Business printer maker giants such as Sharp, Xerox(XRX), Panasonic(PC), Brother, Konica Minolta, Dell(DELL), H-P(HPQ) and Ricoh all are vying to replace that probably too big, too slow and too dumb old copier in your office. They all now sell gobs of sub-$1,000, business-grade, multifunction imaging devices that offer near top-quality, print/fax/copying capability in a box barely the size of a microwave oven -- capabilities that cut directly into the retail copying and imaging services offered by shipping giants such as Fedex Office and UPS.
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In this crowded smaller business printer category, one unit caught my eye: the Canon(CAJ) imageClass MF8380Cdw ($599 at JR.com). It had a nice mix -- at least on paper -- of solid image quality, flexible features and reasonable cost. I arranged for a monthlong demo from the company.What you getThis is as good a reason as ever to never use a professional copy service again.Get ready for this: Packed into this roughly 18-inch square box is a 21-page-per-minute, black-and-white and color copier, a 600-dot-per-inch scanner, a fully duplex printer, a powerful fax machine, scan-to-USB functionality, multi-PC network printing, Ethernet connectivity, 250-sheet paper capacity and the ability to print on a wide range of paper stocks.All in a case that can sit on a decent-sized shelf.And in my testing, all these big-company productivity tools worked well in my small office. The Canon booted up and printed a page in a little less than 15 seconds. It can send and receive multipage faxes and connect directly to other PCs on a network. Even better, image quality really was copy-store grade. Blacks were rich, colors surprisingly effective for a business laser printer. And if you spend the time setting this machine up as you should, your prints will look as good as any professional service. Plus, costs were reasonable -- print-per-page fees are down to 5 cents for black-and-white or color. Much cheaper than heading down to the print shop.
Overall, any sort of business printing and collateral production will be a no-brainer for this brainy imageClass.
What you don't getSetting up this small copy/printer/scanner/fax tool is big job.
If this Canon is any indication, this generation of small, feature-packed business multifunctions make the robots in the movie Transformers look simple. Trays, toner cartridges, copy feeders, menus, control buttons, levers, hatches all work, but baby do they take time to figure out. So while I found basic setup to be a reasonable half-hour or so, the wireless networking ate up another 45 minutes. Scan to PC, another half-hour. Changing the cartridges, yet another 30 minutes.This thing is like a giant 2-foot Rubik's Cube. Everything has to line up just so to make it work.Bottom lineOverall, the Canon is an impressive business printer. And if you are nursing an old printing monster in your shop -- and you know you are -- it's a good time to upgrade. Just don't be lulled by the low price and full list of features into thinking this thing will be iPhone-easy to install. It won't.But if I have excess budget to kill this time of year, I like investing it in a better in-office all-in-one. Who really wants to bother going to the copy shop anyway?RELATED STORIES: >>Google Cloud Print Rains on Wireless Concept>>Hewlett-Packard Makes Business' Best Friend>>Brother Printer Does So Much, But Isn't EasyFollow TheStreet on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
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