All In One Printer Scanner

[shaunsteig]

Went through the same question about almost a year ago when I started getting back into collecting cards. I had a monochrome laser printer as well as a color inkjet all-in-one, but the scanner was only a CIS and couldn't scan graded cards without being out-of-focus. So I was looking for an "upgrade" to a CCD scanner while maintaining all the features I previously had (laser quality output for text, ability to print the occasional color, ADF, duplex printing, and fax). I would have settled with keeping the monochrome laser and getting an inkjet all-in-one but found that all the models in the personal or even small home-office market used CIS scanner heads. The one exception was the Canon Pixma that you mention, but it can't fax which was an absolute dealbreaker for me. So I started looking at more expensive models, in the laser-class, and ultimately went with a HP CM2320fxi which is a color laserjet with a CCD scanner that has fax, ADF and duplex printing. It's worked very well for me, produces fairly good quality scans and exceptional quality color and monochrome prints.

I did also try out a Brother 9840cdw but found that its software implementation was very clunky, the quality of its color prints was quite washed out when compared side-by-side to the HP, and the hardware quality didn't have the same sturdy build and feel as the HP, so I returned it. My one gripe with the HP is a software issue: although it can duplex print and duplex copy, it cannot duplex scan (ie take a two-sided document and scan both sides to output to the PC). You need to scan the stack on one side, then flip and scan the other side, and use a third-party software to integrate the two outputs into one file (I use Microsoft Office Image Scanning, which does a nice job of it). Dunno why HP hadn't addressed this software shortcoming, but it wasn't a dealbreaker for me.

Hope that helps,
--S