If you've budgeted for a laser multifunction device for your home office, you probably are ready to spend at least $500. The MFC-8860DN laser unit from Brother will give you a great value for that $500 price tag. The MFC-8860DN provides a good set of features that nearly all equal or surpass most laser units in this price range.

The MFC-8860DN's printer runs at speeds up to 30 ppm, and its resolution is outstanding, even with extremely small text. The copier also runs fast in "Draft" mode, reaching speeds up to 30 ppm. The unit slows down somewhat in "Best" mode, but it still runs at adequate speeds. When copying, you can resize the original at between 25 and 400 percent, which is standard.

Faxing speed is very impressive with the MFC-8860DN, which can send documents at speeds up to 30 ppm. The unit can store up to 600 pages in memory when the 250-sheet paper tray is empty.

Finally, the MFC-8860DN has plenty of handy additional features. Its 50-page automatic document feeder easily can handle almost any multi-page fax or copy job. The MFC-8860DN includes a built-in Ethernet port, and it's easy to add this device to your network. The unit's scanner, which runs at an optical resolution of 1200x2400 dpi, offers the ability to scan directly to e-mail.

The biggest drawback to the MFC-8860DN might be that it cannot print in color; like most laser multifunction devices, it only prints in black. Grayscale graphics and photo printing aren't quite as sharp as we'd like to see, but they're only slightly behind most laser multifunction devices in this price range. The MFC-8860DN is also larger than many SOHO machines, weighing about 37 pounds. But those drawbacks are minor in nature. You'll be hard-pressed to find many laser multifunction devices that provide a better combination of value and performance than the MFC-8860DN.


Pros: Very fast printing, fast overall operation, great value, good additional feature list
Cons: Photo and graphic printing could be better, unit is fairly large

Warranty
1-year limited