Editorial Review:

Item Description:
The MFC-7840W offers everything you need in a monochrome laser all-in-one for your home office or small sized business. It features an elegant black color scheme while adding a built-in 802.11b/g wireless network interface, PCL6 and BR-Script3 print emulations, a faster fax modem (33.6K bps Super G3), 4-day memory backup and an LCD backlit display for easy viewing. Use the document glass to scan pages directly to your e-mail application or to a single PDF file using the ADF. You can print, scan or send faxes wirelessly, as well as having the option to install the MFC on a wired network or to connect locally to a single computer via USB. A foldout rear output tray allows for a straight-through paper path and is ideal when using the single-sheet bypass slot for printing envelopes or thicker media. USB, Ethernet & 802.11b/g Standard Wireless Interfaces PCL6 & BR-Script3 Emulation 33.6K bps Fax Modem Speed External TAD interface Call Waiting Caller ID Ready Distinctive Ring Detection Ready 208 Total Auto Dial Locations 258 Broadcasting Locations Reduction/Enlargement - 25% - 400% Interpolated Scan Resolution - Up to 19200 x 19200 dpi Optical Scan Resolution - 600x2400 dpi 48-bit Input Color Scan Depth Export TIFF / BMP / MAX / JPG / PDF Formats Scan To Email, Image, OCR, File, and FTP Paper Handling Size - Letter, Legal, Executive, A4, A5, and B5 Wireless Network Security - WEP 64/128, WPA-PSK (TKIP), WPA2-PSK (TKIP & AES), and LEAP (CKIP) ADF Sheet Weight - 17 - 24 pounds ADF Input Paper Tray - 5.8x5.8 to 8.5/14 Sheet Weight - 16 - 28 pounds Machine Noise (Standby/Operating) - 32 dBA / 53 dBA Unit Dimensions - Width 16.9 x Depth 15.6 x Height 12 Unit Weight - 24.5 pounds Manufacturer's One year limited warranty

Amazon.com Item Description:
The Brother MFC-7840W Laser Multi-Function Center with Wireless Networking is an economical, compact device that can handle all your small office printing, copying, scanning, and faxing needs. With crisp, high-quality output and fast print speeds, you won't be waiting around for the MFC-7840N to finish its job. It is compatible with both Macs and Windows, and built-in 802.11b/g wireless networking makes it easy for you to share the device with everyone in your office.

The Brother MFC-7840W Laser Multi-Function Center with Networking offers: Prints and copies at up to 23 pages per minute. Built-in 802.11b/g wireless networking for easy office sharing. Automatic document feeder for easy copying, scanning, and faxing of multiple pages. Full color scanning at 600 x 2400 dpi optical resolution.

Support for wireless networking makes sharing the MFC-7840W a snap. View larger.

Compact, Elegant Design and Multiple Networking Options
The MFC-7840W measures a compact 16.9 x 15.6 x 12 inches (WxDxH) and tips in at just under 25 pounds, taking up minimal space in your office. Featuring an elegant black color scheme, the device won't look out of place in any office. An LCD backlit display keeps you apprised of the device's status.

With USB, Ethernet and 802.11b/g wireless interfaces, setting up this printer for use with a single computer or with a network is simple. Once connected, everyone in your office can print, fax, and scan. The wireless networking supports WEP 64/128, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK, and LEAP for security so you won't have to worry about your sensitive documents falling into the wrong hands.

Fast Print Speeds and Outstanding Output with High Compatibility
With crisp black output at 2400 x 600 dpi, no one will be straining their eyes to read your latest report. And with the prints coming out at a speedy 23 pages per minute, you won't have to wait for them either. The printer includes 32MB of memory and has a maximum monthly duty cycle of 10,000 pages. Thanks to support for PCL 6 and BR-Script3 print emulations, the printer will work seamlessly with a large variety of computers.

Flexible Paper Handling with 250-Sheet Input Capacity
The MFC-7840N features a 250-sheet paper tray that can be adjusted for both letter and legal size paper. Other media, such as envelopes and labels can be fed through the single-sheet bypass slot. The fold-out rear output tray reduces the possibility of paper jams by allowing for a straight paper path when printing envelopes and other thick media.

