I made a new friend recently, one I’ve wanted to connect with for a long time. My new friend? The Brother Wireless Colour Inkjet All-in-One Printer.
Yes folks I am a work from home parent and I have never had a scanner/copier/fax machine. We have an older B/W printer but that is it. Whenever I’ve needed to scan something I’ve either snapped a photo with my smartphone, sent it to work with my husband for him to print or imposed upon my neighbor. And honestly, I don’t know how I’ve coped for so long without this kind of printer! Working from home I really do need a versatile and speedy machine that can handle what I throw at it and so far, I haven’t had any problems with my “little brother”. I use it for scanning checks, contracts, receipts and photos and one of the best things about it is can print double sided! Such a great paper saving feature!
It was no trouble to set up, connected to my wireless network easily, and prints crisp documents. I can print from anywhere in my house, from my laptop or handheld devices (using an app). Scanning is a snap and copying is so convenient! The app is an awesome feature as I realized when my husband asked me to email him some documents. Placing them in the machine’s paper feed, I went upstairs grabbed my phone, scanned, saved to phone and emailed it to my husband with just a few taps on the screen. It was effortless.
Although I’ve discovered it is essential for office work, I use it lots for ‘home’ stuff too. I’ve had to scan forms for my children’s school, permission slips for extracurricular activities and documents for our banking. Printing in beautiful color, I’ve even used it to print photos in a pinch for school projects and ID photos.
My only complaint is that the USB cable required to hook it up to a computer is not included. You can purchase the USB cable separately but I found that inconvenient. Fortunately I had one on hand that worked. This machine also acts as a fax machine and includes the telephone cable. While I haven’t worked in an office for a long time, I know that faxing is not as common as it once was since more people opt to scan and email as a pdf.
My favourite thing to do with this machine is to scan, save and share photos. We have a lot of old photos that never see the light of day any more, but now that I can scan them, I’ve been able to share with friends and family. After rummaging through a box of old photos, I scanned them and uploaded them to 2 online albums which I shared via Facebook with my brothers and cousins who are spread far and wide across the continent and the world.
We all got to enjoy some terrible clothing, bizarre hairstyles and more importantly, photos of loved ones no longer with us, creating a great deal of laughter and conversation amongst our family!
If you need to upgrade your printer or are thinking of taking the plunge and getting a scanner, don’t procrastinate like I did!
A big thank you to the fine people at Staples for setting me up with the Brother Wireless Colour Inkjet All-in-One Printer!
