Brother MFC-210C: Great printer, copier, scan, fax at good price

I bought it on march 2005 and it’s great. I looked also in the usual brands (hp, canon, Lexmark), finally for the price I decided to go with the Brother and never been so happy on taking that decision. The cost was finally $100CAD (before taxes), in the store I paid $160 CAD and got in 3 weeks later (after sending it) $60 CAD back with a mail-in rebate.
The machine prints in b&w and color, it sends faxes, make photocopies and scans. The interface is USB (cable not included as usual, sadly) and it can be connected to a LAN. Memory capacity is 8 Mb. Paper tray can get up to 100 sheets.

The machine as a whole is very well designed and small. In the package it comes the user guide, a quick start and 4 ink cartridges (black, cyan, magenta and yellow), but real cartridges, not like the ones that come with hp (the minis that last a couple of months). Speaking of which I can't believe the cartridges last so long, I have printed hundreds of pages and pictures, made copies, and the color cartridges are still on half, the black has a quarter ink left. The cartridges are less expensive than hp, the black doubles in price (It's $32 CAD) to any of the color ones ($17 CAD). You can easily check the ink levels from your computer.
You can do everything from the computer and also everything (or almost at least) from the machine itself. It has a menu set button and other buttons (navigate, color start, black start, stop) that make the machine very easy to use without the need of a computer (with the help of a display). Below the display (gives very informative messages) are the buttons to select print, copy, fax or scan.

The printer: The printer is really good, I have printed a lot of papers and pictures. The quality for pictures is great, although if you want to print pictures you have to select Inkjet or glossy paper, by default it is plain paper (the highest quality here is fine). With inkjet or glossy paper you can select photo or high quality. When I print pictures I also select other two options: Bidirectional and True2Life. And believe me, the result is amazing, can't compare to a lab pictures, but gets really close. You can print pictures from the computer or also from the digital card of the camera, has inputs for CF type I (not type II), xD and SD cards, and then play with the menu, that by the way is very intuitive. Brother says it prints 20 pages/minute in b&w and 15 in color (low or fine quality of course), it's a bit less but very close to reality. For me to print a picture takes from 30 sec. to 1 min (depending on the size). I find it to be very fast for such a small printer. Resolution is up to 1200x6000 dpi. In the six months I have been using it no jammed paper at all, never had to fight with the machine or open it to get paper.

The scanner: Glass is 8.5x11.7 inches (that is, for letter or A4 sizes) and maximum resolution is 19200x19200 dpi (interpolated). I think is a very good scanner, I use Adobe Photoshop and the combination gives really great results.

The copier: You can copy in b&w and in color, the copies in color I have made had difficulties to see which one was the original. If you make copies of pictures, the result is not great at the beginning, you have to play with the menu to get better results. Then press color or black start and you get the copy in the desired finish. You can make multiple copies, but always only from the document you put on the scanner (so, one original at a time), for home is enough.

The fax: Speed is 14400 bps. Brother is known for its faxes, so this is a good fax too. You can go connect a phone to it or no, and in the manual there are a lot of configurations one phone or two phones-fax-line. I read some people having problems of configuration when a phone was in other room or so, if it is your case I would check the user's guide online for configurations at http://global.solutions.brother.com/mfc210c_all/en_us/download/ . Horizontal resolution is 203 dot/inch and vertical up to 392, for me more than enough. I tested the first day the fax, sent a fax to my lab and viceversa, and very good results. Also, a friend of mine needed to send documents to a friend in Peru, and he got them with a good resolution, that's all I ask for a fax machine. It has buttons for the fax number, redial and fax resolution.

It comes with a software that is ok, I use it mainly to check the ink levels, the machine also informs you when some cartridge is low. You can also send faxes from the computer. The machine starts by itself at some random hour at nigh and performs some operations for a minute (I guess it's cleaning itself), but it's quite funny (it's like it has a live). You can perform also an auto cleaning from the software.

As a summary a great machine, well constructed and designed, very useful for home or a small business. The relation quality/price can be the best in the market since it performs everything with efficiency and good quality for a price of only $100 CAD.

--- Update 25 Sept'06 ---

I think this printer needs more ink than what I was used to, and to refill is more expensive that other brands. Although we are making a hard use of it, printing and copying, etc, but less ink would be desirable, especially since a lot of times it's autocleaning and I don't know why it needs so much autocleaning since it wastes ink on the process.