Customer Reviews

Brother MFC-8440 Laser Multifunction

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I run a home office and am a heavy user of printing, scanning, faxing and copying. This unit replaced an old copier and an older printer/fax.

Installation gave me error messages. My system does have a lot of software and drivers on a WinXP Pro SP2 operating system. I was able to manually get the drivers installed. No, I didn't have the patience to call Brother.

Function in all modalities is superb. Text print quality and speed are excellent. Graphics are good.

Copying and fax work like a charm, both sheetfed and flatbed.

I compared the color scanning against my Epson 2450 Photo scanner. For routine scanning, I prefer the Brother. If I need to tweak a scan, I'll use the Epson. That's a pretty good recommendation!

I can highly recommend this product (with the one installation caution). Others have not reported install problems and I suspect this was my fairly complex system.

If you need a laser based AIO, by all means give this a try!

This is the best MFC out there -- no question. It scans at lightening speeds with the automatic sheet feeder. The printer prints very fast too at 21 ppm. Terrific controls, with multi-line display. This machine is built to last. I spent several months comparing all of the MFCs out there. I really needed a good scanner with a sheet feeder, but wanted to have the flexibility of a flat bed (for things that won't feed through a scanner. This unit does it all. Brother is definitely leading the way with this one!

I must say that I'm quite pleased with this multifunction machine, which I bought when my ancient, single-function inkjet finally threw in the towel recently. I read reviews of about 50 multifunction machines in the major PC mags and sites before settling on this one. I wanted all four features (copy, scan, print, fax) in a reliable machine for the lowest price, and this was the professionals' consensus. I have the factory-remanufactured version, also available from Amazon for over $100 less -- those are just fine, and after the rebate, the price is irresistible.

On major benefit of this model is the flatbed, which allows you to copy and scan anything, not just standard letter- or legal-sized pages (in other words, only things that will go through a document feeder). The laser printer is sharp and fast; I've had no jams. Remember to "fan" new reams of paper as a standard practice; static electricity is the most common, and avoidable, cause of paper jams. The copy/fax quality i fine. Some people say that the scanning is a little weak, but unless you need truly professional-quality graphics, it's quite adequate for casual use.

I've knocked off 3/4 of a star for the setup. Actually, it's not that bad, but you are going to need to actually read certain portions of the full manual; you probably won't get away with just the Quick Setup Guide. Setting up the fax to work with a connected answering machine was, honestly, moderately complex. I had to read that *entire* section in the manual (BTW, you'll find what you need on pages 1-13 to 1-22). Once I read it, though, it did tell me exactly what I needed to know, and exactly what I needed to change about my setup. You *MUST* connect the answering machine to the MFC-8440; you can't connect it to another phone jack somewhere else in your house. Also, you'll probably need to decrease the number of rings on your phone, and you may need to include a 3-5 second pause at the beginning of your outgoing message.

It's worth your time to look up whatever you're trying to do in the manual, rather than just guessing. Try to resist the initial reaction of that being a "bad thing" -- a (good) manual actually benefits you. For example, there are quite a few optional settings that I find very beneficial and convenient, but you might never notice them if you don't actually take the 10 minutes to really *read* Chapter 4. I'm a technical writer and very critical of documentation, and I have to admit that this manual is very clearly written, and rather well done overall.

For the sake of honesty, I must also tell you that Brother MFCs do sometimes take a bit more than their fair share of power (on startup only); I've docked them the last quarter-star for that. As I expected from reading reviews, my bedroom lights *do* flicker very briefly when a print job first starts up. Although it only lasts a half-second, it can be a little weird.

A few last tips: Do turn on the sleep mode to conserve energy and preserve the life of the scanner lamp. Do visit the Brother website immediately after setup, and periodically thereafter, for driver updates. And finally...how it hurts my penny-pinching heart to say this...buy original Brother toner cartridges. Factory-remanufactured is probably okay, but definitely no refilled ones. I have just read *too* many reviews that talk about the accidents that can happen with those. Even a small leak of toner inside the machine can ruin it. And although (new) "compatible" cartridges might not leak, pray that nothing ever goes wrong, because using them voids your warranty. If you do some smart comparison shopping, buying new, original cartridges isn't too bad, especially if it extends the life of a major piece of equipment like this. Like so many other things these days -- like books and music -- you'll pay way too much if you buy them in a retail store. Look for online sales, and check Amazon Marketplace or many of the other auction sites.

I use this machine on a wireless home network including one Windows ME HP desktop (I know, yuck; I'll replace it when the hard drive dies) and one good Windows XP Compaq laptop. I have no trouble printing from either, and I have no interference on my phone; I have only one DSL line in the entire house. I'm sure this machine could support a home business, and probably a very small office; it is a glorious luxury for regular home use, which is my lot. Overall, I'm delighted with my EMFC-8440 and feel good about the purchase. I would definitely recommend it to you.

