 Color LCD, wired (Ethernet) and wireless (802.11b/g) network interfaces, the MFC845cw is sets a new standard for color inkjet all-in-ones. This product also includes Color Inkjet Printing (up to 27ppm Black, 22ppm Color with resolutions up to 6000 x 1200 dpi, borderless printing), Color Copying, Color Scanning, Color Faxing, PC Faxing, PhotoCapture Center to print high quality color pictures from most digital camera media cards, PictBridge Interface, a Message Center, and a full-duplex speakerphone.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent combo-answer machine, January 4, 2007

By 

G. K. Libbey (Harbor Isle, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brother MFC-845cw Color Photo Inkjet Flatbed All-in-One with 5.8GHz Cordless Handset (Office Product)

Voice quality is great -- printing, faxing, etc. excellent. Only shortcoming is that it doesn't have an envelope bypass. Had to buy another printer for envelopes because changing paper in try from letterhead to envelopes too cumbersome.

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Expensive mistake, June 21, 2007

By 

Susan Brierley (St. John, VI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother MFC-845cw Color Photo Inkjet Flatbed All-in-One with 5.8GHz Cordless Handset (Office Product)

I bought this product primarily because I wanted a FAX/TAD that had a cordless phone. I needed to replace my Panasonic and the store that I went to did not have a Panasonic in stock. The only fax that also had a cordless phone feature was the Brother All-in-One so I decided to give it a try. It was the worst purchase I have made in a very long time. Having an extra printer/copier around was just a bonus to me and in fact it is the only part of the machine that is not a disappointment.

The restrictions on how the TAD can be used make it complicated and ineffective. Callers who leave a message have limited time to do so and that cannot be adjusted. I have had numerous clients have their messages cut off and I think that they find it insulting. When monitoring calls I have to listen to the outgoing message each time. Also during monitoring: if the caller hangs up we have to listen to a dial tone blaring in the room for several minutes. It's very distracting. If you are in the middle of a project and do not to stop to pick up the phone you will wish you had when you hear this racket. As an added annoyance: If the caller hangs up right away you have to hear the outgoing message on top of the dial tone (both at the same time). It's hard to imagine why Brother thought that was a good feature.

The outgoing message is limited to 20 seconds for the message center to work properly. I have confirmed with customer service that there also must be a delay of 5 seconds before our outgoing message starts. I have had clients who when confronted the with the five seconds of silence when they first called have assumed that they misdialed and hung up before the message came on. It even happened to me the first time I called my number after installing the Brother MFC-845CW...

Picking up calls from a remote phone is cumbersome enough that we just do not do it. If you are used to calling your phone and typing in your three or four digit code you will not be pleased with this system.

I finally gave up and spent a $114 on another answering machine thinking I could just use the Brother for faxing and copying. I was then told that I cannot bypass the TAD on the Brother but still receive faxes without a number of new restrictions: My new TAD needs to be set to pick up on two rings if the Brother is to work as a fax machine. I am not interested in trying to run to pick up each call within two rings in order to avoid having the answering machine pick up. There is one possible way to get around this: having distinctive ring for faxes. Unfortunately that is not available though my local phone company (I am located in the Virgin Islands).

I am not alone in hating this device. The two other people working in our small office also find it intolerable. Having purchased the Brother All-in-One, and an auxiliary answering device I am still without what I needed in the first place: a TAD/ FAX with a cordless fax.

As for the the great customer service: we did not find them exemplary. The three people we spoke to did speak English (not as a first language but well enough that we were not frustrated) but we did get conflicting information. I guess it is hard to be a great customer service representative for a really bad product.

After a month of frustration I am going to discard it unless I can find someone to give it to that just wants a copier. I'll get the Panasonic that I originally wanted. I hope I can save someone else from this product.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, except for the 5.8G phone, February 2, 2007

By 

R. Hoffman (Colorado, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brother MFC-845cw Color Photo Inkjet Flatbed All-in-One with 5.8GHz Cordless Handset (Office Product)

This is an excellent mfc, I am extremely satisfied with its print, scan, fax, and copy functions as well as the wireless networking. I'm also very happy with the display, which is large and color and very usable. Overall, this MFC works flawlessly! Kudo's to Brother for this.

Now for the negative info. I was so hoping when I bought this that I could replace my Panasonic KX-TG5110 phone system with this MFC so I could consolidate all my "stuff". Sadly, the phone sound quality is so-so and it has an annoying high frequency hiss in the background of a phone call. Mind you, this is after I adjusted the echo cancellation and played with the various settings. The phone sound quality out of the box was hideous with huge echo's, the Brother default settings are ridiculous.

After all tuning and adjustment, switching between my Panasonic and the Brother phones during a phone call was night and day. Panasonic wins hands down.

Needless to say, I'm keeping my Panasonic and junking the Brother phone. However, at the price, I still think the Brother MFC is a high value and high quality product.