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Palangi · #3 05-17-2005, 09:56 AM

The stand-alone fax business is dying right now as most of that imaging has moved to E-mail. The quality of fax machines across the entire spectrum has turned to poope. I despise inkjet technology because of the high cost per page and low reliability. This is particularly a factor in low volume fax applications as the ink cartridges will dry out and go bad from not being used enough, then when you need to recieve a fax, surprise, the cartridge is bad.

For very low volume stand-alone fax (like less than 100 pages per month), get something other than inkjet. Sharp makes low volume fax machines with a transfer roll that seems to work OK. Cost per page is similar to inkjet but much better reliability. Other manufacturers probably have similar technology. For higher volume you might want to consider a multifunction device (fax/scanner/printer/etc). Again, most of what's on the market will be inkjunk, but HP has some models with laser print engine that are not unreasonably priced. The drawback with the multifunction devices, of course, is that they are tied to a computer. The advantage of the laser print engine is that the per page cost will be less.

For anything over about 250 pages per month, you need a stand-alone laser fax. That part of the market is treacherous as the cost of the hardware is high and the quality is poor.

Hope this helps.