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The main costs you will pay for vary according to the machine you opt to invest in. Mark Goldsmith, product marketing manager of Sharp says: “In general, the more expensive the machine, the less expensive the TCO (total cost of ownership) or the cheaper the machine the higher the TCO.”
On top of the initial outlay you will have to consider all the consumables, such as the main toner and drum cartridge in plain paper models or a roll in thermal roll machines. Cost per copy is also a major factor to think about. This incorporates the amount of ink and paper you use and equally varies between different products. Don’t forget that when you are sending a fax you are also paying your telephone operator for the privilege. The further away the destination, international faxes, for example, the more you will be expected to pay.
Key costs
Machine Price Cartridge (toner/drum) Duration
Thermal roll £80 - £140 approx £10 up to 300 pages
Inkjet £150 - £400 approx £20-£30 up to 500 pages
Laser £400 - £800 approx £80 up to 5000 pages
The final thing to consider is that like any other form of office kit your fax won’t last forever, so make sure the warranty included covers all your needs and that there is some form of support if something goes wrong.
Key features
The key features that you will require on a fax machine will again depend on the your usage. But the main areas are speed, memory and job handling.
Speed is variable and affected by areas such as memory and modem speed. Memory is used to store outgoing faxes that are being sent and incoming faxes that are being printed, while the amount of memory affects the number of pages you can store and the quality of the document. This is either quoted by manufacturers as megabytes (MB) or in pages, however, thermal machines do not require memory to function.
Modem speed determines the transmission time to send a fax. For example, a high speed modem of around 33.6 Kbps (kilobytes per second) will send an A4 document in around three seconds, while a more standard modem of either 14.4 Kbps or 9.6 Kbps will transmit the same sheet of paper in double the time but is considered to be more than adequate for the average user. Faster modems help avoid a queue of unsent faxes and offer better savings for mid to high volume users.
Job handling is a critical element to think about, especially if you don’t have much time. Many faxes now offer dual access that allow you to scan in one document or dial a number while the machine is still busy. If your fax can carry out two functions simultaneously, this will save you a lot of time.
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