Ending fax tag - Brother International's IntelliFax 780MC fax machine - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Jan, 1994 by Russell Letson

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Brother IntelliFax 780MC Fax Machine

List Price: $949

Average Street Price: $495

Publisher: Brother International, (908) 356-8880

The Brother IntelliFax 780MC so thoroughly takes center stage and runs your telecommunications show that you'd think the last two letters in its model number stand for master of ceremonies rather than message center. This combination fax machine, phone, and answering machine stores both voice messages and faxes and lets you retrieve them from another fax machine when you're away from the office.

A block of memory in the IntelliFax stores about 50 pages of faxes fewer if voice messages are also in memory (to save room for faxed documents, route voice calls to an external answering machine). The unit is also programmable and will receive faxes while you're out, forward documents to another fax machine, or dial your pager to notify you that documents have arrived,

The same memory that makes store and forward possible has handy side benefits. For example, if the paper supply is exhausted, the memory will hold your faxes until you add a new roll. Or if you don't need fax storage, use the Quick-scan feature to avoid resending documents manually if the receiving machine is busy; this feature scans outgoing documents at three times normal speed and holds the image in memory for automatic transmission. You can schedule faxes for delayed transmission (up to 24 hours) and keep up to three documents stored in memory simultaneously for individual or broadcast transmission.

To help you juggle your ever-increasing roster of fax numbers, IntelliFax stores 20 numbers on a programmable pad; 40 additional speed dials are accessible via two-digit codes on the regular dialing pad; all of these can be designated as voice, fax, or chain dialing (which attaches access codes or prefixes).

In addition to the phone/fax numbers and access codes, the memory holds a 15-character name or description for each. The IntelliFax also offers other status and activity reports, including a log of faxes sent and received and a report of available memory, transmission verification, and any power failures that have occurred.

Unfortunately, I encountered some new-product teething problems. During voice calls from the unit's handset, I could hear a low, but clearly audible buzz--apparently leakage from some of the control circuitry. I also heard a report of erratic behavior in auto-answer mode from an early purchaser: The machine wouldn't always pick up when it was supposed to and would sometimes unexpectedly hang up while receiving a message. A Brother support technician said that although he knew of the noise problem (an unspecified fix is currently in the works), he had not heard any reports of an auto-answer glitch.

The Brother performs well in basic faxing tasks, but making it do some of its more complicated tricks takes a little bit of experimentation. There are many selections and variables to consider during programming and setting up, but this is to be expected with a product that offers so much flexibility. If you find yourself playing fax tag when you're out of your office, the Brother IntelliFax 780MC could be a hardware solution to that problem.

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ratings are based on       0      Poor
performance, features,     *      Fair
setup, ease of learning    **     Good
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warranty, support,         ****   Excellent
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