Brother 8500 Toner
Intellifax 8500 Toner Cartridges

Brother 8500 Printer Review

The Brother Intellifax 8500 is designed as a compact laser fax machine, scanner, and copier, but it also includes printing capabilities, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the 8500P. With output speeds of 15 pages per minute, it offers good performance for the price, and high-capacity Brother 8500 printer toner supplies help make it a good value.

The 8500 measures just 12.7 inches high and has a footprint of 17.1x17.4 inches. It is lightweight, at just 26.5 pounds, even with the Intellifax 8500 toner installed. The design also incorporates a full keypad and a telephone handset, making it a great choice for the small office with serious faxing needs. The main drawback to its faxing capabilities is the slow 14.4 Kbps transmission speed, which is far below the average for its class.

As an alternative to traditional faxing, the machine can handle PC Faxing, using the internet connection of its host PC instead of the phone line. This can save on long distance bills as well as on Brother 8500 toner costs. Users can also scan to multiple destinations, including sending files as email attachments, and OCR software is included for turning scans into editable text documents.

With easily replaceable toners, maintaining the machine is a breeze, and Brother 8500 toner cartridges come in both standard and high-capacity versions. The standard Intellifax 8500 toner cartridge provides only 3,000 pages, but is a good fit for smaller volumes. The high-capacity version, on the other hand, can provide around 6,000 pages of output before running empty.

With a nice set of functions, the 8500 could be a good choice for a home or small office user. Lack of a flatbed scanning surface and slow transmission speeds for faxing are its main drawbacks, but fast printing speeds and great options like PC Faxing help to balance it out.