Product Reviews
Brother MFC-9840CDW
Color Laser Multi-Function Center® with Wireless Networking and Duplex
Average Customer Rating:
Rating Snapshot (126 reviews)
5 stars
45
4 stars
33
3 stars
22
2 stars
15
1 star
11
88 of 126(70%)people would recommend this product.
Customer Reviews for MFC-9840CDW
Review 1 for MFC-9840CDW
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Very Good, Not Perfect
Date:May 28, 2011
By TaiChi
from California Bay Area
I love having a color laser MP printer. This was a great value for the money. Of course, the cost of expendables adds up.
The one complaint I have is that the Brother toner cartridges have a bad habit of leaking blotches of toner on the output print when they get close to their end of life. I'm too cheap the jettison them early, so I put up with the blotches.
The one complaint I have is that the Brother toner cartridges have a bad habit of leaking blotches of toner on the output print when they get close to their end of life. I'm too cheap the jettison them early, so I put up with the blotches.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home (Personal Use)
Brother products owned: 3
2 of 2 found this review helpful.
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Review 2 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Very disappointed
Date:May 16, 2011
By RichardS
from Miami Beach, Fl
Despite good reviews this machine and Brothers has sadly not come through. The features are great, the duplexing works very well and except for envelopes which come out a bit wrinkled, the paper handling has been pretty trouble free. Unfortunately, the color printing/copying has been abysmal from the start. We have only purchased Brother cartridges, had several authorized repairmen come and called and wrote Brothers numerous time but no help by phone and no response to letters. Finally one repair man suggested HP or Lexmark.
Despite good reviews this machine and Brothers has sadly not come through. The features are great, the duplexing works very well and except for envelopes which come out a bit wrinkled, the paper handling has been pretty trouble free. Unfortunately, the color printing/copying has been abysmal from the start. We have only purchased Brother cartridges, had several authorized repairmen come and called and wrote Brothers numerous time but no help by phone and no response to letters. Perhaps it was a fluke or a "lemon" but finally one repair man suggested we dump this unit and purchase an HP or Lexmark. There goes $700 down the drain.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 2
1 of 1 found this review helpful.
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Review 3 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Disappointing
Date:May 13, 2011
By RichardS
from Miami Beach, Fl
Despite good reviews this machine and Brothers has sadly not come through. The features are great, the duplexing works very well and except for envelopes which come out a bit wrinkled, the paper handling has been pretty trouble free. Unfortunately, the color printing/copying has been abysmal from the start. We have only purchased Brother cartridges, had several authorized repairmen come and called and wrote Brothers numerous time but no help by phone and no response to letters. Perhaps it was a fluke or a "lemon" but finally one repair man suggested we dump this unit and purchase an HP or Lexmark. There goes $700 down the drain.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 2
0 of 1 found this review helpful.
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Review 4 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Painless Linux compatibility
Date:April 18, 2011
By iaaipjcm
from Payson, UT
I was looking for an Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) Linux compatible color laser multifunction printer/fax/scanner with full duplex printing and wireless network capability. This printer fit the bill perfectly. To my surprise, everything was so easy that I didn't have to download anything or even open the manual. It was a so nice to be able to program the wireless settings from the printer itself. It's also a bonus that the included toner cartridges were the standard capacity and not merely a starter size.
Expertise: Casual User
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 3
1 of 1 found this review helpful.
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Review 5 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Best Printer for me yet
Date:April 13, 2011
By jdtz
from Mississippi
After suffering for some time with top-of-the-line inkjet printers from the major company, including supply costs and most of all crashes with large print jobs (forcing me to restart at an uncertain state), I paid the extra amount for the color laser MFC-9840CDW. I have never suffered any crashes with even longer print jobs and never have had a software problem. My only complaint resides with the supply costs. Perhaps, because printing is so easy, I use it rather extensively. I recently reacted to the Brother suggestion of using black and white as the default. It really helps since I was needlessly using color all of the time, even when not essential.
I wish there were a better way of determining the actual toner usage besides counting pages or allowing me to make adjustments, accepting a gradual decline in quality. Further, if a color toner is out, it still will not print - even if that color is not important in the print. However, using B/W as the default has really helped this problem. Relative to service, I have found Brother service to be quicker and better quality than from the competition ( a pleasant surprise).
