[BBLISA] canon vs ricoh (MFP for print+scan)

[Michelle Vadeboncoeur]

On Thu, 24 Jan 2008, Patrick McNeal wrote:

PM>On Jan 24, 2008, at 9:33 AM, John Stoffel wrote:
PM>> I've got a Brother MFP printer/copier/scanner at home and it's been
PM>> pretty darn good.  They even have Linux support, including for
PM>> scanning.
PM>
PM>I second that.  I picked up a Brother MFC-7820N this fall for $150 buck (
PM>refurbished + $50 rebate ) from Staples and have been very impressed with it.
PM>Scanning from the printer to my mac over wireless still makes me smile.  It
PM>just works!

Hopefully your higher-model Brother experience is better than my 
experience with the Brother MFC-3820CN...  My mother had this for her 
Windows 98 machine.  (So yes, it is easy to scan, copy, fax, and print, if 
she could handle it!)

However, it likes to stay on all the time (it's a fax machine, after all).  
So, at any time it'll decide it's time to clean the print heads, which is 
not only noisy, but it sucks up some ink in the process.  (So, even with 
her printing very rarely, the ink would run out.  Best to unplug it if not 
using it...)  If any 1 ink cartridge would run out, the entire machine 
would decide to stop working (so no scanning to computer if out of ink!).  
Eventually it got the dreaded machine error 41 code on its display, which 
is common in this model, for "print head error."  (Occurred at just over 2 
years of ownership.  Of course, because it cannot print, it refuses to fax 
or scan anymore too.)  Cost to fix if out of warranty was $95, so we 
decided to just invest in another non-Brother all-in-one.  (I've seen one 
comment online that using non-Brother "compatible ink" cartridges may be 
the common source of that error 41...)

Just one word of caution.  If I had read the online reviews of this model 
before letting my mother buy it, we would've steered clear of it.  So 
don't fall for a model before you know about its problem areas, to see if 
it is worth it for you.