I was looking into buying the Dell multifunction also until I saw the Brother MFC5440. I read also many good review on it compare to Dell. If you don't care about photo printing, you may like the Brother instead. It's built more solid unlie (the lower end model) HP and Dell printers where the hinges and casings feel very plastic like.
Many new multifunction printers try to impress buyers on how fast they can copy, scan and print (pages/minute). If speed matters to you, then don't get the Brother. It's slower but I like the print quality better than my Canon and HP. Also, I like the old style 4 seperate cartridges that makes the printer more economical in the long run.
FYI, my opinion is based on multifunction printers under $200. If I want to go over, I really would go for a laser printer.
What is the overall view of the quality of Dell Printers?
also I am thinking about a print/copy/scan/fax machine. I fax maybe twice a month and could do it at work - under the table. I wonder what I am giving up if I look only at the full multipurpose printers.
Are Print/scan/copy/fax machines greatly different from print/scan copy machines? ... and are the multipurpose machines really a huge compromise over a good printer?
I do regular family stuff - a few photos here and there but not yet committed to full digital photography.
Most of my printing is screen dump stuff.
Hoping for a little feed back from users of the full Monty machines! cheers from maine

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