Why aren't Brother printers more popular?

[Tom Hock]

I just picked up a very nice one year old Brother MFC-255CW all-in-one wireless printer at a thrift store for $4.00 because it was inoperable. It looked so nice I couldn't pass it up. When I got it home I found a small piece of paper had jamed the printhead. When it was removed the printer works fawlessly. The built-in test page print showed it only had made 861 prints, including some fax/lists. In checking various web sites I find this to be a very good all-in-one printer for about $100 new, and refilling the separate ink tanks is very simple and inexpensive using transparent ink tanks from a source like http://stores.ebay.com/ezink-store/Brother-LC61. The ink tanks do not have chips, and tanks as large as 80ml black and 60ml for each of the three colors are available for the high volume users. The ink tanks load in the front of the printer and do not move with the printhead. I don't like the fact that paper is only fed from a bottom mounted paper tray, but in some applications this may be preferred. Brother also seems to have good web site support for drivers and manuals. I was going to give my grandson a Canon printer for his college dorm room but this Brother printer seems ideal. Any thoughts on Canon vs Brother printers?

 

[pharmacist]

Actually the Brother printers use piezographic print heads and therefore theoratically can handle pigment inks. No chips to cripple refilling and easy refill. Unfortunately the photo printing capabilities lacks behind the Canon and Epson printers. It is more than OK, but compared it side by side and you will see the difference.

 

[mharris127]

I use the Brother MFC-295CN, which is essentially the same printer with a document feeder. I haven't tried to refill carts as I can get non-OEM G&G carts for about $3 each in quantity at EforCity. Other prices I have seen for non-OEM are $5 or less per cart, so this series of printer is one of the most economical to print with. Just don't use "Fast" for a print setting (use "fast normal" instead) as the "fast" setting's print quality is not good and it causes the heads to be blocked with ink within 40 pages, necessitating a cleaning cycle or two to get the printer working again. Also, the printer only prints about four pages a minute at "fast normal", but for my use that is fine.

I am actually looking at one of my spent carts as I type, this model looks like it would be hard to fill. How much money would filling myself save over an average price of $3 per cart (the black carts print about 500 typewritten pages each) to buy non-OEM carts already filled?

 

[Tom Hock]

The Brother ink tanks sold from the vendor listed in my original post (see link) are very easy to refill because they are clear and have a fill hole and cap and you don't even need a syringe. If you go to the link, along the left side of the opening window scroll down to Brother LC61 and click on it. The first item you should see listed are the refillable large capacity ink tanks for $11.94. If you click on that item another window will open, and near the bottom of that window is a video showing the refilling of these large capacity tanks. The second item for sale (after you open the window for Brother LC61) is for the regular size tanks, and that window has a picture showing one being refilled.

So far I have only printed a few 8" x 10" photos, both plain paper and matte photo paper, and for my needs they are very good, and I'm using a mix of different ink tank vendors right now. The text is also very sharp. The one feature I don't care for is the paper is only fed from the bottom paper tray. All my Canon printers have the option of feeding from the top rear, but then, none of them are All-in-One units.

 

[embguy]

The Brother printhead is hard to get at. It will be hard to remove and replace. When the printhead is dead, so is the printer.

 

[mharris127]

Embguy, I sort of expected that. Usually something that sells for $100 isn't repairable. I took the two extra year service plan (three years total protection), if it lasts that long I will have gotten my money's worth out of it.

Tom, interesting link. I will have to try that once my six months supply of carts runs out. I like the idea of the version that hangs out the open door as they have a high capacity.