Let Me Introduce My Brother (Brother Fax 920)

Member Name: vinodgm

Product:	Brother Fax 920
Date:	01/12/01 (813 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very economically priced, Has many features usually associated with more expensive machines, Reliable Japanese brand

Disadvantages: Paper jams occasionally whilst receiving messages

Last month I made an extremely useful acquisition in the Brother FAX-920.

I have now been using it for over 6 weeks and I felt it was now time to share some information with you on something that I have certainly not regretted buying.

First of all let me touch on the appearance of the machine. The body is in a sleek black colour and the size is good enough to fit comfortably on your desk or table without occupying too much space and at the same time not looking too small. Just the right size if you get what I mean.

It uses plain paper and this being the standard A4 Photocopy/Laser type. These papers are available at all stationery shops and are not expensive. Mine came with 100 sheets of paper included and I am sure that this is the case with most shops which sell this machine.

One of the features that most impressed me was the memory feature of the machine. It has a capacity to memorize 20 pages so they say but these would probably be of pages with nominal text. It would be more like 12 to 14 pages containing regular text. If you were to be in the process of receiving a fax and suddenly your paper ran out, instead of disconnecting the line, which many machines do, this one will continue receiving the message in it's memory and as if everything was normal. After completion of the message all you need to do is to slip in some more paper and the pages that were saved in the memory will immediately print out. This is a very important feature for those who receive heavy fax traffic, such as myself. I also receive bulk messages from the Far East and this is always in the night when I'm fast asleep, so you are not in a position to be monitoring the message as it's coming in. This feature therefore helps considerably in this regard.

On the downside and still in relation to the memory function, is that the paper occasionally jams. This occurs when the paper is pushed into the paper feed a bit too hard or it is not str
aight. This leads to two or three papers trying ot squeeze themselves together through the slot meant for a single sheet. It has happened to me on several occasions but it rectified by simply making sure that you give the paper and ruffle prior to inserting them and making sure that you just drop them in, instead of pushing them in. If you paper were to jam during reception of a fax then once again the memory feature saves the day and continues to receive the messages as normal. Once you have adjusted the paper jam then the pages print automatically.

As many of you may be aware Brother is a reputable brand and most of their products are made in Japan. Thus at a price of only £124.00 this machine is extremely competitive and economical.

The major advantages of a plain paper fax machine is that the pages do not fade. The older types which use the Thermal paper are also reliable but the major problem is that the pages start fading and this is evident in as less as 2 weeks after reception. This means that you have to photocopy them in order to protect their life. This incurs additional expense and inconvenience. With the plain paper faxes the print quality is good and these messages can be filed easily.

The document feeder (the part were you put your messages which you are sending) can hold a total of 10 sheets and this is more than satisfactory.

Another useful feature is when if your using the fax machine as a telephone/fax combined and if someone is sending you a fax, as soon as they press the send button on their side your machine will immediately identify that it is a fax trying to come in and therefore start receiving it automatically. This therefore reduces expenditure for the person sending you a fax as the normal scenario would be that you would answer the phone and the other person would say "Please give me a fax tone" and then you would press the "Receive" button on your machine. Since most of my faxes a
re from overseas this reduces the telephone charges of the person calling me and also makes usuage simple and convenient.

Other features of this machine are:

-Personal Copy mode with enlargement/reduction - Meaning you can adjust the size of your message after receiving it. You would need to use the copy mode on your machine and then select if you want to increase or reduce the size.

-48 speed dial memories

-64 Grey scales - This allows you to set the resolution you are receiving in. You can set it on fine mode and down to economical mode. This process determines how long your print cartridge last for.

-Answering machine interface

-Caller Line Identification

Finally as is the case with most fax machines today, it can be used as a normal telephone and has the handset combined with the machine aswell as all the other normal telephone functions such as Redial, Hold, Flash, Speakerphone etc.

With all these features this Brother FAX-920 fax machine is extremely economical at only £124.00. Overall I am extremely happy with it and do not regret one bit in purchasing it.

If anyone is looking for a budget fax machine with all the features usually associated with more expensive models, then this one is certainly the right choice for you.

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