Rating: 
Summary: Prepare to get frustrated!
Review: Indeed, it is an "all can do" machine. At least during the first months. We are a small business and use the machine only a few times a day. But after a few months we had a problem with ink lines being spread out on each page we printed out. The Brother people (help line) were very helpful but couldn't find a solution. I eventually came up with the idea to replace the Drum Unit. The problem was solved but two weeks later, we had the same problem all over again. Now I wouldn't mind that this Drum Unit was just a few bucks...the problem is that one of these Drum Units costs you A LOT MORE than the purchase price of the Brother MFC-4800. ............In a perfect world, you can take it to a service center that Brother suggests. But who can live without a fax, telephone and copier for a week? Not a normal business! !! Do yourself a favour, calculate your time, toner and drum unit costs into the price of a machine.
A more expensive one might actually be cheaper in the long run.
Rating:
Summary: Dont load the software!
Review: The machine is OK, the support... there is none. The software is a hack job, again no support. I loaded it on Win 98 & it created all kinds of conflicts with other software (Publisher from Microsoft in particular).
Rating:
Summary: Dont load the software!
Review: The machine is OK, the support... there is none. The software is a hack job, again no support. I loaded it on Win 98 & it created all kinds of conflicts with other software (Publisher from Microsoft in particular).
Rating:
Summary: Dont load the software!
Review: The machine is OK, the support... there is none. The software is a hack job, again no support. I loaded it on Win 98 & it created all kinds of conflicts with other software (Publisher from Microsoft in particular).
Rating:
Summary: can't keep it straight
Review: The MFC-4800 I purchased has been a serious disappointment. Although Brother was willing to replace it twice, they were not willing to acknowledge there are engineering problems with the model itself. In short, the machine does not keep all of the lines straight (and running parallel) across a page it is copying. Unless Brother has since corrected this problem, I would definitely stay away from this machine if you are looking for professional quality copying.
Rating: 
Summary: A Rock-Solid Laser Printer/Fax
Review: There is no multifunction machine that does everything as well a collection of individual machines. The MFC-4800 is advertised as a 5-in-1: Fax/Printer/Copier/Scanner/PC-Fax. Here's how it performs at those tasks:Fax: At its heart, this product is Brother's well-regarded PPF-2800 laser fax machine. It does not require a computer connection to work as a fax, and it has the robustness to serve a medium-sized office. Its TAD/Distinctive Ring feature lets me use the machine to automatically receive faxes on my standard telephone/answering machine line. As a fax machine, it's a 10. Printer: USB and parallel interfaces, as well as Mac and Windows drivers, make this a good, 9 PPM laser printer. Text printing is very crisp, and the paper feed works well. Two downsides: First, graphics aren't printed as well as other laser printers. They appear to print using dithered black and white, rather than grayscale. Secondly, this printer doesn't have any built-in networking features, although it can be shared using Windows printer sharing or a hub. Helpful Printer Tip: If you use Windows XP and you only want to use the printer feature (without the scanning, OCR and PC-Fax), simply plug the USB cable from the printer into your already-running PC. Windows XP will automatically install its built-in driver for this printer - great for those of us who are wary of installing loads of software on our computers. Copier: I purchased this machine because I needed a fax machine, and happily paid a little extra for the laser printing capability. I'm delighted that it has a handy and useful standalone copy feature -- simply load a stack of originals into the fax feeder and press the "Copy" button, and out churn your copies. As with the fax feature, no computer connection or software is used. However, if you're looking for a "real" copier, you'll want a color, flatbed unit. Using the fax paper feeder means you can't copy books, small, or fragile items. It also tends to twist vertical lines a little. For record keeping, it's terrific, but if you want to make 20 copies of a 20 page document that look as good as the original, you'll probably be disapointed. Scanner: I didn't even bother. The scanning and OCR software it installed on my Win ME system has a distinctly Windows 3.1 appearance. There are loads of [$$] color flatbed scanners that can run circles around this unit. If black and white, fax-quality PC scanning is useful to you, well, go for it. PC-Fax: I haven't tested this feature. Summary: I'm completely satisfied with my purchase. At its heart, this unit is a fax machine with a very good laser printer engine. Within the limitations of its fax heritage, it's a useful copier, but those fax limitations are significant in terms of its scanning capability. Two last comments - no USB or parallel cable was included, and the toner cartridge is a 1,000 page "starter" cartridge.
