Brother FAX-1960C Plain Paper Inkjet Fax

I bought this machine primarily because I wanted a fax machine that also takes good quality sounding phone messages. I tried one other cheaper brand, but the audio quality was so bad I returned it the next day. People leaving a message sounded like they were underwater with cotton in their mouths. It did not matter to me that this model has color capability, but the cost was not more than simple black and white versions, so why not? However, the color feature is very useful if you use it as a printer (more on this later).

The "little brother" (no pun intended) of this machine is the 1860C, which does not have the phone message center features. I bought mine at Staples, for $129.00 on sale with instant rebate and coupon. List is around $169.00. Today you can get one for $139.00 on Staples website.

The unit was well packed, and set up was relatively easy. There are only a few parts to assemble, and, of course, there are ink cartridges (black, yellow, cyan, and magenta)to put in just like an inkjet printer. But even with my experience in computers and inkjet printers, it took me a few moments to get my bearing on how to insert the cartridges. Perhaps if I had read the instructions more thoroughly first, I would have had an easier time. But my nature is to rely on past experience and do the manly "I don't need no stinking manual" approach.

The manual says the color inkjet cartridges will last for 400 pages and black last for 500 pages. The good part is that with 4 individual cartridges, you will not have to replace all when only one is low. It makes surprisingly good color copies, and excellent black and white copies. For the price, if you don't make too many copies, you might want to use this as your home color/BW copier.

When you first turn it on, the unit checks ink, checks the line, and allows you to print a test page in color. I have never received a fax in color, but now I could. This capability may be more important in the future, but right now, I suspect few have color fax machines. When sending a fax, the control panel has two buttons, "color" and "black", with the word "Start" next to them. This is not intuitive, but basically if you are sending a black and white page, you press "black", and if it's color, well, you get it. Most people are used to a fax machine with just one "start" button, but because you can send color, it does not automatically determine this from scanning the original. There are also two buttons to select between "fax" and "copy". It also offers copy enlargement and reduction.

If you have messages waiting, the Message Center light blinks. There are two buttons for "play" and "erase" which are self-explanatory and allow you to erase one or all messages. You can rewind and repeat messages using the * and # buttons on the keypad.

The unit is not noisy, but it is not whisper quiet either. The faxes I sent to my office as a test were clear and easy to read. Received faxes are very readable (and on plain paper, of course!) But remember, the quality of a received fax is dependent on the quality of the machine that sent it to you, the resolution it was sent in, and the quality of the phone lines between.

Like most modern fax machines, it has memory (16MB, or 300 pages) which first scans the document and then dials the number and sends it to the other machine. The scan into memory is very, very fast, like about a page a second. It has all the advanced features you expect in a fax machine, like broadcast, redial if busy, delayed faxing, and so on.

The document feeder so far has been flawless, with no misfeeds or pulling multiple pages through. The paper tray holds a lot of paper (100 sheets) and fits into the base like a regular printer. I don't like units that have the paper flopping around on top, so the lower tray is appreciated.

It has a cordless phone (5.8 Ghz) which also has speaker phone feature. You can buy additional cordless phones at about $79 each. Of course there are all the usual features associated with a cordless phone (memory, address book, caller ID, speed dial, one touch, etc.) The wife does not like using it (nothing against this model, she just does not like cordless phones), so I installed a regular phone next to the machine. The cordless phone has excellent range, and I was able to use it from the front yard and anywhere in the house. Audio quality was perfect.

This machine has a built in USB 2.0 jack, so it can be connected to a computer and be used as a printer, once you download the appropriate driver from Brother's website. As a printer, it will produce 20-25 pages per minute, which is not bad. I am not using it as a printer, because I have a high end Canon color printer, but if you are not needing the ultimate photo quality, this could act as your printer quite nicely (or be an emergency backup!)

Output resolution varies depending on how you use it. For black and white and color copies, it scans 600x1200, but can print 1200x1200 black and white and 600x1200 color. As a printer, using the printer drivers from Brother, it boasts 1200x2400, which is great for a combo fax/printer machine, but not quite up to my Canon i960 which produces 4800x2400 for true photo quality.

If there is a power loss, it holds documents for 24 hours. This is a nice feature. You can retrieve your messages and B/W faxes remotely. If you are at another fax machine you can call your machine, and have it forward the fax to your location. Slick.

My only gripes are minor ones. On my machine, there is about a 4 second pause between when it picks up a call and my outgoing message starts playing. I made sure I started my voice recording immediately when prompted and tried this several times to no avail. I worry that someone will think the line has gone dead and hang up before they hear my outgoing message. However, messages are clear and easy to understand, as is my outgoing message. It can hold 29 minutes of messages. That might be a little anemic if you are gone for a week or more. You can limit the time a caller has to leave a message, in order to stretch your memory.

The other criticism is that when you dial a number on the cordless phone, there is a delay in getting the dial tone. This takes some getting used to. It can start dialing while you are still entering numbers.

But all in all, I am happy and since I did not return it, it works well for me!

There are far too many features to go over in this review, but if you have a specific question, I'll try to answer it.

That's the end of my review, and here's a link if you want more specs:

http://www.brother-usa.com/fax/ModelDetail.aspx?ProductID=FAX1960C