Fax machines for the office are seeing increased competition from computer based faxing. Newer PCs have a fax modem built in, which allows for faxes to be sent and received by computers rather than traditional fax machines. Therefore traditional fax machines are now equipped with printing, scanning and telephone functions in order to make fax machines more marketable. If you are running an office it is important to have fax machine, but you must find the fax machine that is right for you.
The right fax machine for your office depends on what you need for your office; therefore we include reviews of the top plain-paper thermal and plain-paper inkjet fax machine models. Here are the units that they suggest and brief write-ups on those units so you can find the right one for your office.
The Brother IntelliFax 770 (*est. $120) is the price leader in the plain-paper thermal category. Reviewers say its 15-second transmit speed is slow, but it doesn't skimp on features: 20-page memory, 10-page automatic document feeder, 100-sheet paper cassette, and a device to hook up an answering machine. The Brother IntelliFax 770 also makes up to 99 copies and can broadcast faxes to 59 locations simultaneously.
The Panasonic KX-FP101 (*est. $140) is the Brother IntelliFax 770's closest price competitor. The Panasonic beats the Brother with 28-page internal memory, 15-page automatic document feeder and 150-sheet paper cassette. This machine also has a few nice touches, including a clear LCD panel that displays numbers, support for Internet faxing without being connected to a PC, and a jog dial wheel for easy menu navigation and number lookup. However, the Panasonic doesn't make multiple copies or support broadcast faxing, and lacks an output tray - it outputs faxes and originals right onto your desk. For these reasons, we did not include this otherwise highly regarded model.
Brother and Panasonic continue their duel in the plain-paper category with slightly higher-end models. The main advantage of the Brother IntelliFax 1270 (*est. $150) over the IntelliFax 770 is its 200-sheet paper cassette and 20-page document feeder. The Panasonic KX-FP 121 (est. $190) is basically the KX-FP 101 with an answering machine and duplex speakerphone; it has the same 15-second transmission speed as the Brother IntelliFax 770 and 1270.
If speed is important, reviewers say the Canon BubbleJet Plain-Paper Fax B640 (*est. $170) may be a better choice than either the Brother IntelliFax 770 or Panasonic KX-FP 121. The Canon uses inkjet printing technology to send a page in 7 seconds, makes up to 99 copies, has a telephone answering device hookup, and is capable of broadcasting to 31 locations. This unit's memory stores only 15 pages, however, and its paper capacity is only 100 pages.
The Hewlett-Packard 920 Ink-Jet Fax (*est. $250) is more expensive than the Canon B640, but it transmits a page in 6 seconds (the fastest of any model in ConsumerSearch Fast Answers), holds 150 sheets, and has a whopping 65-page memory. The HP makes 99 copies and broadcasts to 20 locations, but lacks a telephone answering device hookup.
The Panasonic KX-FPC 141 Plain-Paper Fax (*est. $230) may not match the HP 920 as a dedicated fax machine, but this model includes a 900MHz cordless phone as well as an answering machine and duplex speakers. This Panasonic transmits a page in 9 seconds, stores 28 pages in memory, holds 150 sheets of paper, makes 99 copies and broadcasts to 106 locations. This is a high end model that has much more than a traditional fax machine.
We did not include any Ricoh machines because the only recommended model is too high-priced for consumers, and we did not cover the Sharp models because their fax machines use thermal rather than plain paper. We hope that these models will be the perfect fax machine for your office and will allow you to increase your office’s productivity.
