Fax/Copier(s) that send email directly?

[Zoidberg]

I have a client who keeps slogging through one multifunction after another. He keeps getting home office level stuff in an attempt to save money but he's got an office of about a dozen people. It's time for him to step up a bit.

One thing that I think would sell him is the ability to treat the fax/copier as a scan & send as well. I know a few other clients have such a set-up. (I personally use a Fujitsu ScanSnap for this; it adds a few steps, of course, but I'm a sole proprietor).

Anyone have any direct experience (in an office environment, maybe) with such a beast? He's not capable of getting some $5,000 to $10,000 system but I think it's time he moved away from the $75 HP AIOs he's been getting.

[Drew]

This might be too geared to a home office. But, I'll mention it, just because it works for me. My main purpose is to receive faxes by email while on the road. It works as advertised.

http://www.sharpusa.com/products/ModelLa...21,00.html

[John B.]

HP used to make a line of networked scanners that would save to PCs on the network and/or send the scanned files as e-mail attachments. Might want to look at their business line of scanners and see if they still have that functionality available.

[ADent]

My cheapy Brother MFC3820CN supposedly email directly (I have never tried).

We have some Brother Laser Fax machines at work - no network connection (and thus no email) on those units - but they seem to hold up to moderate use.

[mikeylikesit]

I guess I don't grok something here.

For years we would fax out of FAXstf and it all worked well, still does. Lately we dropped our 12-year old Earthlink account, went to gmail and started mailing where available. Both work for us.

The only real question is does it work. gmail works.

[Cary]

My Brother MFC-7820N can scan directly into an email. I need to input the email address...

Cary

[Robert M]

Zoid,

The laserjet 3055 and the laserjet M1522NF can both scan to e-mail. Typically, I place the document onto the flatbed or in the ADF, open HP director, choose e-mail and the machine in turn scans the document and automatically opens mail and creates a new e-mail with the scanned file as an attachment.

Is this what you are looking for?

With that in mind, a low cost typically low end home oriented all-in-one is definitely not an appropriate machine for an office with a dozen or more people using the machine. The amount of cash this individual has spent on low end models combined with the agita and loss of productivity of machines going down has actually cost more than what he would've spent on a higher end machine appropriate for the task.

Although my office has fewer employees, we went through several brother inkjet alll-in-one machines before deciding enough was enough and dropping the bucks for an HP laserjet 3055. Never a problem. Rock solid. I was so happy with them that my family bought three more laserjet all-in-ones. The laserjet 3055 was discontinued so we snagged three laserjet M1522NF models. Rock solid. Managed to save $250.00 (or was it $200?) on each machine via a rebate from HP.

Robert

[Zoidberg]

Robert/Cary/"..and the rest" (been wanting to use that),

I've tried to get him to get something similar to my setup, which is to either use a Brother (I have an MFC-9440CN, which does what I describe via the computer -- i.e., you can scan it directly to an email attachment) or a Fujitsu ScanSnap (which is what I switched to; I have the S300M, which is very small and takes up almost no room; the only caveat is that it's only about 10 pages per scan) (actually, I rarely have to send hand-marked docs anymore; I use Acrobat Pro and do all the annotation directly in it).

I'm going to re-describe those options to him, but I also wanted to give him some info on something that could function for him as a fax machine (at least) or a true office workgroup all-in-one (primarily a copier, but also a fax/printer) that you could walk up to, put the document in the ADF, and then hit my name on the preset and it would scan and email the document to me (thus bypassing sending me it as a "physical fax" ) .

Drew's linked Sharp looks promising to that, and I need to investigate some of the other suggestions. Again, though, just about every MFC on the market these days can scan to email, but the key here is "sans computer"; i.e., send me the scan via email without the PC as the intermediary.

[Robert M]

Zoid,

I just looked at the laserjet 3055 and it can store fax numbers but not e-mail. In all these years I've used all-in-ones, all have required a computer as an intermediary. The only ones that didn't were _very_ expensive, i.e. $1000 or more dollars for the machine. I think your friend would balk at that kind of price. The sharp sounds like it will do the trick but it may not work as a stand-alone copier or printer. Even if it does work as a printer, it may not have a driver for the mac.

Robert

[Drew]

Robert M wrote:
Zoid,

I just looked at the laserjet 3055 and it can store fax numbers but not e-mail. In all these years I've used all-in-ones, all have required a computer as an intermediary. The only ones that didn't were _very_ expensive, i.e. $1000 or more dollars for the machine. I think your friend would balk at that kind of price. The sharp sounds like it will do the trick but it may not work as a stand-alone copier or printer. Even if it does work as a printer, it may not have a driver for the mac.

Robert

Yes, the Sharp can fax to email without a computer connection, though it can be setup using an ethernet connection via a web browser. I cannot see it using Printer Setup and the ethernet connection, probably because of the lack of a driver. Here is a link to the manual.
http://www.sharpusa.com/products/TypeMan...25,00.html