Printer with fax and answerphone?

silvercar

My printer is dieing and needs replacing and now I've just dropped my fax machine on the floor and it won't copy.:mad:

Time for a rethink.

Currently have PC with printer and separate (old and slow) scanner.

Also have fax/answerphone combined and separate cordless phones.

Fax and answerphone combinations seem expensive at £80+.

My thought was to get a printer/scanner/copier/fax all in one and then get a cheap answerphone. Anyone see a problem?

Pluses: Takes up less room. Printer combination I was looking at epson BX300f. Seemed reasonable price and advantage over the cannon similarly priced is it has separate coloured inks.

Couple of questions. Can the printer receive faxes as well as send? Can it do this without the computer being switched on?

If I have an answerphone on the same phone line, will the printer detect a fax and the answerphone detact a voice call?

silvercar

anyone advise?

Conor_3

Yes the printer can receive faxes as well as send. Whether it's smart enough to do the fax/voice thing, I doubt it.
Regarding the answerphone, do people still use these? Just use 1571.

silvercar

So will the phone line know whether its a call to goto 1571 or fax?

Conor_3

About as much as a fax printer would, that's why you have fax/answephone combo units. A typical fax printer would answer the call, timeout when it doesn't receive a tone and that's it. At best, it'll ring out but the ringing tone won't be one an answerphone would recognise.

GaryS

I use a HP Photosmart C7280, all in one fax, copier, printer and scanner.

The printer side can be used via usb, on a network or wireless, and the fax can be set up to only answer after a set number of rings.

silvercar

Went for the Epson BX300f. Reduced to 49.95 in Tesco.

Still unsure whether 1571 and the fax will work together.

If a fax rings in and the phone is not in use, I could set the fax to pick up before 1571 so that should work.

If I'm on the phone and a fax rings in then 1571 will try and answer the fax, so that fails.

If a call comes in when I'm unavailable, then 1571 may work as presumeably the fax won't answer a call.

If I go for a stand alone answerphone, set to answer after more rings than the fax, then a fax coming in should be fine and a call if I'm unavailable.

At the moment if a fax comes in when I'm on the phone. call waiting beebs, I pick up the fax call and the fax machine works; not sure if this would happen if the fax machine is now separate.

silvercar

Read the instruction manual; it has a socket to plug in an answerphone so they can work together in perfect harmony.....

just need to buy an answerphone and a converter as the socket is rj11 size!