Customer Reviews

Brother MFC-3100C Inkjet Multifunction

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I have recently purchased this machine for fax and mostly black and white print jobs for my home office. Since then I have purchased a digital camera, and have found this machine produces great framable pictures!!! I would highly recomend this machine for anyone who shops around and wants the most features and quality for the price. I have used up a few ink cartridges printing larger 8x10 photos, but the individual ink cartridges make it easy and cost effective to use. The only thing I am missing is a flatbed, but so far I haven't needed it and have been able to scan pictures through the document feeder. Also a great color copier.

I purchased the Brother MFC 3100C about two months ago and have been very pleased with it.

Text Quality:
The text looks sharp as in laser printers when you use cheap inkjet paper. I highly recommend buying inkjet paper( I bought a ream [$$$] and got another one for free. The sheets are heavier, which eliminates show-through and give documents a better feel and more durability). But the text looks good in regular multi-purpose paper too.

Photo Quality:
The photo output is excellent, using photo paper, but even in regular paper it looks nice. I printed some pictures and it looks very nice for a multi-functioning device.

Fax:
It is very easy to send faxes through this machine. You can send several pages at once. Just place them on the feeder, dial the number (there's a speed dial feature for #s you frequently send faxes to) and press the Black or Color Fax Start button. I never sent color faxes, so I don't know if it works.

Scanner:

The scanner is very powerful since it can scan images up to 2400 dpi of resolution. I scanned several photos and some text too and I have been satisfied with the results. (Tip: to scan photos, use "Paper Port" that comes with it. You have more control over the scanned pictures.)

Conclusion:

You can't go wrong with the MFC-3100C. Unlike Lexmark and HP multifunction centers, it features individual cartridges, so you won't have to waste ink if only one color runs out. In addition to that, I have printed a LOT of documents, including photos, and there's still more than half of ink to use. This "printer" is a ink saver!! Unless you really need a flatbed, I recommend it to anyone looking for a multi-functioning device. You won't regret it...

I've had the device for a few weeks now and have tried everything from faxing, printing and scanning. Scanned both color photo's to documents -- all without a hitch.

Having had a HP Laserjet 3150 prior, this is definitely a quality machine for the price bracket it's in.

Ink is also in separate containers, thus reducing you long-term costs vs. some other mfgs that put all the colors into a single container which has to be replaced as soon as any color runs out.

Quality of the print is good --- its not laser, but the quality is defintely above average.

I use this MFC for home office and have experienced very good print quality for this amazing price! It is also easy to set up and get going and Brother is forthcoming with the difficulties customers sometimes experience when fax machines share one phone line/number and/or use an automatic voice mail system. I have Bellsouth's Ringmaster Service along with their Message Center (voice mail) and it all works beautifully with this machine.
Two caveats with this machine: it does NOT have a handset, so it cannot be used as a telephone :-(. Also, if you have a standard parallel printer cable at home with your current printer, there is NO NEED to purchase the USB cable that is suggested as the parallel cable works just fine.
All-in-all, a VERY good value for the dollar - especially for home office.

I purchased this multifunction printer (from someone other than Amazon) because it seemed to have all the features I wanted. But I was very disappointed when I recieved it.

First, I found out after I opened it, that to use it with voicemail, you need to be present to recieve faxes.

Next, I have never been able to get the scanner to work. The serial cable is connected and was working for the printer, but it keeps telling me that it is unable to communicate with the computer when I try to use the scanner.

At first the printer worked, although that is now saying that it is unable to communicate with the computer as well. But what did print was of horrible quality. The manual tells you to do print tests and a cleaning process, but after doing this five times, it was still horrible. Even the colored blocks of the print test never were clear.

When I tried to print photos, both on regular paper and photo paper, I found the quality to be worse than my old Lexmark ...

At least the copier works.

When I emailed Brother to tell them about my problems, I got a form email back saying they were getting a high volume of mail and it would be up to three days before I would get an answer. That was a month ago and I still haven't heard back.

Since I purchased this item from someone other than Amazon, I am left with a very large paperweight

I had major problems connecting the printer to my windows XP computer with a parallel cable. I tried everything I could think of for a week and a half to get it to work. No matter what I tried, printing anything from the computer was sporatic at best. My advice, spend 20 bucks on a USB connection. I've had it hooked up for a week now and there hasn't been a single problem.

