Color Inkjet Printer Scanner Copier & Fax The MFC-235C is an all-in-one that combines fax plus color printer, color scanner and color copier in one compact unit. It's easy to use... more
for your Brother printer. -Product 2:With this photo printing pack, including 3 N°363 colour ink cartridges (in cyan, magenta, yellow), you can print the most beau...
A review by paulhanton on Brother 235C October 18th, 2007
Author's product rating:
Picture quality
Excellent
Printing speed
Average
Colour sensitivity
Good
Reliability
Excellent
Value For Money
Excellent
Advantages:
Cheap all in one printer, copier, fax, photo capture
Disadvantages:
Not enough paper in tray, quite slow
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I bought this all in one printer almost by accident. I have two computers (well three with the laptop) and two printers which are perfectly adequate. I was looking for a photocopier and was astounded to find that the cheapest photocopiers with auto feeding were coming in at around the £200 mark. I went to Maplin Electricals who told me about this. As an 'all in one' this product, which costs less than £70, has a fax machine, printer, scanner, copier (black and white and colour) and a really useful photo capture and print facility.
I will give you all the official specifications later on in the review, but I want to give you my experience of the product first.
As I've said, I only really wanted a photocopier, however, as I will explain, the product has now replaced my older printer.
Firstly SETUP: Easy as anything. There is the obligitory manual and disc, however, if you just want to use the photocopying function, you do not even have to attach the product to the PC. Very comprehensive and easy to understand user guide arranged in to sensible chapters like 'Fax', 'Copy', what a refreshing change.
Copier: I used this first, and it works just like any copier, you press the button, specify the number of copies, colouror black and white and its off. It is quite slow, probably slightly slower than the specifications state, but that is not a problem, it does not need to be fast for my limited needs. Simple, pull out, feed tray as any photocopier.
Fax: Never thought I would need this, and never have, but I set it up to test it anyway and it worked first time, quite amazing really, as i always expect things not to, lol.
Printer: Pretty standard, again not quite as fast as the specifications state, copies are fine, colour is fine and what one would expect from a decent Inkjet printer. By the way, i should state that even the branded ink replacements are pretty cheap, and I have not looked into generic copies yet, they are also very easy to replace, much easier than a messy toner cartridge would be:
LC-970BK Black Ink Cartridge (Up to 350 A4 pages at 5% coverage) £ 12.91
LC-970C Cyan Ink Cartridge (Up to 300 A4 pages at 5% coverage) £ 7.63
LC-970Y Yellow Ink Cartridge (Up to 300 A4 pages at 5% coverage) £ 7.63
Photo Capture: I have not used this feature yet, but will do very soon. There is a USB port on the front of the printer which allows one to simply plug and print (little pun on plug and play).
Looks: This is/was quite an important issue for me, as I wanted something reasonably small that could go onto a stand next to the computer. It looks sleek and professional, of course it is plastic but then it would be for the price. You can see from the picture anyway what it looks like.
Brother decribe the features and specifications on their website as listed below:
Features • Up to 100 sheet paper capacity • Up to 20ppm colour printing speed • Up to 25ppm monochrome printing speed • 14400bps modem • 40 speed dials • Up to 170 pages transmit/receive memory • Colour copying • Up to 19200dpi scan resolution (interpolated) • Scan to email, OCR, image, file or card • 1 year on site warranty (upon registration)
Colour Inkjet Printer Scanner Copier & Fax The MFC-235C is an all-in-one that combines fax plus colour printer, colour scanner and colour copier in one compact unit. It's easy to use functions and fast print speed combined with high quality photo printing makes this the ideal product for the home or home office.
Specifications: Paper Capacity Standard Up to 100 sheet paper capacity Print resolution Up to 6000 x 1200dpi Printing speed Monochrome Up to 25ppm Colour Up to 20ppm Modem Speed 14400bps Speed dials 40 speed dials Transmit/Receive Memory Up to 170 pages Enlargement / Reduction Ratio 25-400% in 1% increments PC Free Copying Yes Resolution Up to 600 x 1200dpi Resolution optical Up to 600 x 2400dpi interpolated Up to 19200dpi Scan to email, OCR, image, file, card or USB stick Consumables Individual colour ink cartridges Dimension (w x d x h) 398mm x 360mm x 150 Warranty 1 year on site warranty (upon registration) Weight Approx 7.3
As I have said, the speeds do not quite make the makers claims, the only other downside to this product I have found is that they could probably made the feeder tray hold more paper, say 200 sheets.
Brother, is not a product name that would usually come to the fore of my brain, I am glad that I have found them though, very good.
Finally, by registering the product with 'Brother' within 30 days, the warranty is upgraded from 'return' to 12 months, on site, which is pretty amazing for a product costing less than £70.
I am really happy with this and will replace my newer printer when it is time, with a similar product.
Advantages: Very economical on ink. Disadvantages: None that I know of
I really do feel that most reviewers are missing the best feature of this all in one with fax. I had previously been using a Lexmark all in one with fax, the x5470, which I originally bought for £49, I soon found that the cartridges were between £25-30 just for one cartridge, and it only had two cartridges, which meant that the colour cartridge had 3 small compartments in it, that ran out quickly, as when one colour went, that was it!
