The Sharp UX-B20 Fax/Copier - Exceeds expectations for an entry level fax machine

The Sharp UX-B20 Facsimile and Copier is an entry level plain paper fax machine available at many office supply, electronics, and online stores for about $80. The UX B20 offers a reasonably good set of features for an entry level price stand alone fax/copier for home use, including

- Inkjet print technology, plain paper printing, 600 dpi
- b/w copier
- 100 sheet paper tray, 10 page sheet feeder
- Works with letter and legal size paper
- 9.6 Kbps fax transmission speed
- Caller ID
- Fax and Telephone mode option
- Only a 90 day warranty
- 16 Character LCD display for caller ID and navigating the menu

Every week or two Office Depot seems to offer an entry level fax machine for $30 or $40 after rebate, switching between models from Brother, Panasonic, and Sharp. I had been following the sales, as I had a Office Depot Advantage gift card to burn (did you know this Office Depot shopping reward card expires in only 90 days?), and find myself wishing I had a fax machine at home a few times each year. Most of the entry level fax machines are based on thermal film or ink ribbon print technology, and some only include only a starter supply of film/ribbon, so I was pleased when this inkjet model went on sale for $30 after a $50 rebate. The starter cartridge included was only rated for half the capacity (~200 pages) of the replacement cartridges (~400 pages at 4% coverage in “high quality” mode). New cartridges run about $50 for a two pack at Sams Club. At this price, ink cost will be about 7 cents per page, though yoru mileage will vary based on text quality selected and how much is printed on your documents.

In a few words....

The Sharp UX-B20 is a fine entry level plain paper fax machine suitable for light duty use in homes and offices, and is capable of double duty as a copier in a pinch. I've experienced no paper jams or reliability issues with faxes, though if you try to feed small documents to the feeder (which Sharp warns against), the unit will suffer an easily cleared paper jam. The unit coexists well with the other phones and answering machine connected to the only phone line in my home, sending and receiving as needed. Printing is accomplished using a black inkjet cartridge. The somewhat pricey $35 ink cartridge (list price) is rated for 600 pages at 4% coverage (and only 400 pages in high quality mode). Only a half size starter cartridge is included with the UX-B20. The quality of faxes and copies is ok for a fax machine, but noticeably worse than a cheap standalone inkjet printer. FOr a low end fax, I was surprised at all the features, caller id, several quality options, speed dialing (30 number memory), sheet feeder for paper and original documents being faxed, 24 page memory, etc.

Installation and Setup

The 98 page manual starts off with clear instructions showing how to put the UX-B20 together. Attaching the cords, installing the ink cartridge, handset, paper tray, etc are all straightforward. After the hardware is setup, the manual walks you how to adjust some of the settings, paper size, print quality, entering your name and phone number, and more. Understanding all these settings definitely requires reading of the manual. One key setting to note is the reception mode, either....

- Telephone mode (which is what I chose), which should be selected when you will receive faxes and voice calls on the same line. In this mode the fax machine will not answer a call, but if you pick up the hand set, or pick up and “answer” any handset on the line, the fax machine will detect the incoming fax signal and receive the fax
- Fax mode, which would be selected if you attach the fax machine to a dedictated fax line. The UX-B20 will automatically answer all calls after your choice of 2-5 rings.

The UX-B20 is a small desktop fax machine, small enough to fit on a book shelf., requiring only a foot print of about 10” X 14”. The paper tray and sheet feeder are on top and near the back of the unit. There is no tray to catch printouts, so if you do have the UX-B20 on a shelf, prints will fall to your desktop or floor.

Using the Sharp UX-B20

Copying

The UX-B20 is a standalone sheet fed copier capable of producing black and white documents. To make a copy, you just insert 1-10 documents face down in the sheet feeder, and press copy. The UX-B20 then requires about 25 seconds to scan each page and another 45 seconds or so to print each page. Print quality can be set to standard or quality mode, but the difference is not great, and the quality mode requires about 50% more ink that the standard mode. In either mode, even small text is very readable, but the text is not sharp. If you look at the text under a microscope, you’ll see that the edges of all the letters are slightly jagged, giving the appearance of a document that’s been copied several times on a good copier. But for home use, to keep copies of mostly text documents, say a filled out rebate form, its good enough. Certainly the print quality is competitive with other fax machines in this price range.

Documents fed to the sheet feeder much be at least 5.8” wide, and 5.5” deep. That makes it difficult to copy some small documents, like cash register receipts, without attaching them to a larger piece of paper. Except for the size restriction, I’ve found the sheet feeder works well. I’ve seen a couple of jams, but fixing jams is very easy.

When reading and printing documents the UX-B20, does NOT read the pages edge to edge, skipping the outer 3/16” on both sides, top and bottom of full sized documents.

Sending Faxes

Manual faxing works pretty well, as follows,
-set the page(s) be faxed in the feeder,
-pickup the handset or press the speaker button to get a dialtone
-dial the number
-press start

I’ve faxed and/or copied a couple dozen documents so far with no problems. The UX-B20 takes about half a minute to scan each document, and then the about 15 seconds to send it. Black and white text faxes look pretty good, and are easy to read. I sent one fax of text on a mostly white background, but some areas that were different shades blue. When I later saw that fax, I noticed text in the blue areas was a little more difficult to read, but not too bad. If you were to fax a lot of documents that are light or faded, you can also adjust the contrast setting to dark to improve the readability of the fax you are sending. The menu structure on the UX-B20 for accessing these settings is not very intuitive, requiring me to read the manual to find the right setting to change, so I rarely change most settings.

Another adjustment you can make is to change the resolution of the fax you are sending, to one of 4 settings, Standard (for text documents), Fine (for documents with small text), Super Fine (for documents with very small text or fine drawings, and “Half Tone”, appropriate for send gray scale images using 64 shades of gray.

Receiving Faxes

I’ve got the UX-B20 plugged into the single phone line in my home, along with several other phones and an answering machine. Thus far the fax machine has not caused any problems with my other phones or answering machine. My answering machine is a 10 year old GE Model, set up to pick up after 4 rings, and has a feature that keeps it from recording what it thinks is “static” or “noise” as a message. When a fax is sent to my home phone number, the answering machine picks up and asks if the caller wants to leave a message. After the answering machine picks up, the sending fax machine starts to send the fax, which the UX-B20 detects, and starts to receive. The answering machine recognizes the fax signal is not a voice message and hangs up, but by this time the fax machine has also answered the incoming call, which keeps the line open for the duration of the fax. If I am expecting an incoming fax, I can pick up any phone in my home before the answering machine picks up, and as soon as the income fax signal is detected, the UX-B20 will start receiving.

The UX-B20 offers a few other nice features..

- If you run out of paper, have a paper jam, run out of ink, or experience some other error the UX-B20 recognizes, incoming faxes will be stored in the 448kb memory in the UX-B20, up to about 20 pages or so of simple text for printing when you add more paper
- Automatic (or user defined) reduction of incoming documents to fit to the page
- Refuse to receive faxes from user defined numbers, if you have Caller ID
- Optionally print “Transaction Reports” after each faxes, which summarizes info about the incoming/outgoing fax, phone number, start and transmission time, pages, and other details. This option is turned off by default. Unfortunately, you can’t print this report “on demand”.

If you expect to receive a lot of faxes, you'll probably find the ink costs associated with this model a little too high. But for light duty, this model is a good value, and is often discounted. If you have occasional need for a fax machine, this model is clearly worthy of consideration.