Brother Intellifax 4100: A Good Business Decision

The Brother Intellifax 4100 does an all around outstanding job. Faxing is a critical task for a mortgage broker.
I have tried just about all of the major machines on the market for the last 20 years and I would argue that
there isn't better machine on the market for any price. The bigger more expensive machines do not do a better job. In most cases the larger machines are part of a larger automated system that is not covered by this review or they are a pain in the neck.

Right out of the box our Intellifax 4100 has been performing 24/7 for 6 months with absolutely zero problems. Everyone in the office loves this machine. We have been dealing with bad fax machines for years. This machine is outstanding I rate it a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10!

Because of the volume of faxing we do, about 50/50 outgoing and incoming our company added the additional drawer to hold legal sized reception. I ordered the second paper cassette online for about $150.

The fax machine performs outstandingly with both paper cassettes. The machine intelligently selects the proper size paper for the incoming fax, without the annoying shrinking of images. If someone sends us a long multi page contract with mixed sizes of documents, our machine will properly print them on the respective paper size. If you are in our business, getting documents on legal size paper is important for accuracy and minimizing distorted images. We had a $2000 Panafax dx2000 in our office that couldn't do anything very well, and could never print a contract out properly; don't get me started about that machine because people should be warned about that one.

Print quality is excellent. The machine has a USB interface and doubles as a good printer. I had my computer hooked up the fax machine because is was closer than the main printer and it worked very well. The printer driver that you download from the web is straightforward and installed without a hitch.

The paper feed mechanism is reliable and trouble free. We routinely send documents ranging from 25-50 pages, legal size all day. The machine rarely jams, and its simple design allows staff to easily recover from jams [these jams are usually due to operator error rather than the machine]. This is very important in an office where the machine is constantly used, and is heavily relied upon for bringing income to the company. This machine never misses a fax. We have no more lost faxes. Its scan speed and use of memory is intuitive and automatic. You can scan an entire large document and then start a second fax before the first is complete without problems. Our machine is so busy that it can no longer be used as a printer because it is always in use.

We purchase toner online from one of many merchants for about $40. Average cost for the Intellifax 4100 is between $250-$300. Supplies and service are widely available for this machine. Supplies cost about 25% less than the major brands. Bye the way, these machines seem to never break down. I have had several Brother Laser fax machines [Brother Intellifax line] with similar durability and reliability over the last several years.

What's not to love about this machine? You know what really made me mad about this machine? It was the fact that over the years we have purchased so many crappy fax machines. This one does what it needs to do very well, no problems with heavy use, low cost for machine and consumables and they don't break down or have to be cleaned all the time. If you are a business owner or decision maker, I strongly suggest you consider this machine or others in its class. Just try one of them. After it is installed, observe the people who use the machine. Talk to them. Our administrators were amazed by the speed of its scanning and how they didn't have to stand by the machine to feed pages to it. They were absolutely giddy about the whole thing. You won't be able to take it back.

Our company is now purchasing another Brother Fax, the 5750e which is an upgraded version of the 4100 as a second machine.