I wish there were a better way of determining the actual toner usage besides counting pages or allowing me to make adjustments, accepting a gradual decline in quality. Further, if a color toner is out, it still will not print - even if that color is not important in the print. However, using B/W as the default has really helped this problem. Relative to service, I have found Brother service to be quicker and better quality than from the competition ( a pleasant surprise).
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 1
2 of 3 found this review helpful.
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Review 6 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Disappointing Product
Date:April 13, 2011
By Peter
from Philadelphia, PA
I have used Brother AIO printers for 6 or 7 years now. Until now, they have always been dependable workhorse printers. I even have 2 MFC-9840CDWs based on my prior experiences with Borther products. However, now I am very disappointed in the dependability of this model. My original purchase of the MFC-9840CDW was 18 months ago. The printer is not used hard. Since November 2010, I have had the printer to the local Brother authorized service center 4 times. The density sensor was reseated on 11/3/10. The paper was not feeding properly on 3/24/10 so I had to have the tray 2 roller and the cassette tray replaced. Upon getting the printer back from the repair shop, the printer would periodically give me the "PRINT UNABLE 2A" message. I then had to replace the waster toner cartridge. That did not fix the problem and back to the repair shop the printer went. Finally the drive frame assembly was replaced upon recommendation by Brother Technical Support. Apparantly Brother technical service update F1294 highlighted this problem. I have now put more money into repairing the printer than the initial purchase price. What scares me is that I am looking at potentially the same set problems for my new MFC-9840CDW that was purchased at the beginning of the year. I would have considered other competitive products had I been aware of the future issues.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: More than 5
2 of 2 found this review helpful.
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Review 7 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
(
out of
5
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Solid Machine
Date:April 11, 2011
By Roger
from Leominster, MA
My machine has been in service for several months and has performed as advertised. Scanning to PDF is essential in my tax practice. This machine handled the task without fault. Consumables are easy to change, albiet a little on the high price side. The duplexing function is the real high light of this machine. Saves on the cost of consumables which is never a bad thing. The added paper tray is a must if you're planning on using the machine in a small office environment. The MP tray is a little tempremental when printing envenlopes - it eats them! Overall this is a very good starter machine for a home based business or an excellent machine for a college student (who has a little deep pocket at home to pay for the toner and drum).
Expertise: Professional or Expert
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: More than 5
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Review 8 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Date:April 6, 2011
By BobS
I have been disappointed in the color quality when copying. Under default settings its muddy. When calling support they were not helpful. It was not until I sent them a sample that they acknowledge there was a problem. I had to set it to extreme settings to get copies that were barely acceptable. I still think the machine was out of specs. They would not send out a service person to check it out,
I also have not been able to get what I would call a vivid print. There is not much difference between regular and vivid. I think this is also a machine problem as every once in a long while it would print a vivid copy.
I basically like the machine and would rate it 4 stars if I did not have what I consider very poor experience with your tech support and customer service.
2 of 2 found this review helpful.
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Review 9 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Be prepared to spend money.
Date:April 6, 2011
By JWvrod
from GA
I thought my home work was complete. I was wrong. The first month was great. Fast printing time, quality etc. No complaints. After the home the honeymoon was over, the machine required way more maintenance than I was prepared to spend. I was able to save a little money by replacing some parts myself. Another issue was that I called the service center that was provided by Brother three times and no one ever returned my calls. I have decided it would be cheaper to by an inkjet and replace it every eighteen months. Sorry, it wasn’t a Brother.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: 3
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Review 10 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Great Printer with one major flaw
Date:April 6, 2011
By Absolute
from Texas
I have had this printer to about 5 years. The print quality and speed are exceptional. The consumable cost is reasonable. The mechanism is very good. I use it to print mailings and the tray accommodates and feeds envelopes very well.
I have had very few problems with the unit.
I do however have two negative comments - one minor and one major.
Minor:
The output tray is not that well designed. If you print larger runs the output stack is a mess. Even using the little tab does not really help. The brand I had before this had a steeper receiving tray which worked better. But overall this is a very minor complaint and causes no real problems.