I bought an ... ...the printer always complained that it was out of ink, and I had no idea when the ink would run out. After refilling the cartridges for the second time, the printer refused to work, as it said that I had fitted an incompatible cartridge, something that I later found out was an inbuilt "fuse" that renders cartridges useless soon after their first or second use! Compatible cartridges are prohibitively expensive, as they need to have a chip and a printhead ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Neat all in one package that's easy to use Disadvantages: None, so far!!!
What can I say, I bought this printer as an impulse buy. I only paid £45 for it brand new from a well known stationery shop. It has replaced a mono-laser printer bought second hand. To get a copier/scanner/printer for £45 is good, but one that faxes as well. It did as was claimed on the box, I just plugged it in, connected it to my laptop and within minutes the drivers were installed and it was ready for use. I was a bit dubious about the fax, but ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Picture quality
Printing speed
Colour sensitivity
Reliability
Value For Money
helpful
06.05.2008
Quick review of Brother MFC-235C Review ofBrother 235Cby
westwoodfishing
Bought this printer after my trusty Epson stopped scanning.
Unless you leave it switched on all the time, it has this love of automatically cleaning the ink cartridges when you try to print with the result that you nearly need gallon cans of ink on a drip feed to keep it going.
cartridges also show EMPTY when they are not, but it will not print unless you change them.
you can print colour or grey, even though it has a black cartridge, non of that ink has been used yet.
How I miss my Epson!!!
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
helpful
30.05.2008
Quick review of Brother MFC-235C Review ofBrother 235Cby
mikefox16
I purchased the Borther MFC-235C to replace my HP printer & HP scanner. I wanted a compact combined printer scanner. The machine itself is excellent and was very easy to set up and operate. I didn't want the fax but it was included. The copy facility is excellent for both standard & colour, and the scanner is great. However, the down side is it eats ink. I have fed it with two sets of cartridges in 3 months and so now I only print when necessary, I very rarely, if ever, print photgraphs.
I hate to be negative about this machine but I would not have purchased this machine had I known about the ink consumption as it makes it an expensive printer to operate.
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: good scanner software Disadvantages: gobbles ink
most of my printing is done on a balck and white laser printer. I only need the printer bit of this m/c for the odd photo. Unfortunately, I seem to get only one photo per set of colour cartridges, as the self cleaning function just gobbles ink; so that's £30 per photo. Not bad for a £30 m/c. And the self cleaning idea isn't so cleverbecause if I don't replace a cartridge, as soon as the ink runs out, it dries up anyway..
I can't even use it as a ... ...make a good scanner.
I need 120 words. OK.
The Software is good as it offers you a menu of options for the disposition of the scanned items. (although it quickly fills up a folder of cryptically back-up copies).
The Optical character recognition is good for printed text and the resultant doc needs little in terms of tidying up. ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Ink Palette Supported (Colours): Cyan, magenta, yellow, black
Colour: 4-ink
Minimum Ink Droplet Size: 1.5 pl
Ink Type: Brother Innobella ink
Scanning
Scan Element: CIS
Optical Resolution: 600 x 2400 dpi
Interpolated Resolution: 19200 x 19200 dpi
Grey Scale Depth: 8 bit
Colour Depth: 24 bit
Colour Depth (Internal): 36 bit
Fax machine
Compatibility: G3
Max Transmission Speed: 14.4 Kbps
Data Compression System: MH, MR, MMR, JPEG
Total Memory Capacity: Up to 200 pages
Reception Memory Capacity: Up to 170 pages
Transmission Memory Capacity: Up to 170 pages
PC Faxing: Built-in
Fax machine features
Error Correction Mode (ECM): Built-in
Speed Dialing: 40 station(s)
Broadcast Transmission: 90 stations
Features: Automatic redialing
Manufacturer's product description
Color Inkjet Printer Scanner Copier & Fax The MFC-235C is an all-in-one that combines fax plus color printer, color scanner and color copier in one compact unit. It's easy to use functions and fast print speed combined with high quality photo printing makes this the ideal product for the home or home office.
Document & media handling
Max Original Size: A4 (210 x 297 mm), 216 x 297 mm
Original Type: Sheets
Max Copy Size: Legal (216 x 356 mm)
Min Copy Weight: 64 g/m2
Max Copy Weight: 240 g/m2
Supported Media Type: Transparencies, plain paper, recycled paper, Transparencies, envelopes, plain paper, coated paper
Borderless Photo Sizes: ANSI A (Letter) (216 x 279 mm), A4 (210 x 297 mm), A6 (105 x 148 mm), 100 x 150 mm
Standard Media Capacity: 100 sheets
Output Trays Capacity: 50 sheets
Document & Media Handling Details:
Output tray - 50 sheets - A4 (210 x 297 mm)
Input tray - 100 sheets - Legal (216 x 356 mm)
Speed Details:
Printing : up to 25 ppm - B/W
Printing : up to 20 ppm - colour
Copying : up to 18 ppm - B/W
Copying : up to 16 ppm - colour
Min Copy Size: 89 x 127 mm
Pc connectivity
PC Connection Availability: Yes
PC Connection: USB, USB host
Operating System Support: MS Windows XP, MS Windows 2000, Apple MacOS X 10.2.4 or later, MS Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, MS Windows Vista, MS Windows Vista (64-bit versions)
Software Included: Drivers & Utilities, Presto! PageManager, ScanSoft PaperPort SE
