Guides

• What is a multi-function device?
• Before you start looking around
• Downsides
• What to expect
• Other important considerations:
• Extra features
• Questions to ask / considerations

Questions to ask / considerations

• How do you plan to use the device? What features are most important? For example, do you plan to distribute documents often? If so, you should make sure that you can easily scan directly to e-mail and folders in a variety of formats. Do you want to print photos? If so, you will probably look to an inkjet device over a laser and one that has photo-editing software bundled with it. Do you plan to network the device? These are the sorts of things to consider first, before you even begin to look around.
• How many sheets can the input tray hold?
• How many sheets can be held in the output area? (While many devices will let you have 100 or more sheets in the input tray, you may only be able to have 10 or 20 in the output tray.)
• How much space will it take up?
• Connectivity: make sure the unit has all the connectivity options that you need -- eg, USB ports, Ethernet, Bluetooth etc.
• Card readers: can it read a variety of media, or just one type?
• Driver/accompanying software: You may want to check the interface and functionality of the driver and supporting software. Is it limiting in the amount of control it enables you? Does it have all the functionality you desire? For example, can you print long documents in reverse order? Can you set up user accounts/profiles for the device and limit access to particular features? Can it identify different images on the same page and automatically scan them into separate files? How easy is it to change default the settings? Can you scan to multiple destinations? How much memory will it take up? Some scanners use very basic TWAIN drivers which do not allow much to be changed and don't allow you to descreen the image, but these can often be more "user friendly" as a result.
• How much memory does the printer have? A printer with more memory can handle more print jobs at one time and can often get through a work queue faster. This is especially important if a printer is shared among multiple users on a network, and where the device is almost a server in the network. You may want to store documents there for future printing. If you do plan to use your device in this way, the security features that come with the device become more important.
• What service support is provided?
• What applications will it support? Not all MFDs will work with Linux or Adobe applications for instance.
• Will the MFD work with multiple OS platforms - eg, Windows, OS X, Linux etc?
• Is the device future-proof? That is, where you are now may not be where you will be in a few years, and will the device enable future applications?

This guide was last updated in October 2005.