Fax of Life

Just when you think the exchange of paper is on the outs and an email can communicate everything — along comes a request for you to fax a document.  It’s a hard truth, but the fax lives on. Maybe it’s time to get yourself a fax machine. The good news is that many machines these days are multi-functional with most serving as copy machines and scanners as well.

If you have a home office or are looking for something more professional, there are a number of great machines at a price just below £300. The Samsung SF-750 for instance faxes up to 16 pages per minute, has a capacity of 250 sheets, copies at 600×600 dpi and scans at 600×300 dpi. The Brother FAX-8360P also runs around £300 and has some great additional features such as a memory of up to 500 pages and a transmission speed of two seconds per page.

Phillips, Brother, Sharp and Samsung are all brands to look for if you are searching for a solid fax machine in the £100- £150 range. The type of features are all similar and what you’ll need to compare is paper capacity, speed of fax, capacity of memory,

Decend under the £100 mark and the options are more traditional in look (with a phone) and quite a bit more simple: fax machines with some limited copying capacity. The good news is that these machines do get the job done. The Brother FAX T104, for instance, can still be ideal for a home office or a small business. It uses thermal printing technology and includes up to 100 speed dial numbers — which can be very handy if you are faxing to the same number over again.

It’s quite a clear choice: if you are only faxing now and again and don’t need printing or scanning capability you should be find with a machine that’s around £50; otherwise it’s good to invest in something more powerful.