Brother MFC-9440CN

The Brother MFC-9440CN gets respect in reviews as a multifunction small-office printer -- experts say it's fast and durable, with a monthly duty cycle of 35,000 copies. PCMag.com says it's the fastest color laser all-in-one printer at its price and prints text crisply. Oddly, there's no duplexing (printing on both sides automatically), but this is available on the otherwise-identical Brother MFC-9450CDN (*Est. $650). It's too heavy (about 72 pounds) and a bit noisy for most home users, reviews say, and photos come out a bit grainy (typical of a laser printer). The Brother MFC-9440CN can scan and fax in color, but as a four-ink printer it's not as accurate as inkjet models with six inks. It can reduce and enlarge documents from 25 to 400 percent. If you don't need color, reviews call the Brother MFC-7840W (*Est. $300) the best monochrome multifunction printer at its price. Its monthly duty rating is 10,000 pages.

PCMag.com, CNET and PC World offer the best coverage of the Brother MFC-9440CN, basing their overall scores on thorough testing. ConsumerReports.org focuses more on the home market and doesn't review the Brother MFC-9440CN. About 30 owner reviews at Amazon.com are generally positive, though some indicate that noise is a problem.