Rating:
Summary: Reconsider before you make a big mistake.
Review: These machines are known for placing random ink marks on your paper after a jamb. If you have paper jamb inside the machine (as opposed to in the feeder), you will inevitably have random black marks on every page thereafter. It has been a continuing problem and since Brother doesn't have a fix for it, they tell you to replace, you guessed it, the $160 drum unit! That's over half the price of what they sold the machine to us for. Think twice before buying. As stated before, the scanning and copying on this unit leave a lot to be desired.
Rating:
Summary: Laser quality at Injet price!!!
Review: This machine produces high quality laser copying and printing. I first purchased this machine to recieve faxes at a much lower cost. I have since tossed my old color inkjet and use this machine for about 1/5 the operating cost for printing. I find the crispness of this laser much more professional than that of a ink jet machine and the cost saving are great! This machine recieves about 30 faxes a day and has been a great addition to my office.
Rating:
Summary: Has turned out to be an incredibly smart investment
Review: We have had the Brother MFC 4800 for about three years now, and it is one of the absolute best purchases we ever made. The copy feature is not that great, but will suffice for home uses, and I don't know about the scanner or PC-fax features or haven't used them enough to pass judgement. As a printer and fax it has been great though.
I went through law school while my wife was a realtor who worked 50% out of a home office using this printer. We have probably printed 25,000 + pages through it. It still works great. We replaced the printer drum unit once, which the salesman said we would have to do somewhere around 15,000 - 18,000 copies. I think it cost about $150. The toner cartridge is usually about $30, and lasts for at least 2,000 pages if not more. Never needed any other parts or repair, although I did open it once and dust it out as best I could.
It doesn't print lightning fast, but it will do fast enough for a home use or a small home business, making high quality prints at probably 10 pages per minute. It makes great high quality prints on bond paper for resumes and postcard type paper for mailings, etc. I'm not sure now about the prices, but 3 years ago this machine was hands down the best value for the price if you wanted a home laser printer. I would estimate that at our high usage it has paid for itself several times just by how much longer the toner cartridge lasts versus inkjet cartridges, which usually cost even more. This thing costs only nominally more than an ink printer, and you won't miss having color. All the problems printing with ink make it almost a waste of time to deal with color printing at home anyway. The fax has always worked great too, and is easy to set up with your phone system, it has caller ID on it, and it has always worked fine detecting incoming faxes and answering them on the second ring.
The machine has been just a workhorse and a brute. There were software glitches I remember when we switched to Windows XP, but it wasn't terribly difficult to fix and it works fine now. Sometimes if there is a power loss or the computer shuts off incorrectly, something happens in the printer communication that causes a headache for a short period. But not being a computer expert I have always got the printer to work just fine, and those are really minor things compared to the low cost, high quality printing, and longevity of this machine with very high usage (and we've moved twice since owning it and it's gotten beaten around!).
Rating:
Summary: Not worth it.
Review: When I first got this machine for use at work, I thought it was going to be good (printer, scanner, copier, fax), but the more I use it, the more I have to come to hate this machine. The copying is poor (bad fax quality) and the paper comes out all curled out (this could be due in part to the humidty, but it is fine going in so I doubt it). The machine can do no more than 30 pages at Standard quality (poor quality) and only 20 at Fine (fair) quality. What is the worst is that most of the time when I try to send a fax, the machine grabs multiple pages forcing me to feed it one sheet at a time, which doesn't guarantee that it will work, but is sure annoying. My only positive thing to say, after a solid month of us is that it won't send the fax until it is done scanning, so you don't have to worry about sending a person a dozen messed up fax attempts before you get one succesful scan. Oh, did I metion the extremely high costs for a replacement toner and drum (mega $$$). My conclusion is to look eleswhere, this is a super bargin to begin with so you wouldn't buy it for that and since it doesn't work as a fax most of time (and this thing is really a fax at heart), why bother. I should give this more than 1 start, but I want to convey my point that you will be better off somewhere else.
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