All-in-one - trouble free
Written: Aug 13 '02
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Pros: Ease of use, performs fax, copying or scanning while printing, easy setup.
Cons: Printing quality not very impressive, 6 ft connector cable limits the placement of the printer.
The Bottom Line: ALL-IN-ONE - Excellent faxing, Good Printing, EASY to use and setup, Good accompanying software should you decide to use all the features.
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| rahulthakur's Full Review: Brother MFC-7300C InkJet Printer |
I am writing this review after using the MFC 7300c for sometime and also after using all the features. I am going to try and explain the pros and cons of each function.
PACKAGING - The brother came well packaged and the parts needed to assemble it together are very few. That makes it a lot easier. There is a phone handset which, I must tell, is very useful. The brother does not come with a PARALLEL or USB cable and either can be purchased at www.amazon.com (Belkin 6ft USB cable, DON'T BUY 10 ft since it is not recommended, $ 4.95) which limits its placement. I use a USB cable since it communicates faster and is smaller in size than the parallel cable. If you wish to buy a parallel cable please go to www.brothermall.com.
INSTALLATION - Setup is also very easy. I use a Win 2000 system and installation of the software and the driver was not a problem at all. The instructions are clearly written in the manual and there are also some troubleshooting tips that might help the ME and NT users. It has 4 cartridges (black and 3 color) which are easy to install and quickly go through the process of self cleaning. Setting up the FAX is as easy as plugging in the phone cable which comes with the printer. Setup instructions on the printer itself are also very easy. It scores 5/5 on this category.
PRINTING - This is one area that I am not impressed with the brother 7300c. I had a Lexmark Z82 before and it had the same printing resolution and for some reason it seems to me that Lexmark print quality for black and color was better than this one. I am not suggesting that the print quality is very bad but for 1200 x 1200 dpi printing, I expected more. The print speed is excellent though and the USB cable helps that to a great extent. The communication from the computer to the printer is discernibly faster. At 12 ppm (black) and 10ppm (color), it is one of the faster inkjet printers that I have used. The paper feeder (single as well as multiple) is also very good with 100 paper capacity and I have not faced any paper jams yet. I rate it 3/5 in this category.
FAXING - COLOR AND BLACK - I have read reports that fax is becoming the 'tech dinosaur' but I must admit that I have benefited quite a bit from having this fax machine. Brother is famous for its fax machines and totally agree. with features like 14.4K bps fax modem, 20 page automatic document feeder,100 sheet capacity paper tray, 2 MB Dual Access Memory (up to 100 pages),Out-of-paper reception, 8 one touch and 100 speed dial locations, broadcasting up to 158 locations, Caller ID/Call Waiting, Fax/Tel Switch and Distinctive Ring Detection, it is one of the most desirable fax machines around. I rate it 5/5 in this category.
SCANNING and COPYING - COLOR and BLACK - I have never been a big fan of copying machines that use ink since it is tantamount to printing (as opposed to the copying that you do at stores).
Scanning quality - Good - depends on the print of the paper being copied. The quality is the same as print 1200 x 1200 dpi.
Speed - Excellent
Color copying - Again I am not a big fan but once a while I do copy color and I am satisfied. I would not recommend scanning pictures and then printing them and expecting them to be really good quality.
Enlarging - 100 % - 400 % and Reduction - 99% - 1% - I have used this feature only two times and am quite satisfied. The only problem that I have had is, once I start going to the lower reduction - say 45%, the print quality deteriorates quite a bit. But again since I don't use this as a commercial copier, it does not make that much of a difference to me.
One of the big problems in copying and scanning is the absence of the flat bed. When I had the lexmark, it was much easier to copy small receipts and papers which are not A4 in size. Since this has a feeder it becomes difficult to copy smaller papers etc.
COLOR SCANNING - Color Scanning is pretty good. You can go up to 2400 dpi (interpolated) with an optical resolution of 300 x 600 dpi. There are one touch dedicated scan buttons to scan directly to E-mail, Image. All this comes with the bundled with ScanSoft PaperPort and TextBridge OCR software. I rate it 4/5 in this category
OTHER FEATURES - It has a built in video capture port on the front side which makes picture capture, printing, faxing and copying onto the computer very easy.
OTHER SUGGESTIONS - Buy a BELKIN cable (6 ft www.amazon.com) instead of a parallel cable. It makes the communication much faster.
Read through the manual before installing it. Since depending on you OS, there might be some patches that you might have to download from the Brother website.
- Make sure that you put the ink cartridges in the right order. All instructions are given in the manual. DONOT skip anything thinking that this is an intuitive step and can be done without referring the manual.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 141.00
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
rahulthakur
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Reviews written: 6
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