The output tray is not that well designed. If you print larger runs the output stack is a mess. Even using the little tab does not really help. The brand I had before this had a steeper receiving tray which worked better. But overall this is a very minor complaint and causes no real problems.
Major:
I discovered via some online research about 3 years into owning this unit that it calls for toner replacement (by calls for I mean it turns off and forces replacement of toner or reseting of counter) when your cartridges are somewhere between 40 and 60 percent full. This probably cost me 2 - 3 K over that time consumables.
I discovered via some online research about 3 years into owning this unit that it calls for toner replacement (by calls for I mean it turns off and forces replacement of toner or reseting of counter) when your cartridges are somewhere between 40 and 60 percent full. This probably cost me 2 - 3 K over that time consumables.
There is a way to work around this that I will not get into here. Since learning this method I am getting a significant higher number of copies from my toners without losing print quality.
I find this practice (which I can only believe is intentional) to be almost criminal. I buy onlly OEM products for quality. Buying toner is part of the deal. But the this is ridiculous. While the work around I mentioned does allow me to get the actual full life out of the toners, it does not allow me to know when I am running low, other than seeing the print quality degrade.
They should be able to manage this monitoring better. Causing consumers to throw away toner cartridges that are still half full is stupid, bad for the environment and poor quality in every way.
This may be a Brother issue on more models than this unit. It is too bad, because in almost every other way this is a absolutely great printer.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 1
3 of 4 found this review helpful.
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Review 11 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Very Capable System
Date:April 6, 2011
By lrwalker
from Little Rock, AR
I bought this system for my wife's new business over a year ago and it has been the workhorse for her ever since. The system itself was easy to set up. The software was a small issue because of Windows 7 I required a new version of the Brother software but their support team was great in troubleshooting that. I would recommend this device to any small office.
Expertise: Professional or Expert
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: 1
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Review 12 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Some good things, some bad things
Date:April 6, 2011
By DaveA
from Miami
The machine works fine, except in two areas. The paper loader in scanning mode does not consistently take 20lb paper one page at a time. It often will take 2 or sometimes 3 pages at once. I have changed to using 24lb paper for documents I will need to scan, and that seems to work consistently. The other item is the very short life of the color toner cartridges, which are quite expensive. I have used two full sets of the color cartridges and still have not reached 5000 total pages printed, and the machine has told me to replace them. And MOST of my pages are black and white. In addition, it says that all 3 color cartidges have to be replaced, not just the one which is empty. It makes no sense to think that all 3 run out at exactly the same time. Decent quality of printed product, but I wouldn't buy it again, since the toner cost in less than a year are greater than the cost of the machine.
Expertise: Professional or Expert
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: 2
3 of 3 found this review helpful.
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Review 13 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
(
out of
5
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Best MFP I've Ever Owned
Date:April 6, 2011
By rtibbitts
from San Diego, CA
What doesn't this multi-function printer do well? In my opinion nothing - as long as you use OEM toner that is. I've tried a couple of off-brand toner cartridges and they just don't hold up to the pricey but high quality Brother cartridges. Aside from the high expense of these cartridges I love everything about this printer. I'm a Realtor so I'm constantly scanning single and double sided documents. The document feeder works almost flawlessly (ocasional jams but not many). I also do lots of duplex printing and love this feature. And having a wireless connection allows the rest of the family from anywhere in the house to access the printer too. I've had this printer three years. When it breaks down I'm sure I'll research what's out there, but expect I'll buy another MFC-9840 CDW!
Expertise: Professional or Expert
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 2
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Review 14 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Disappointed
Date:April 5, 2011
By Ellie
from Idaho
After careful research of all available products in our price range this machine seemed to fit our needs.
Wrong decision. I love my Brother printers - cheap, fast, dependable. This MFC is slow to warm up, gives a "no paper" signal when paper is still in tray (although low), and the color reproduction as to be adjusted every single time we print from Quark or Pagemaker, and even then the colors are not as they should be.
On the plus side, B&W prints are clear and very fine and cost per piece is excellent.
We purchased it mostly for color printing/copying and would not recommend to anyone for that purpose. Unfortunately as a small nonprofit, we don't have the funds to buy a replacement machine and are stuck.
