Brother MFC3220C plays well with the Cube (long)

[Jonathan Bauer]

Hello All:

Per my previous posts, I had to quickly get my faxing back after my 
internal modem was zapped during a thunderstorm. I previously used the 
excellent Pagesender w/modem.

I decided to buy an external fax machine and after some research ended 
up with a Brother MFC3220C, which is an "all in one" 
fax/print/scan/copy. It's $130 with a $30 rebate from either Brother, 
or directly from Staples if you purchase from them. The rebate runs 
until the end of July.

This unit works so well with my Cube (OSX 10.3.3) I thought a brief 
user review might be helpful to others on this list.

Brother has up to date software, easy to find on their website (just 
navigate to the product page and there's a direct link). They have 
software for OS 8.6 - 9.2, but I didn't test this, only OSX.

Functions that work directly from the Mac are: fax sending (not 
reception), scanning (it is sheet fed), and printing (B&W or color), 
and... there is software to make changes to all of the MFC3320C's 
internal settings directly from your Mac (very nice). So far as I can 
tell, there is complete Windows/Mac parity in terms of features.

Faxing: from the Mac works fine and if you have the machine set to 
produce a transmission page, it will do so whether you are faxing 
manually from the MFC3220C or from your Mac. The software 
implementation is a little awkward (compare to Pagesender, for 
example), address book integration is incomplete (or I haven't figured 
it out yet). But it works.

Scanning: scanning is fast and clean. There is a TWAIN driver. I tried 
it out scanning into Acrobat. The interface is not nearly as refined as 
the current version of Epson TWAIN (I mainly scan to an Epson 
Perfection), but it works well.

Printing & copying: basic but good quality inkjet printing in color and 
B&W. This unit uses a standard CYMK set of four cartridges. The black 
in cartridge is higher capacity. It won't beat out a good photo printer 
by any means (in color) or a postscript laser printer, but it is 
adquate as a convenience printer for text, printing web pages, or 
making a handy copy of a few pages. Of course, the computer does not 
have to be on (or awake) for convenience copying.

Bundled software: comes with something called Presto! Pagemanager. It 
is a scanning with Optical Character Recognition package. I haven't 
tried it yet. I will over the next couple of days, and if there is any 
interest I will report back to the list.

Stand alone fax: Excellent. Many features, some of which I have no 
experience with (polling, anyone?). Supports up to 14.4k transmission 
speed. Adquate for me.

Build quality: also excellent. Basic plastic, but nicely done.

Installation: Straight forward. If you buy this unit, I recommend 
reading through the installation manual and then following along 
carefully. There are numerous options in the user manuals. Install the 
software from the CD, but then update it immediately with the files 
from the website.

I recommend this unit to anyone looking for an inexpensive 
fax/scanner/printer with good features and good Mac support. At $100 
net it is a great deal, in my opinion.

Hope this was useful to someone out there.

Jonathan Bauer