Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Product Review: Brother DCP-120C
This printer is beautiful. Cost is about 100USD. Something reasonable. Ink costs around 20USD for black and around 11USD each for cyan, magenta and yellow. (The black ink cartridge is about twice the size of a color one.) Again something reasonable. Here's a link to Brother's pic.
Initially I wanted laser but after weighing the costs and the size, I went for inkjet. All the laser printers I saw were just too big. I wasn't concerned with color but since I figured inkjets also do color, I viewed it as a bonus. Little did I know how much I would enjoy it.
Hands down, I think this printer does an awesome job printing both text, and as a surprise to me, PHOTOS! I printed a whole bunch of photos and even a car photo I snipped from porsche.com and all of them came out great.
I also like the scanning capabilities. I wanted an all-in-one type printer and the scanner works very well. The copying portion is also great. Because the printer can do color, I like how I can decide whether to make a mono copy or a color copy.
An extra thing I like about this printer is the built-in card reader. It can handle CompactFlash, MicroDrive, SmartMedia, MemoryStick/Pro, SD, MMC and xD formats. The printer can print straight from the card reader. Plus when I make a copy the printer can also make a soft copy on the card. I can choose either PDF or JPEG. It's so cool! I also like how the card reader is positioned in the front with clear labels to inform me which format goes into which slot. I've seen other printers where they hide the card reader to the side or cover it with a door and worst have no labels so it's like what is this secret thing here? I like how Brother is attentive to the customer.
Finally the last feature I like is it comes with an automatic document feeder. This is so that if you need to make multiple copies, you don't have to do it one at a time by placing your documents one at a time in the scanner. The one tidbit about this automatic documenter feeder is that it has a small capacity, about 10 or so documents at a time. But I figure this is decent enough considering this printer is geared towards the personal/home market, not the business market where people have lots of documents to copy. I'm glad that Brother included this feature even within this price range. Thanks Brother!
Since this printer has a card reader and can print straight from it, I think it would be nice if they integrated an LCD so that we can see what we're about to print. But again, in this price range, I think I can live without it. Plus I have to go back to my original intents when I got this printer, which are to print great text, scan and copy. The others, color and photo print, card reader and automatic document feeder were very excellent bonuses.
Thanks Brother!
Yikes, one more thing, I like how everything is front facing. This is so that I can put the printer totally against the wall without having to leave some space between the printer and the wall. Some printers have the paper fed from the back of the unit and at an angle and that prevents you from positioning the printer right against the wall. The paper is fed from the front. Even the power plug isn't at the back, it's at the side. The little minus thing is the USB port. It's inside the printer and you waste about three quarters of a foot guiding the USB cable in there.
Initially I wanted laser but after weighing the costs and the size, I went for inkjet. All the laser printers I saw were just too big. I wasn't concerned with color but since I figured inkjets also do color, I viewed it as a bonus. Little did I know how much I would enjoy it.
Hands down, I think this printer does an awesome job printing both text, and as a surprise to me, PHOTOS! I printed a whole bunch of photos and even a car photo I snipped from porsche.com and all of them came out great.
I also like the scanning capabilities. I wanted an all-in-one type printer and the scanner works very well. The copying portion is also great. Because the printer can do color, I like how I can decide whether to make a mono copy or a color copy.
An extra thing I like about this printer is the built-in card reader. It can handle CompactFlash, MicroDrive, SmartMedia, MemoryStick/Pro, SD, MMC and xD formats. The printer can print straight from the card reader. Plus when I make a copy the printer can also make a soft copy on the card. I can choose either PDF or JPEG. It's so cool! I also like how the card reader is positioned in the front with clear labels to inform me which format goes into which slot. I've seen other printers where they hide the card reader to the side or cover it with a door and worst have no labels so it's like what is this secret thing here? I like how Brother is attentive to the customer.
Finally the last feature I like is it comes with an automatic document feeder. This is so that if you need to make multiple copies, you don't have to do it one at a time by placing your documents one at a time in the scanner. The one tidbit about this automatic documenter feeder is that it has a small capacity, about 10 or so documents at a time. But I figure this is decent enough considering this printer is geared towards the personal/home market, not the business market where people have lots of documents to copy. I'm glad that Brother included this feature even within this price range. Thanks Brother!
Since this printer has a card reader and can print straight from it, I think it would be nice if they integrated an LCD so that we can see what we're about to print. But again, in this price range, I think I can live without it. Plus I have to go back to my original intents when I got this printer, which are to print great text, scan and copy. The others, color and photo print, card reader and automatic document feeder were very excellent bonuses.
Thanks Brother!
Yikes, one more thing, I like how everything is front facing. This is so that I can put the printer totally against the wall without having to leave some space between the printer and the wall. Some printers have the paper fed from the back of the unit and at an angle and that prevents you from positioning the printer right against the wall. The paper is fed from the front. Even the power plug isn't at the back, it's at the side. The little minus thing is the USB port. It's inside the printer and you waste about three quarters of a foot guiding the USB cable in there.