Make Copies and Faxes without Turning on the Computer
Using the same components that does the printing, you can make copies at the same fast 23 pages per minute. Thanks to a 35-page auto document feeder, you can copy, fax, and scan multiple pages without standing around manually swapping pages. The copier lets you reduce and enlarge from 25 to 400 percent of the original, and you can put 2 or 4 sheets on one page. The copier also supports a sorting function.

A built-in 33.6k bps fax modem lets you fax documents at speeds of up to 2 seconds per page. The device supports Caller ID, out-of-paper reception, external TAD interface, distinctive ring detection, auto fax reduction, fax forwarding, automatic redial, dual access, and fax broadcasting of up to 258 locations at once. Built-in memory allows the device to store up to 600 pages in memory for faxing.

Scan Photographs, Images, and Documents
Scan photographs and pictures at a resolution of up to 19200 x 19200 dpi (600 x 2400 dpi optical) at 48-bit color depth for integrating high-quality images into your documents. With the included OCR software for both Windows and Mac, you can also easily change paper documents into editable digital copies.

The Brother MFC-7840N Laser Multi-Function Center with Networking measures 21.7 x 20.1 x 20.5 inches (WxDxH) and is Energy Star compliant. It is backed by a one-year warranty.










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Rating: - * No surprises ...
I have used Brother printers for many years in my home office, and this wireless model, held no surprises for me. It performs on demand, prints great, copies great, and my faxes can be received and sent when I need.
I applaud Brother for it's easy interface with the MAC, and I am a loyal follower. I have only one suggestion for those setting up the wireless feature: Call the technical support if you are not familiar with how wireless works. I don't really understand it, know just enough to be dangerous and, even though I tried to follow the manual, I ended up knocking out my laptop's access to my home network when I "connected" the printer to the network wirelessly. I called Tech support who got me set up again, in about 15 minutes. They know what they're doing, so if you are in the least bit unsure how to connect the printer wirelessly to the network, call the toll-free support and they will walk you through it. Otherwise, you can connect to your router with ethernet. Good luck and happy printing. This printer is worth every cent.

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Rating: - * Good all-around MFC ...
This is my second Brother MFC, the first being a 6800. This one is similar in many respects, but has wireless capability- very handy to print from my laptop on another floor.

This printer warms up and prints quickly. The controls are straight forward and the functions versatile. It's convenient to have both flatbed and auto sheet feeding. Print quality is fine. Provision is there for single sheet and envelope feeding as well.

Wireless set-up took a lot of experimentation as the instructions weren't great. I'm not a very knowledgeable network person. Suddenly it worked, and it now works beautifully. I'd recommend for home or small office.

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Rating: - * Defective product with bureaucratic customer service ...
I had high hopes for this product after reading the positive reviews here. Unfortunately it was defective out of the box. There seems to be a known issue with a toner cartridge error: the sensor fails to read that the cartridge is full. As soon as I plugged it in with the factory-shipped cartridge, it registered the error. Fortunately, thought I, i've ordered a spare cartridge so I banged that in and up popped the same error. I then went to the online help site which has no mention of this problem even though a google search shows it to be an issue with related Brother printers.

Customer support is only available on weekdays so finally on my one day off in months I call Brother. Their rep insisted on sending me another print cartridge to try even though I pointed out that I had already done that. Her response is that they are required to proceed on that basis. When I asked what would happen if the same error resulted, she refused to give me any details, saying that there were 3 options that "they were not at liberty to discuss with customers". I asked to speak to the supervisor who revealed the incredible secret that the next step if the cartridge replacement did not work would be to do an exchange of the printer. I asked why that was kept from customers and she responded that it was company policy. At this point I felt like I was in some French bureaucracy. Elapsed wasted time with Brother = 1 hour.

Fortunately a quick call to Amazon resulted in an immediate return option. Thank God for their customer service. I'm going to go with the H-P products, which are American to boot.

