Monochrome Laser MFC to share Mac/Windows?

Hewlett-Packard and Epson make many (hp.com and epson.com) that work with both Windows and Mac. Both are reliable in hard work cycles, have good output quality, and both have widely available media. Both post driver updates on-line.

Bob Perrey

Although I don't have experience with all-in-one printers I can vouch for Brother laser printers for their Mac-friendly drivers. I bought a Brother HL-5250DNT workgroup printer and have it connected to a Mac and PC with no problems.

What is your budget? Brother MFC-9440CN Laser Printer <http://www.brother-usa.com/mfc/pf-detail.aspx?ProductID=MFC9440CN> ($675 shipped at jr.com and amazon.com) has 64Mb RAM, scans (5ppm), faxes, copies and prints (16ppm) with a color laser engine, but lacks an auto-duplexer. It also weighs 73 pounds.

Epson does not appear to have any laser multifunction devices.

HP does not appear to have Leopard support for anything other than printing on its laser multifunction devices, and even the 10.4 drivers appear to be widely acknowledge as buggy and crashy.

Anyone have experience with the recent Brother laser multifunction devices? Or any other manufacturer I've misse

Heh -- yeah, sounds a little big and heavy (not to mention pricey) for us. No real need for a color laser, and we are looking more at the $300-$400 price range. But thanks for the recommendation on Brother -- I had gathered their driver support was good, nice to have you confirm it.

>Epson does not appear to have any laser multifunction devices.

>HP does not appear to have Leopard support for anything other than printing on its laser multifunction devices, and even the 10.4 drivers appear to be widely acknowledge as >buggy and crashy.

I have been impressed with selected Xerox multifunction devices. Their M20i as in my experience been a particularly sturdy piece of equipment, although designed (and priced) for small business use.

Have a look at the lower-priced Xerox Phaser 3200MFP.

JRA

mfessler wrote:
> Epson does not appear to have any laser multifunction devices.
>
> HP does not appear to have Leopard support for anything other than
> printing on its laser multifunction devices, and even the 10.4
> drivers appear to be widely acknowledge as buggy and crashy.
>
> Anyone have experience with the recent Brother laser multifunction
> devices? Or any other manufacturer I've misse

I've had the HP LJ 3055 for a little over a year. Works great. 2 kids in high school and I work from home. We use about 500 sheets of paper every week or two. Toner lasts 2 to 4 months. This unit was retailing for $500 but I got it on a 1/2 price deal back at the end of 2006. Ethernet built in. Scanning remotely. Scanning can be done in color. Built in copier and FAX.

I haven't seen any issues with drivers but I'm running Tiger on my home network so I can't speak to Leopard. To be honest I suspect that many vendors have leopard issues with their MF devices.

One thing I'd like but don't think exists on the under $2000 units is scanning direct to PDFs and the PRINTER emailing them. All units that claim to email scans do it via scripting into Entourage or Mail from their scanning utility.

Anyway, I'm happy with my 3055.

Now for the truth in advertising, I also have a low end Epson Scanner that I use for photos that's directly connected to MY computer. Way too much hand processing required for this to keep walking across the room. I also have an Epson R300 ink jet printer for when I want color prints. Under 5 a week most weeks.

Look real closely at toner costs. There is a standard measure of how many pages a toner cartridge will deliver based on a standard form letter. While you'll not get this count you can use it to compare costs. Many of the low end laser units will kill you on toner costs if you have volumes like mine.

David Ross

On Jan 15, 2008, at 6:01 AM, mfessler wrote:

> Does anyone have recommendations for a networkable laser
> multifunction printer/scanner/copier/fax that can be shared between
> Mac and Windows?

I swear by Brother for small offices and home users and Canon for
industrial strength MFD's.

I can't recommend HP, because their support for Mac users is often
poor to non-existent. Also, they tend to be slow about coming out
with updated drivers when necessary, and even worse, they have been
known to orphan older printers.

Brother MFD's tend to be good performers, reliable, and an excellent
value. Brother does a great job keeping current with Mac drivers.
http://www.brother-usa.com/MFC/BW_Monochrome_Laser_Multifunction/

Canon has absolutely wonderful service and support! Unfortunately
not all models in their lineup are Macintosh compatible and some are
only partially Mac compatible.
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?
act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=124

Randy B. Singer • Mac OS X Routine Maintenance • http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html

On Jan 17, 2008, at 4:38 PM, David Ross wrote:

> I haven't seen any issues with drivers but I'm running Tiger on my
> home network so I can't speak to Leopard. To be honest I suspect
> that many vendors have leopard issues with their MF devices.

My HP 2575 (pretty low end but all I need) had Leopard problems until
I went to HPs site and downloaded the current software (as of a couple
of weeks ago). Seems fine now.

   --John (the 2575 is not only low end, but also dusty)

We recently bought a Brother multifunction MFC-8870DW. It is very fast, has beautiful output, does duplexing, and has wireless connectivity, making it much easier to find a place to put this huge machine. We are very happy with it.

I've used a Samsung SCX-4216F for a couple of years. It took a bit of searching to find the Mac drivers for the printer on the Samsung website, but once installed with 10.3 and 10.4 it worked fine. The scanner side doesn't have a Mac driver, unfortunately, so you have to switch to the PC (works fine with Windows XP under Bootcamp, though the driver is a bit clunky even with a 'proper' PC).

I haven't got Leopard yet so can't comment.

Fax is good and copying (one side only) is reasonable quality and speed for a home office.

It only cost $450 in Australia (about US$380), toner A$120 or A$80 for a refill.

Don

One way around the "no drivers for Macs" problem with low cost MFCs, on a mixed Mac/Windows network, is via port redirection and virtual printer(s). This is done by hanging the printer off a PC, installing port redirection (REDMON) and Ghost Script on the PC, and creating one or more virtual post-script printers (which the Macs have drivers for). I have a 475 (8.1), 7300 (9.1) and my wife's PB (10.4). I have a Canon 3240 and an Epson 777, connected to a PC, which are masquerading as Apple Color Laser Writers. Scanning can be set to save to an OS-X Mac. Admittedly this doesn't support the fax function from any of the Macs, but the Canon only cost me $100. For detailed instructions see

<http://iharder.sourceforge.net/current/macosx/winmacprinter/>

with the additional caveats that the Windows printer name must not contain more than 12 characters, and if the Windows box has a workgroup name (other than workgroup), this must be entered in Directory Access (in Applications » Utilities) on the Mac. Double click on the SMB/CIFS entry.