Final note: we brought IT folks in from a research center and they had no success figuring out how to setup the wireless connection with one of our Apple computers, our other Apple is connected by hardwire. The PCs all connected effortlessly when these experts arrived.
We have only three staff members and don't have the time to go through the hoops with Brother support to try to get it all straightened out. We bought it because it was presented as basically a machine anyone could network and get to perform as advertised. As I said: Disappointed
Disappointed.
Wrong decision. I love my Brother printers - cheap, fast, dependable. This MFC is slow to warm up, gives a "no paper" signal when paper is still in tray (although low), and the color reproduction as to be adjusted every single time we print from Quark or Pagemaker, and even then the colors are not as they should be.
On the plus side, B&W prints are clear and very fine and cost per piece is excellent.
We purchased it mostly for color printing/copying and would not recommend to anyone for that purpose. Unfortunately as a small nonprofit, we don't have the funds to buy a replacement machine and are stuck.
Final note: we brought IT folks in from a research center and they had no success figuring out how to setup the wireless connection with one of our Apple computers, our other Apple is connected by hardwire. The PCs all connected effortlessly when these experts arrived.
We have only three staff members and don't have the time to go through the hoops with Brother support to try to get it all straightened out. We bought it because it was presented as basically a machine anyone could network and get to perform as advertised. As I said: Disappointed
Disappointed.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: 3
1 of 1 found this review helpful.
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Review 15 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
(
out of
5
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Pretty good unit.
Date:April 5, 2011
By Santiago
from Denver
I've had a MFC-9840CDW for some time now. Mostly it does a good job for everything I want it to do. It messes up envelopes but thats a problem with laser printers not just Brother. Air gets trapped in the envelope and then the rollers wrinkle the envelope. I have a $3500.00 OKI C9500 printer that does the same thing. I bought a cheap inkjet printer to print envelopes. I don't understand why anyone who needs high quality color output would buy a printer like the 9840CDW . Buy a quality printer like the OKI high end printers. If you need to duplex more then a couple pages the Bother printer is real slow. I print 200 - 300 pages of duplex material at a time so I use my OKI for that. I got the Brother to take up part of the load off of my OKI but I found out it costs me twice as much to print a page compared to the OKI and the color is not as good. If color is critical you should look at a high end printer because they give you several options for printing color. I think the 9840CDW scans and sends faxes pretty good. If the unit is slow adding memory might speed it up some. I haven't added memory to my printer but I intend to. If you are going to print black and white output, select printing preferences and on the basic tab look for color/mono and select mono. That will save color toner as the printer will only use black toner, and black toner is cheaper then color toner. I noticed that quite a few people talk about the printer using ink. The printer uses dry powder toner not liquid ink. My advice is don't buy this printer if you are looking for high quality volumn printing. It is a very good printer for home use or a small business that prints mostly in black and white. The ability to use it wireless is a real plus. I found that it is really easy to set up and use.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home Office (Business Use)
Brother products owned: 4
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Review 16 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Sub-par for purchase price
Date:April 4, 2011
By RockyMountain
from California
If you are looking for a good black and white printer, this one is decent. However, I have not been satisfied with its performance as a top-end "prosumer" model. My issues:
1. Operating costs. They are extremely high. The machine says toner runs out prematurely even though there is plenty left.
2. Color output. I cannot accurately reproduce colors, but more importantly I cannot print solid colors without some type of banding or shadowing.
3. Brother software is sub-par. I am constantly frustrated by the Brother Software locking up. Especially on the Mac it really needs some help.
4. Tray selection. This may or may not be a printer/driver issue, but it is constantly frustrating. Some programs will default to the manual tray with paper loaded there; others will ignore the manual tray with paper loaded unless it is specifically selected. Mostly switching between Word/Excel exhibits this behavior.
1. Operating costs. They are extremely high. The machine says toner runs out prematurely even though there is plenty left.
2. Color output. I cannot accurately reproduce colors, but more importantly I cannot print solid colors without some type of banding or shadowing.
3. Brother software is sub-par. I am constantly frustrated by the Brother Software locking up. Especially on the Mac it really needs some help.
