Brother MFC-5100c Multifunction Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)3.5 stars.
I just picked up one of these Brother units almost on a whim, as the several that I played with in the stores were unacceptable with extremely poor print quality, for both text and graphics, color and B&W. I was worried that the description given by the one-star reviewer below was accurate. However, I gambled (well, not too much - the store has a 14 day return policy) that the demo units in the stores did not have anything close to the optimum settings, clean print heads or full ink cartridges. My gamble paid off, as the contrast between the well-used-if-not-abused store demos and my new machine is huge.
First, as a frame of reference, I had an old HP Deskjet 500 (the original inkjet printer) and currently own a five year old HP Deskjet 712 I use for text printing, and a two year old Epson Stylus Photo 780 that I have yet to master and attempt to use for photo printing.
I thought the 5100's set up and software install went about as quickly and well as I could expect - the directions were clear and simple, and I encountered absolutely no problems at all. I'm running Win 98SE, though, so I cannot comment on the complaints about XP compatibility. There are separate detailed instructions for XP installation but some of the scanning software (a third party's, not Brother's) may not be XP compatible. However, it does seem that Brother specifically addressed XP issues with the current models. It should be simple if you follow the directions exactly, rather than just diving in and mucking around.
As far as text printing goes, this unit has average, acceptable quality for an inkjet printer. If one looks closely, the individual pixels are somewhat visible even at the best print quality. I would say its text quality is nearly identical to that on my Epson Photo 780 and similar to what a 300dpi laser printer from a decade ago produced. It's sufficient for business correspondence and probably just good enough for printing resumes, but it's not as crisp as the text printing from my HP 712. However, I have never seen any inkjet print better text than the 712, old as it may be, including the newest HP's I've seen in stores. If text quality is of paramount importance to you, no other inkjet printer brand on the market can compete with HP, so you should stick to that brand. The MFC-5100 is twice as fast at printing text as my HP 712.
Copy quality is this unit's biggest shortcoming. It has pretty low resolution on the B&W setting, roughly what I got from my scanner printing out on the HP 712, or draft on the venerable HP Deskjet 500. It's debatable if the copy quality is sufficient to use for sending copies to other parties with business correspondence, but is ok for maintaining personal or home records. In the black and white mode, I see almost no difference in print quality between the Fast, Normal and Best copy quality settings, which may be a minor defect with my unit. It's pretty fast, though - prints in about 30-40 seconds from hitting the copy button, with subsequent copies coming much faster - figure five copies per minute in the real world beyond the first copy. Color copies are pretty nice and at a higher resolution than the monochrome ones.
I haven't done any color printing of signs and such, but have printed some photos and have been quite pleased. I've managed to get a few excellent, highly detailed photos lately with my 2.1mp Canon A20 digital camera and they came out very nicely on the Brother, much better than anything I could print with my 600dpi HP 712. At 5" x 7" size, pixels were only noticeable at close inspection. Larger 8.5" x 11" photos had very similar resolution and beyond a distance of 18" appear to be as good as any enlargement I have seen from a 35mm autofocus camera. My Epson Photo 780 prints at a higher resolution (2880x720 - individual pixels are not noticeable even on close inspection of an 8.5" x 11" print) but has lousy, inaccurate color (at least as far as I've been able to tweak it). The MFC-5100C's color is vivid and very accurate and I prefer its photos to those from my Epson at this point. I'm not sure if I'm printing at the 5100's claimed 1200 x 2400 dpi highest resolution, though, as the settings don't allow for that specific of finetuning. The generally thorough manual is a bit lacking on photoprinting, but I think I've been using best photo settings. The individually replaceable cartridges (black, cyan, magenta and yellow) are also a nice feature and black cartridges are a third less expensive than HP cartridges.
The fax function works perfectly and is as simple as anyone could want. The document feeder works like a charm, also.
In summary, this is a pretty nice unit for the price and there is nothing in the market comparable until you spend 50% more. If this Brother only had print quality comparable to the HP units, I would give it an enthusiastic five stars. The HP 6110 is the cheapest HP multifunction flatbed with a document feeder, it does print noticeably better copies and text than this Brother, and appears, from what I saw in the stores, to have fewer compromises. In fact, despite the fact that the HP 6110 costs 62% more than I paid for the Brother, I liked its better print quality and faster fax enough that I ordered one, will compare it to the Brother MFC-5100 and update this review soon.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Brother MFC-5100c Multifunction

Brother contributes another smart machine--at a smart price--to the multifunction market with this five-in-one combination of full-color fax machine, printer, copier, and scanner, with computer-based fax capability.
As a printer, the MFC-5100c can produce 10 ppm (pages per minute) of black and white and 8 ppm of color, at up to 2,400 x 1,200 dpi resolution (naturally, the higher resolutions are a little slower printing). As a full-color fax machine, the MFC-5100c features 4 MB of memory (storing up to 200 pages) and 14.4K modem speed, delivering one page roughly every six seconds. A fax broadcasting option is also provided, letting you fax up to 90 locations at a time. In addition, the MFC-5100c is equipped with a PC fax driver, enabling you to send faxes directly from your PC.
The MFC-5100c's scanner function scans at up to 9,600 dpi (interpolated; optical specification not available). When it comes to making copies, the MFC-5100c can print up to 99 copies at a time at 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution, and comes with a 100-sheet letter cassette. Copies can be reduced and enlarged from 25 to 400 percent. With both parallel and USB interfaces, the MFC-5100c is cross-platform compatible, working with Microsoft Windows and Macintosh iMac, iBook, G3, and G4 (cables not included). It comes with a one-year limited warranty.

Click here for more information about Brother MFC-5100c Multifunction