If you want to run a serious home business, you still have to have some sort of fax machine in your office. While most people think that the day of the fax is long gone, all the people who still hold on their machines seem to be business people. In other words, other businesses will eventually expect you to be able to send a fax and lose respect if you don’t have that capability. The appliance and electronics Sharp offers various fax machines, from the outdated UX 1300 printer with thermal roll toner to its modern UX-B800SE model that works on broadband and can send faxes to an email address.
Before choosing a model of fax, you should consider your options. First of all should be how you machine prints on paper. Some of the faxes out their use rolls of thermal transfer ribbon for toner. On these models, faxes and copies are made through the transfer of heat through the toner and onto the paper. These don’t make great copies, but can do the job for just any office that doesn’t plan to use their machine for anything but faxes. The UX 1300 model is an example of this type of fax.
Some faxes use a newer (but already very familiar) technology to print and make copies. That would be the Inkjet, and many stand-alone faxes now use this ink instead of toner (like Sharp’s UXB20). These printers are usually at least a tad better at printing than thermal printers, and faxes will look and feel more like anything you print from a computer. Just remember that the quality between Inkjet printers is not always the same: a photo printer will always look much nicer than a machine designed to just make faxes.
Laser machines are usually the best types of printers, although they can get expensive. These function just like other laser printers. They use a drum and toner like other laser printing devices. A problem with these is that they can be prohibitively expensive. Make sure you can use these fax machines as reliable copier or computer printer if you are going to spend the money on this technology. They are also much more expensive for color copies.
Another thing to consider is the price of toner. Thermal transfer rolls can print around 510 pages. They can generally be cheaper than laser toner. I was able to find some toner for the UX 1300 machine online for $37. These rolls are also more specialized and may be difficult to find in some stores.
Inkjet ink cartridges are also pretty cheap. I saw a cartridge for Sharp’s UXB20 sell online for 36.99?”the exact same price as the thermal roll. The only advantage I think the thermal roll had to the cartridge was that the Inkjet ink printed a “max” of 500 pages?”a small price to pay for a better printer, in my opinion.
Laser printers can be more expensive. These toner cartridges for Sharp laser copiers can cost from 60 to 100s of dollars, but the number of pages you will be able to print will be in the thousands. The toner might be cheaper when you factor that in, but it will still be a more expensive investment, at least from the start.
Don’t forget to look into Sharp UX 1300 cartridge from Sharp toner. It’s the best Printer toner cartridge.