4. Tray selection. This may or may not be a printer/driver issue, but it is constantly frustrating. Some programs will default to the manual tray with paper loaded there; others will ignore the manual tray with paper loaded unless it is specifically selected. Mostly switching between Word/Excel exhibits this behavior.
Expertise: Professional or Expert
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: 1
3 of 3 found this review helpful.
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Review 17 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
(
out of
5
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Has met nearly all of my home printing needs
Date:April 4, 2011
By Anonymous
from Chicago area, IL
The MFC-9840CDW is a Swiss Knife of laser printers, doing duplex printing, copying, faxing, and scanning- all of them well.
One negative I have run into so far is that I have had problems with the printer cartridges starting to leak print powder before they are empty. The spilled powder gets on documents, causing spots and smudges. This has been especially bad on the black, hi-capacity OEM cartridges (both of the last two I bought have had this problem; my magenta unit is also leaking and putting a magenta stripe on one side of some documents). They also do not use up nearly all of the print powder they contain, leaving about 2 or 3 ounces in the cartridge after starting to leak or when the display says it is time to replace them.
Another problem has been occuring lately- a squealing sound like a bad bearing somewhere that is running out of lubrication. If it gets any worse, I will need to call for service and hope that I read the warranty correctly and that it is fully covered for on-site repairs for one year after purchase.
Tip #1: If you are going to print envelopes, I recommend making the proper settings on the levers under the back panel. When set for envelopes, they print properly, and it doesn't seem to affect printing on other media.
Tip #2: If the printing starts to get white shadows around the characters printed on a colored background, running an auto registration procedure will get you back to crisp printing again.
Other than the problems noted above (unusable print powder, leaking cartridges, and squealing noise), I am fairly satisfied with the performance of my unit, which I have had for about 10 months now. Even though I use it at home only, I use it a lot (about 14,000 pages already), and, based on my experience so far, would recommend it to others who need a reliable, multi-function, duplexing, color laser printer.
Expertise: Professional or Expert
Use: Home (Personal Use)
Brother products owned: 2
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Review 18 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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A good color laser printer, but could be better!
Date:April 4, 2011
By clwrocks
While I like this printer there are many details that could be made better. It takes a while to warm up and since I am a home user I do not use it as frequently as an office user so when I need to print something and go this is inconvenient. The color print quality could also be better.
I have an issue with the way that Brother handles the toner cartridge when it is suppose to be empty. It is based on the number of uses and not of the fact that the cartridge is actually empty. There are ways around this which are posted elsewhere but I just wish they were more honest in their approach with an empty toner cartridge, it shows the integrity of a company.
I have had some problem when using Windows 7 with the printer being offline. I just checked my status monitor and it is offline right now. It may be attributable to a firewall but I don't think so as I have had the same security software for a while and the problem has been intermittent for a couple months now. Yes I have called tech support but still have the issue.
For the most part it has been reliable and that is appreciated. If they could work on some of the details this would be a great product.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Home (Personal Use)
1 of 1 found this review helpful.
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Review 19 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
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out of
5
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Excellent for Business
Date:April 4, 2011
By Alain
from Southwestern Michigan
I purchased this for my new office. It was extremely easy to set up the network including the wireless. I recently printed a brochure on glossy laser paper and the results where great. Only minor irritation is the time to first copy and the lamp warmup time to make a copy.
I plan to purchase one for my home and would recommend it to anyone wanting a low cost full featured multi-purpose machine. By the way I already own 2 black and white Brother multi-purpose laser machines that have also been excellent.
I plan to purchase one for my home and would recommend it to anyone wanting a low cost full featured multi-purpose machine. By the way I already own 2 black and white Brother multi-purpose laser machines that have also been excellent.
Expertise: Hobbyist/Enthusiast
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: More than 5
1 of 1 found this review helpful.
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Review 20 for MFC-9840CDW
Overall Rating:
(
out of
5
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solid little machine
Date:April 4, 2011
By miker
from West Linn, OR
I primarily use the scanning and printing functions. The printer needs occassional cleaning of the paper feed, otherwise it works like a champ.
Expertise: Advanced Amateur
Use: Small Business (Up to 25 Employees)
Brother products owned: 1
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