This may be a wonderful product when it works but if you're buying it online you will depend on the customer services and the Brother service is primordial.

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Rating: - * Excellent For Small Office - Great For Envelopes ...
I replaced my Brother MFC 7420 with this MFC-7840 and am very happy with the upgrade. It does everything I need and is small and quiet in my small office. It has a straight paper passthrough for envelopes, which works great. Read below for a comparison to other similar models.

I've had a Brother MFC-7240 for 2 or 3 years when the fuser went out last week. A new fuser is $150 + $75-100 to install, so needless to say, I decided to buy a new all-in-one machine. My Konica Minolta 2430DL color laser printer also conked out at the same time and I investigated replacing both with a color laser AIO. After not having much luck finding one of those that could easily print envelopes, I decided to stick with two different machines. In retrospect, I'm glad I did - it's good to have two printers around to back each other up just in case. (If you've got really light duty needs, consider the Samsung CLX-3160FN, which I came across in during this first shop. It's dirt cheap for a color laser AOI. Very small and very quiet, but not solid enough for a small office load.)

After reading up on monochrome laser AOIs for much too long, I narrowed my choices down to about a dozen in the $200-$500 range. I refuse to buy something I can't see and play around with first, so I went shopping at local stores to see the models I chose in action. I went to Staples, Office Depot and OfficeMax. Tried for Circuit City and Best Buy also, but believe it or not, they don't carry ANY monochrome laser AIO machines in their stores - only on-line. A manual feed and envelope printing are a must for my use, and reviews I read were conflicting, so I took a big stack of envelopes to test the machines out myself. I also took my own originals (a purchase order and envelope - both with various sizes of text and graphics) so I could compare apples to apples.

Most machines I tested had decent quality copying. There were differences, but all were acceptable for b&w general office work. Of course, copying was the only feature I could really test at the store. They all warmed up quickly and most were quiet enough. Here's what I found...

Brother MFC-8460 is too loud, big and imposing for my small office and took a little longer to warm up.

Canon 4270 has duplexing, which I was in the market for, but a funky half-tray for paper that was hard to load and looked like it could have problems down the road. Other than that, I liked it a lot (my second choice). Printed envelopes well and looked stylish.

Canon 4150 printed the envelope crooked and the coverage was too heavy and "grayed" the white envelope. I imagine this might be improved when changing settings from the print software to adjust for the thicker envelope paper.

HP1522NF printed the envelope uncrinkled, but it made a LOT of noise curling around the paper feed, which worried me. It also "grayed" the white envelope without being able to select a "thick paper" option.

HP M2727 did not print the envelope well at all.

Samsung SCX-4725fn has an easy manual feed, but toner on my graphics flaked off the envelope. It copied very quickly and quietly.

Brother MFC-7840w and MFC-7440n are pretty much the same except the they are different colors and the 7840 is wireless and better for networking. They both have backs that open so labels and envelopes can pass straight through and not wrinkle or curl at all.

I ended up with the Brother MFC-7840W from OfficeMax for $299.00. (It was $249 at Staples and Office Depot with a mail-in rebate - it's a long story why I couldn't get back to one of them and save the $50.) Not only did I like this machine best in my test, but I was happy with my old MFC-7420 and hope this updated version will treat me as well. The one thing I really wish the 7840 had that is does not, is duplex printing. If it had that, it would be the perfect machine.

I did a USB installation to Windows XP, which was simple and took about 45 minutes, but unfortunately the copier and scanner did not work. I called tech support and got through quickly. They couldn't help me, but quickly bumped me up to the next level of tech support. This next level was actually staffed with a real engineer who had the machine in the same room with him. After a few diagnostics he had me run, he determined that the logic board was defective and volunteered to send me a new one. I opted to return it to OfficeMax, who exchanged it with no problem.

I just plugged the new machine in and didn't reinstall the software. Now everything works perfectly and I'm very happy with this machine.

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Rating: - * Great Product ! ...
This is my first laser printer, and I couldn't be more pleased. Set-up was a breeze and operation is completely intuitive! All in all, five stars for sure.