I've only had this unit for several days but am greatly impressed with the sophistication of this machine.

I've already added the extra tray and increased the on-board memory to the max. Every day I discover some additional feature that I didn't know that I had. If you buy this machine, shop for those add-ons.

The only fault that I can find is that you can't select the 2nd tray from the machine unless you're printing copies. You need to go to your Windows control panel and select the printer to change your preference to the second tray if you use that tray for printing checks, etc.

A feature that I really like is the "sleep" feature. I have mine set for 5 minutes and the machine powers down to save energy.

Based on feedback from other owners and my personal experience, this is a terrific bargain.

I recently purchased the Brother MFC 8440 for my busy medical practice. This was my first Brother purchase. I was previously a loyal HP user. I had heard such good things about this multifunction device before buying it. I can now say they are ALL true.

The machine works like a charm. I networked the printer through a print server and it works great. Documents print quickly and look sharp too. Copies have great resolution and are produced quickly as well. Faxes are a breeze. I've even used the sheet feed document scanner and it works unbelievably well on black and white text documents. In fact, the Brother MFC saved me from buying a separate sheet fed document scanner. I had my whole office set-up through CompUSA's business service and they had no problems with the installation.


All in all, this is an incredible, indespensible office machine. I would give it 6 stars if it were possible. Believe the hype on this product. It legitmately copies, faxes, prints, and scans as well as any other comparably priced single function product. I can't imagine anyone not liking this product.

UPDATE
After 1 year of use, this machine is still working great. We have had zero mechanical or software problems with this machine. We are averaging about 5,000 - 10,000 pages of printing per month. When and if it dies, I will definitely buy another.

1. Phenomenal value for the money. Bought mine for $375 at efax.com. However, Costco is currently selling for $359 with an Instant $20 rebate and $40 Brother Mail In rebate.

2. I called Brother... apparently "shipped" or out-of-the-box toner is a "sample" catridge. Good for 20% of full-toner catridge, which equals ~20%.

I bought the printer from Amazon. So far, so good! Had some problem printing PDF's. The print out was smudged. Setting the option "Print as image" to true(in advanced options) solved the problem.

Print outs even with Toner Save mode ON are great. Scanning documents using Document feeder is very convinient and easy.

This machine is replacing a Brother laser printer, Brother plain-paper fax, and a Mustek flat-bed scanner in my home office. I've had good luck with Brother products in the past and absolutely love this machine. Copying, printing, and faxing are fast, reliable, and produce good output. Scanning is OK. The machine works as well as large commercial units costing much more. No problems so far. I'm very happy with the MFC-8440 and recommend it highly.

First, let me say, this machine is more than I needed. I do mostly copy work but it's difficult to find a plain old copier anymore. The 8440 makes beautiful copies, although not in color, but I knew that when I bought it. Although I don't use it, the FAX function on this machine appears to be very comprehensive and can do just about anything when it comes to sending and receiving faxes. After installing the machine and its software, AOL changed my dial-up connection from my computer modem to the 8440 FAX machine. But I changed it back and have had no more problems. There has been some question about its scanning quality, so I scanned a couple documents and they would certainly have met my needs, but I didn't scan any photos. As a laser printer, its text and graphics output are excellent.

It has a 50 sheet Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) which can be used for faxes or document copying. The scanning glass can also be used for document copying. It has a 250 sheet paper feeder and a single sheet paper feeder. Both can handle all sizes of paper and envelopes. A second 250 sheet paper feeder is available as an option.

There are an endless number of menus that can be programmed, so you will need to spend some time with the owner's manual which is very thorough and easy to follow.

If you don't need color printing, color copying or duplex printing this is a great machine. I would highly recommend it.

This is a fast, high quality, printer, scanner, fax, copier. This machine supports my Mac well, handles heavy workloads, plays well with various software, etc. I added a second paper tray ($200) so that I could print on copy paper or bond without messing with the trays, maxed out the RAM ($40) to speed things up and improve the multiple copies function of the copier, and selected "Print as Image" in the advanced printing options, which finesses Acrobat issues. This is the peripheral for you (although you'll still want an inkjet printer to print photos). The printer seems slightly slower in Word than the HL-1470M printer it replaced, which is pretty fast. It prints Acrobat documents very fast with the added RAM. The manual printer feeder handles envelopes, thick paper, whatever. The copier is very fast and tends to correct exposure problems on its own. The scanner is very fast. The fax machine works very well. The feeder for the copier, scanner and fax works well. At a street price of less than $400, this is an outstanding value!