The amount of apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace
Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace has now reported to have passed 25,000 apps by one site tracking comings and goings within it. (source: WindowsPhoneAppslist, July 2011)
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Too bad some previous reviewers had trouble directly connecting to an Internet Server Provider's SMTP service. This device is awesome! More expensive electronic fax solutions have been available for a number of years but this is the first paper/electronic hybrid I have seen, it works well, and I picked mine up on sale and with a rebate for just $69.00!
It is unfortunate that the Sharp UX-B800SE BroadbandFax only supports "POP before SMTP" as an optional SMTP server authentication method. Most Internet service providers require a different kind of SMTP authentication to allow the relay of your email. Fortunately for me it isn't a problem since I operate my own SMTP server and can permit relay for internal IP addresses. I would think that Sharp could enhance the SMTP interface with a firmware upgrade provided they planned for making firmware upgrades. I can't see why not as it has Ethernet connectivity and a built in web server to administer settings.
By the way, you can always run your own SMTP relay server on a computer or server in your small office / home office network that can serve as a bridge between the UX-B800SE and an ISP's SMTP service. There are lots of free SMTP relay servers that can handle other SMTP authentication schemes in addition to the "POP before SMTP" one provided by the UX-B800SE.
Anyhow, if you can overcome the SMTP issue this is a great device.
Pros:
* easy to use web interface for email/network configuration and memory location maintenance
* easy to use scan to email interface that supports black and white PDF or TIFF formats
* incoming faxes can be configured to never print on paper but instead route as PDF or TIFF to a specified email address; while it has the ability to configure this behavior differently based on 10 or so different incoming fax numbers, I simply set it up to route all faxes to a single specified email address
* supports letter and legal size documents
* duplex function handles scanning/faxing double sided documents with ease
* supports broadcasting to groups of 20 email addresses or fax numbers at a time
* lots of memory locations for email addresses and fax numbers
* secure receive feature (untested by me) can be used to require a 4 digit code to be entered to release newly received faxes from memory
Cons:
* Not completely paperless as delivery confirmation reports and other reports must be printed. Would have been nice to get these through the web interface and/or PDF/TIFF emails.
* Has a fax block feature to block faxes but only from one phone number. Essentially useless in my opinion if I can only block one number.
* Has no computer to outbound fax interface. I'd like to be able to use a form on the device's web interface, or send an email to a mailbox dedicated to the device, with a PDF attachment and have it routed to a fax number, probably embedded in the subject field or something like that if it's via email. Right now I can use a modem on my home office computer that shares the fax line to meet this need.
* It only supports black and white fax-quality G4 encoding so this is not a substitute for a good quality scanner.
You can always lease the fax to email feature that the Sharp UXB800SE BroadbandFax delivers, but I have used several leased Internet fax to PDF/TIFF services, and here's why I think the UXB800SE is superior.
* This is the most intolerable negative of leased Internet fax to PDF/TIFF solutions -- false positives to senders! Someone sends you a fax. The electronic fax service receives the fax and indicates a successful transmission to the sender. But then there are delivery problems. An early electronic fax service that I tried did not guarantee delivery or store backup images. They would try to email the image to you three times and then quit after the third. Another one at least has a backup store online for 30 days, however on occasion they become back-logged, and one time it took nearly TWO HOURS for a fax that was sent to me to appear. I didn't even know it was a problem for an hour since I had gotten used to the receipt of an email indicating that I had a new fax. It nearly killed a deal for me once and guess what? I cracked out the old PAPER FAX MACHINE to solve the problem!
* Busy signals. Not supposed to happen with an electronic fax service, you say? One of their selling points? Think again! They happen with all of them! They overload their services with customers and do a lousy job load balancing.
* They own the fax number. After you advertise the number, print business cards, etc., what if you want to switch providers? No number portability here! You can get around this with a remote call forwarding number that you own and configure to route to the electronic fax service, but at least from my local phone company that's another $20 per month per call path.
* You're paying what, $5 to $20 per month for electronic fax service? What kind of CUSTOMER SERVICE do you think you will get for that? NONE! When I complained about the delayed delivery issue described above the attitude was "tough luck, buddy, for this kind of money, deal with it!"
If you've got a spare phone line already then why not buy a device that you will own? At $15 per month (what I currently pay) I'll pay for my purchase of this Sharp Broadband fax machine in five months!