A must-have for a home office

I've been looking/waiting for a color laser for about 3 years now.  As a professional student for the last 13 years, after having the taste of laser printer quality at school using a professional laser printer, it's really hard for me to go back to a injet.  Not even using it to print photos in color can justify that. 

I'm very satisfied with the printer I'm using right now.  It's a Brother HL-5250DN. (Black and white duplex laser) I just LOVE this machine.  There's nothing to complain about. (That will be a different review) As the matter of fact, it's my second black/white laser printer I bought from Brother. It does all the job that it supposed to: Fast printing, crispy text, and duplex function save papers.  The only problem is I need a machine that can also do occasional copy, scanning, faxing and color printing, since I like to print some color graph to entertain my infant son. 

After researching for months, I finally have my eye set on Brother MFC-9840CDW All-In-One Laser Printer.  It's color laser, that can copy/scan/fax, and most importantly, it's a duplex.  I vowed to kill less trees (Or more like tired of papper clutters).  I made up my mind, but just couldn't bring myself to spend $699 (BestBuy/CircuitCity).
Finally I waited till Live.com has 30% rebate on eBay.  So it cost me $629+ Shipping: $30 + Insurence: $5=$665. (Live.com supposed to rebate me for $189 in 60 days).  I ended up paying less than $500 for it.  Not too bad for a do-it-all machine.

I place an order on 10/12/08; the box arrived on 10/16/08.  It was fastest shipment that I ever had. (Standard shipping)
From the review I read, I already knew it came with a big box, but I was still shocked when I saw the actual box.  My husband decided that there's no way that two of us could move it to the study upstairs, we waited for his brother to lend a hand that night.

I would have not pay for the insurence if I had known that it came with double layers of boxes.  (A very well packed/insulated box put into another box)

*Set-up was easy.  The instruction was well written.  I followed the quick-setup manual step by step to set up date/time/fax number for the screen.  There's a fax testing at the end of set up.  It went well.

*Color copy:  I made a color ocopy of a color photo book.  The result came out much better than I expected.  (There were some very poor review online) The speed was not terriablely slow like some review said.  Of course it could have been because it is used in a home office, not a busy work place.  However, I'm a VERY impatient person.  So, for me to say it's not slow, that means it's speed is more than acceptable.

*B/W duplex copy: A friend came by for a study section and asked me to make some copies.  I was kinda hesitated for a second to put materials thru AutoFeed, only because her papers were old and curl up at the edge of pages.  I was ready to clear up paper jams right away.  But surprisingly, not one single pages jamed, and it was a 2-sided=>2-sided photocopy thru AutoFeed!  I even photocopied my free-leaf notepages thru AutoFeed.  I thought it probably would jam because the pages were too thin and worn at the edge. Every pages came out all right. 

This is the only 3 functions (including fax) I used so far.  There will be new update later.

(Update)
*Color print out: I made 50 single page color print out yesterday after I finally installed printer software. The paper I use was thickest paper (A4, Index paper)110 lb (200 g/m2).  I'm well awared that the thickness of the paper is way beyond recommed (75-90 g/m2).  I had butterfly in my stomach when I did my first 10 test prints.  It was a lot better than I expected.  As we all know that the biggest problem thick paper has when went thru a lazer printer (or leminator), due to the heat, paper tends to curl up.  I learned that from my experience with Brother HL-5250DN.  The same paper ran thru Brother HL-5250DN, it curled up really bad that I had to use a heavy book to press it down.  In the case of MFC-9840CDW, it bearly curls.  Maybe the paper traveling path of MFC-9840CDW has less fold?  Anyhow, not one single page jamed.  However, I did stand by to remove 10 pages print out each time from the outlet so it won't clot up.  After all, Index paper is REALLY THICK.  All 50 pages (word doc, color words, no graph) takes total of 16 minutes, including interruption due to out of paper.  That speed isn't bad at all.

My next project is to set up the wireless.  It does seem a little complicated than I thought.  But I really want to take advantage of that. 
(To be continued)

*Color "photocopy":
For the project that I want to do, I'll need to have some of my son's picture.  Instead of ordering pictures online like I usually do, I decide to put MFC-9840CDW at work. I knew printing out photo isn't its strong suite, but I still like to give it a try. 

**Plain paper: (20 lb = 80 g/m2)
**PRINTWORKS Premium Photo paper: (Inject/Matte/8 mm   Thickness/92 Brightness)
**WAUSAU Index paper: (92 Brightness/200 g/m2) A hint of yellowish. Very similar thickness/weight compared with PrintWorks Matte photo paper.
**Advanced HP Photo paper: (Injet/Glossy/250 g/m2) A strong hint of green/grayish color at slightly shadowed area, which does not occur to other papers.  Better contrast compared to the rest of 3.  I'll not use this paper ever with this printer.  (I know it's a injet photo paper, stop yelling!!!)

Overall impression: color turns darker in all papers; poor contrasts; very little difference in print quality with my naked eye, with the exception of HP photo paper.

If I have to choose, I'll pick WAUSAU Index paper.  The contrast is a bit more suttle compared with the other two.  Of course it's a thick paper, so it does work similar like PRINTWORKS Premium Photo paper. Plus, the price is a lot more friendly compared with PRINTWORKS Premium Photo paper.  Two papers were so similar, you can't tell the difference with your eyes closed.

Bottomline:  I know using MFC-9840CDW to copy color photo isn't fair.  Personally I don't know any color lazer printer can do a good job at printing color photo.  (Kindly let me know if you know one) Bottomline is I just want to make sure this machine works for low-cost-everyday project.  It just pass the test again.