Sharp UX-B800SE Broadband Fax Machine

Comment: Works decently as a simple fax machine, but the main feature of fax over email is impossible to setup. After 5 days of troubleshooting, calls to Sharp and trying different setups nothing worked.

This is not a sellers fault, who shipped the product very quickly, just a crappy product from Sharp.

Comment: This scans things to email with 2 button presses (Go, Speed dial entry) after set-up. My non-English-speaking in-laws use one to send documents from another city to my wife to translate for them. They have no interest in a computer for other uses, so that would be overcomplicated and overkill; they already had (slow, cheap) internet service for when my wife visits. This is admittedly a rather specialized set of circumstances, but there are few-to-no other ways I know to perform this task so easily.

It requires a non-authenticating SMTP server to send; no common email provider offers such a thing. Rather than deal with the bother of setting up and maintaining an SMTP server and the risk of setting up an open relay, I paid [...] their very reasonable rate for service. There are no abnormal limits on what email addresses can receive.

Comment: I spent many hours trying to get this to work on Verizon DSL. From what I read the same problem occurs with Comcast. Whatever the mechanics of the problem actually are, on Verizon/Comcast, you will only be able to receive faxes which will be emailed by this machine if you set it up to go through a private smtp server. I found that it finally worked (I was so happy) after I purchased a yearly account from [...]. Then I routed the emails through that server and it finally worked. It must originate from an email registered on your account with [...]. Now that I figured this out, I will not return the two machines that I bought for both my offices and through my blackberry I will always know when I receive faxes, which as a solo lawyer I find very valuable. The fact that they don't tell you all about this up front at Sharp (or offer the SMTP server re-routing) brought my rating for the item down, but I found it otherwise great, after 6 hours of effort to get it going. Maybe you all can save that time up front by reading this.

Comment: EmailThatWorks dot net works with the UX-B800SE and maybe the UX-D1200SE, both of which are on sale quite a bit. The company gives a free month of service to try it out and then it costs $30 annually, about $2.50 a month. To me, this small fee is worth it when the end-user (without a landline), is a computer novice and wants to make scans into PDFs. EmailThatWorks told me that they plan to continue to support POP before SMTP / LB4S / POP AUTH authentication for a long time to come. I'm not trying to plug this company, but their service works well with this device, especially for others who have struggled to get the UX-B800SE to work with their own ISP.

Comment: My son did some research to find a product to meet our business needs as our printer was not scanning easily for sending documents to our clients. When he suggested we buy this machine that faxes normally and can also send a fax by e-mail, I said we would give it a try but was skeptical as to whether it would work and if I could work it. With a short typed instruction sheet from my son for faxing alone and another for e-faxing, I was on my way to the perfect and easy way to do either one. I am so happy with this machine! Wish I (or he) had found it months ago. I highly recommend it to anyone (especially persons who are not that tech knowledgeable).