Brother DCP-115C Printer > Reviews > Printer Breakdown Nightmare.

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Satisfactory
Printing speed	Average
Colour sensitivity	Satisfactory
Ease of use	Easy
Value For Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Stylish, easy to use, slimline, space saving, very cheap inks
Disadvantages:	broke down, JUST after WARRENTY had run out, colour print speed

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

About a year ago I bought a Brother DCp 117c, which is allmost idetnical to the Brother DCP 117c. The unit itself worked very well, and was very simple to use and understand.

That was WHILE it worked.

JUST after the warrenty ran out, the print quality started to decrease, untill it could not print at all. We were told by a printer expert that the print head had broken.
Addmittedly the printer had been used regularly for document printer and photocopying, but only the kind of use to be expected for such a machine. (After all it is advertised as an office product)

Although Brother customer service were helpful; and took the printer away free of charge for repair, the bill was going to be £134! Almost twice what I had paid in the first place, and now even more.

On Google Product search, (what used to be froogle), the lowest price I could find was about £40. If it does not break down I think that this is a resonable price for this product. Its srong points are;

ease of use, simple LCD

elegant slimline, space saving design

very cheap and easy to use ink cartridges,
(providing they are not official)

hand card slots and paper-port printing

Its bad points are, (in my case), reliability,

slowish printing speed; if you are looking to print photos I suggest another printer. It takes about, (literally) 5 minutes for a high quality print - which might turun out to be wrong.

awkward paper loading

awkward, (not sprung), system to lift scanner and replace ink

better scan/print resolutions can be found

It, also, does not include a colour LCD screen - but in this price range it is not really to be expected. (Insted it uses a simple black and white LCD display - similar to that of a calculator)

Overall, I think that this is quite a capable printer/scanner, with lots of good features, and is quite good value. It is, though, now quite old, and there are better models to buy. I found an Epson DX5050, for £50, which is only about ten pounds dearer, and is considerbally faster, (especially colour printing), with brighter inks, if not more stylish and almost as easy to use. (Not forgetting, MUCH higher scan and print resolution) This printer, is good value, (V.good ink price), but is getting dated and if you experience the same reliability problems as me, is NOT worth touching!

(...or maybe I just have bad luck)