Don't get me wrong, if it wasn't for the trouble with the parallel port, I would have given this printer five stars. Great functionality for an awesome price!

This combo inkjet fax, copier, scanner has some great features but the print quality underminds them all. Because it has USB connectivity, you can fax from your computer programs. It's easy to send a fax from a text editor. The copy and scanner features work well for general usage.

The problem with the one I purchased is that the print degrades after a very, very short time. Extensive horizontal lines appear in the prints making detailed faxes almost impossible to read. It requires repeat cleanings to clear up this problem, which you can do from the menu if you have 10 minutes and several sheets of paper to spare. For me it's a major pain to have to clean it as often as it requires. Using the cleaning feature wastes my time. I have also had to request faxes to be resent because the quality was so bad.

I seldom have many faxes, so I have no idea how it performs with constant incoming faxes. I suspect it would be a nightmare. This printer needs to be recalled, or at least the ones that work like the one I bought.

I love my 3100C. I bought it for a fax. Found myself using it constantly to make copies. I like the color copies. Well worth it. In fact, I am going to buy the 9700 multifunction machine so I can do a larger volumes of copies for my home business and for its priting abilities. I was an old die-hard Hewlett Packard fan until now. I had a LaserJet Series II which was one of the best things I ever bought, but 10 years later, after buying the HP1200 and being so disappointed, I am a Brother fan. Times change. I really like the fax reject button. Maybe all faxes have them, but it's great. When I get faxes, I know I'm getting them. Somehow I'm on some advertising fax lists, so when the call is from an unsolicited fax, I just reject it. Eventually you get taken off the list because I guess they don't get credit unless the fax goes through.

Here are practical reasons not to buy this model - and I suggest you not buy any Brother product at all:

(1) When you run out of one color ink (and there are three separate color cartridges), the unit will not print or copy at all - even in in black and white. Plan for lots of frustration and down-time. Other brands don't do this!

(2) When you fax, scan or copy, the front paper feeder causes your sheets to be faxed, scanned or copied "crooked" rather than straight. Part of the page may thus be cropped off. That's because there's only one pressure roller pulling in the paper - in the very center of the sheet - and the paper tips from side to side, despite the holders that ostensibly keep it in place. To keep the fax, scan or copy straight, you must manually hold it with your hand while standing at the unit.

(3) The rear paper supply sometimes feeds several blank sheets at once, instead of just one, then jamming the unit.

(4) When you scan, the software won't yield satisfactory ".pdf" files. There's always a few portions on the scanned .pdf file which are squeezed together. You need to scan as a ".tif" files and then use Adobe Acrobat to convert the file to a .pdf.

(5) The color rendition could not be poorer. Do you plan to print photos? You'd be better off using crayons and drawing them yourself.

(6) The color ink cartridges dry up quickly, so if you don't plan on printing lots of color pages (which are indeed horrible anyway), plan on spending $40 every six months to replace them. Even worse, see my relevant comment #1, above.

(7) Brother's technical support is unsatisfactory. They'll try to fix one problem at a time, and they'll make you call back repeatedly. The bottom line is that they really are unlikely to resolve your issues satisfactorily. Be forewarned.

(8) The unit provides for a cartridge and head "cleaning" cycle. Like to listen to the unit run for five minutes at a time? Be my guest. Even after repeated cleaning, the color print quality NEVER gets resolved to a satisfactory level.

I believe that this model may have been "dumped" by Brother and replaced [updated] because it had so many problems. Look - there are reviews from folks who may have been lucky enough to get a good unit, or maybe they just don't care that much about practical issues.

My advice is to buy any other brand. And did I mention that you should buy ANY other brand?

The bottom line: Like lemons? Buy a Brother.

I bought this to replace my Canon Multipass C635 (or 5500), with which I was never very happy: ink dried out all the time, lousy user guide, half-assed cross-platform compatibility. Hesitated about buying Brother (who really buys Brother, anyway?), but it was the only alternative with PC/Mac support. Out-of-box experience rivals that of Apple or Dell--excellent--although you need your own USB cable, of which they warn you on the carton. Setup is drop-dead easy. I hope the ink cartridges last a while. I vastly prefer this to the Canon multifunction offering.