| The small multifunction home office printers were | | | | dedicated photo tray could contain 20 sheets of 4x6 |
| developed to cater to the market known as SOHO, | | | | photo paper. The black brother ink cartridge tank |
| meaning small office home office. This generally | | | | provides about 500 pages, while the cyan, yellow, and |
| includes individuals operating from home, small | | | | magenta tanks offer about 400 pages each. |
| businesses and small divisions of large companies. | | | | The multifunction printer comes with a scanner, copier, |
| These multifunction printers normally have the functions | | | | and fax functions, apart from a built-in answering |
| of printing, scanning, photocopying, faxing, and e-mailing. | | | | machine. The fax options are highly sophisticated in this |
| The major brands supplying this segment are Brother, | | | | low-priced machine. |
| Canon, Dell, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, Ricoh, | | | | Canon Pixma MX700 |
| Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, and Xerox. Manufacturers | | | | Canon Pixma MX700 is a printer with fast operations |
| like Konica Minolta, Kyocera, Oce, Okidata, and Olivetti | | | | and high quality output. The 1.8” color LCD panel is |
| also operate in this market with negligible shares. Let | | | | not fully sufficient for photo previewing but it is alright |
| us compare the top 5 small multifunction home office | | | | for other menus. The front paper input tray could hold |
| printers in 2009. | | | | 110 sheets of plain paper. The rear tray is |
| Brother MFC-685CW | | | | recommended for photo paper or thin T-shirts. |
| Brother MFC-685CW is a pure multifunction printer and | | | | PictBridge port and memory cards are not provided in |
| also inexpensive. The footprint of the machine is very | | | | this printer. Further, the limited fax functions, as well as |
| less, with 18.4” width, 14.6” depth, and 7.1” | | | | the other limited task speeds, make it fit only for light |
| height. The 10-page document feeder is flush with the | | | | printing needs. |
| lid of the scanner, thus saving lot of space. The | | | | HP Officejet J6480 |
| PictBridge USB port and the 2 memory card slots are | | | | HP Officejet J6480 comes with lot of high-end |
| mounted in the front. A rare 3.3” widescreen color | | | | hardware like autoduplexer, optical character |
| LCD control panel is provided in this machine to | | | | recognition scanner, wireless setup, etc. Still, the |
| preview pictures on one side and information on the | | | | machine does not have PictBridge support and fax |
| other side. | | | | functions are limited to three. The printer is slower and |
| The message center allows you to play back or erase | | | | larger in size than other similar models. The trays do |
| voice messages. The fax panel lets you preview, | | | | not fold into the body. If you need a very rugged |
| pause/redial, hold, and operate the speaker phone. The | | | | multifunction printer that you would not move around |
| corded handset enables manual phone calls. The | | | | very much, then you could opt for this machine. |
| paper tray could hold 100 plain papers, while the | | | | |
