Brother MFC-5200c Multifunction

by Brother

Product Details

Product Manual [5.63mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 31.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 38 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006LS83
• Item model number: MFC-5200c
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 12, 2002

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

This compact, fast, full-color fax machine with printer, copier, and flatbed scanner allows PC faxing and delivers fast inkjet printing at up to 20 ppm black and 16 ppm color. You can also select high-resolution 2,400 x 1,200 dpi printing for exceptional color output. Simple one-touch keys handle speed dialing, scanning directly to email. OCR and imaging applications complement high-resolution color scanning at up to 9,600 dpi (interpolated; 1,200 x 1,200 dpi in Windows XP).

An 8 MB dual-access memory stores up to 480 pages so faxes can be scanned in while sending or receiving, and receiving can continue even if paper runs out. The included PhotoCapture Center lets you print high-quality color pictures from most popular digital camera media (MemoryStick, CompactFlash, and SmartMedia), without the need for a PC. Scan photos directly to a media card (also without a PC).

This model is compatible with Windows and Apple computers, and it includes parallel and USB interfaces (but not cables), a 100-sheet paper capacity, and 30-page ADF. PC Fax Receive is not available for Macintosh operating systems. The unit is backed by a one-year warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Copier, Great Fax, Not So Great Printer, March 3, 2003

By 

Trying to avoid the HP monopoly (St. Louis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother MFC-5200c Multifunction (Office Product)

I purchased the 5200 after plenty of research and comparison shopping. It is the big brother to the MFC-5100c which looks very much the same... but there are some big differences. The 5200 has the stand-alone digital media print capability (can read Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory Stick) but also has more built-in memory and a print system that works almost twice the speed of the 5100. It was this speed that I was after, and so it was the speed that I will focus on here. Both models use the same ink cartridges, which separate the colors to save you money.

The advertised print speed of around 20 pages per minute black and 16 color should not be considered realistic. All advertised print speeds are basically fabrications that use "draft" print setting and low complexity document types to get best possible results... not the world I live in. That being said, the 5200 really is fast in two departments -- It can copy faster than any all-in-one inkjet I've ever seen, and it spits out faxes like a machine gun. I timed the copy speed using the cover of a children's book as the source (lots of color and about letter-size) and hit my stopwatch the moment I hit "copy"... I used the "normal" setting. A very nice quality copy was produced in 28 seconds. This is a far cry from the 12-16 pages per minute color copy speed advertised, but you will have to take my word for it when I say this is fast for a multifunction machine. The reason for the speed is a very wide print head that can cover nearly 3/4 of an inch on each pass over the paper.

As a comparison, the HP 6110 (nearly identical to the Brother in specifications and capabilities) took 56 seconds for the same copy job at the same settings. The HP print heads cover a much smaller path, requiring many more passes to get the job done.

The 5200 seems to love fax and copy jobs more than anything else, because the manual and software focus on these jobs to the near exclusion of everyday computer printing. In fact, the software was not very impressive and included an image management package that I didn't want, but couldn't elect not to install.

Now, on the the one problem that I encountered and don't want to live with -- Print speed for computer printing. I thought my old Lexmark z52 was slow printing in color, but the Brother was worse. Printing a 4x6 inch color picture (jpeg format) on plain paper in "normal" (one step above draft) print mode took about 4 minutes. After calling and e-mailing Brother support, I finally got a technician that said, "That's the way it is supposed to work... nothing's wrong." What is maddening about it is that it makes a sweep with the print heads, then stops for between 5 and 15 seconds waiting for data to stream in and get processed before sweeping across again. I know that the USB port is capable of sending large amounts of data very quickly, so it doesn't seem like there should be such a bottle-neck. Is it the speed of the printer's own processor? I don't know. I tried altering print spooling settings, I tried it on another computer, I tried using the parallel connection instead... all gave similar results. Printing a larger image at a somewhat higher print mode left me enought time to make a sandwich and catch a little t.v. I just expected faster printing.

Comparing to the HP 6110, the same picture took only slightly less time (about 25% faster) but the print heads of the HP never stop moving back and forth waiting for data.

A better printer driver might fix the speed issue, or maybe the machine I got was not performing properly... I can't say. Anyway, it is a really nice machine that is capable of some really nice output, but I wish the folks at Brother would spend as much time and energy on machine to computer interface as they have on stand-alone faxing and copying (which are very good).

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely love it!, May 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Brother MFC-5200c Multifunction (Office Product)

If you're getting a multifunction, I personally think it's important to get one with a flatbed scanner. A copier that can't copy or fax pages from a bound book isn't of much use to me. I've tried quite a few multifunctions out there - lexmark, canon, HP, you name it. HP was the best of the lot in terms of speed, quality and life of the cartridges. I had almost made up my mind to get HP-2210 which was also appealing to me because it can print directly from a Sony memory stick.

Then I came across Brother MFC-5200 and it didn't take me much convincing to go with this one. Not only does this have great printing speed (I agree with the first reviewer that you can't go by the advertised speed, but that being said, it does print pages with text pretty fast), the copying and faxing is excellent. Moreover, this printer also has the PC-Fax feature that lets you fax a document directly from your PC rather than having to print it out first and then faxing it. That way, you save a lot of ink by not having to print pages you want to fax. The printer has a full-fledged photo-capture center that also accepts a Sony memory stick and a compact flash card as a direct input. What can beat this?

The installation was a breeze on my Win 2000 machine. The literature is extremely well documented and product packaging was very well organized. It comes with separate cartridges for each color - cyan, yellow, magenta and black. You can replace each cartridge separately as compared to some other cartridges where the colors are contained in one unit and you have to pretty much discard it when one color runs out.
I needed to hook this printer up on a LAN so it could be used by the other computers in my house too. This unit was advertized as being network enabled. But the problem was that the LAN board must be purchased separately and costs a fortune. So I connected it to one of my PCs and made it a print server. Serves the purpose.
The downside is that this printer is pretty big and shakes a little when printing, so make sure it's on a sturdy stand!!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Won't Last Longer than Two Years, October 12, 2004

By 

R. Paz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Brother MFC-5200c Multifunction (Office Product)

I've noticed a few positive reviews for the MFC5200C, and all I have to say is - we'll talk in a few months and see if you still feel that way.

The machine was good for me for several reasons - multi-function, fair print quality (if you don't need photos), and moderate printing speed. However, after 21 months of low volume usage (5 print/copy per day), I got the dreaded "Machine Error 41". That is essentially the death dirge (the printer head needs replacing). The repair cost is $164, which when compared to the cost of the machine is a "no-brainer" solution -- don't!

I've talked to a couple of technicians in my area, and they said that I am not alone in my Brother problem. If you want my opinion about this particular Brother product, I say buy if you have the expectation to replace it every two years. If you are planning on keeping it longer, then go elsewhere.