The mono laser multifunction printer can fairly be described as a workhorse of the small office. It has taken the place of the photocopier as the major ‘can't live without' piece of desktop equipment, providing print, copy, scan and, in the case of Brother's MFC-7860DW, fax.

Quick print for class; Duplex print as standard; Wireless connection with WPS setup

Poor greyscale copying; Above average running costs; High purchase price

This multifunction laser is a good fit for small businesses that need a text-document printer, but its image scanning and copying are subpar.

Outstanding text quality; Automatic duplexing

Subpar copying; scanning; A bit pricey; Low monthly duty cycle

The Bottom Line The Brother MFC-7860DW is a multifunction laser printer that offers automatic duplexing, wireless or wired networking, and a 250-sheet paper tray. I found it quiet, fast, and reliable--and prints look outstanding.

Very fast; Built-in duplexer; Wired / Wireless networking built in and easy to set up

LCD is difficult to read; Printing from smart-phone apps doesn't include Blackberry

Similar in most ways to the less expensive Brother MFC-7360n ($200 street, 3.5 stars) that I recently reviewed, the Brother MFC-7860DW ($300 street) adds a slightly faster engine, WiFi, and a duplexer (for two-sided printing).

Suitably small for personal use or for a micro office; Ethernet and WiFi; Duplexer; Single-sheet manual feed

No paper handling upgrade options

We recently finished up our review of the MFC-J6710dw All-in-One , the mid-level inkjet from the MFC-J6000 series, so now we have turned our attention to the new MFC-7000 series, the "first in the category" to include both duplex printing and wireless connectivity in a model priced under $300.

Quick print speeds; Good print quality; 35-sheet ADF

Occasional paper jams; No front side USB port

the duplexing (front and back side printing) is a lovely feature. Reducing and putting two small versions of the copy on one regular saves paper and toner and trees.

Small footprint; set-up genie was very helpful; toner is available lots of places

lightweight doors; etc.; envelope feeder hard to adjust; ADF not opened all the time

The Brother MFC-7860DW is, on the whole, a decent multi-function printer. It offers a broad range of features, pumps out pages at a fairly fast pace, and produces good-quality text output. We just wish its graphics output were cleaner.

Fast print speed; Good text quality; Relatively cheap running costs

Expensive; Graphics print quality could be better

We had an Epson Workforce 610 before this...it worked great for about 10 months and then it started to breakdown. The auto-document feeder started to jam and skip pages. We tried an HP after that, but it was not up to par--it scanned and printed really slowly.

Customizable; Easy To Set Up; Easy to Use; Pretty fast printscan; Reliable

Flimsy Construction; Loud

This is an excellent multi-function device - monochrome laser printer, fax machine, color scanner and monochrome copier. The price of the toner and drum are relatively reasonable and the speed is excellent.

I have a very busy office and every day I get a few hundred fax pages. At least once a week I do a ton of two-sided printing. Almost never a problem. Two issues - sometimes if a large amount if fax pages were received there might be an easy to fix paper jam, and even with the high yield toner drum I...