Rating: 
Summary: Excellent fax, Acceptable color printer-copier, Great price
Review: Amazon's service was very good. The box arrived well ahead of the estimated date.You can't beat the price tag ... with 5-in-1 capabilities. While this is not a photo-quality printer, it is great for office use. At this price, it offers 4 separate inkwells that can be purchased separately based on your level of usage -- not offered by the competition. Please note that the Amazon product description which says that the product includes a handset is incorrect. The unit is a breeze to set up as copier, printer, outgoing fax, scanner and PC Fax (set aside 30mins, max). However, setting this up for incoming faxes when you have an answering machine on the same line is very difficult because it is not completely documented (Solution: Set TAD, and set number of rings for receive to 1. Also, don't have any filters installed on the answering machine outlet and fax outlet). While the hold time when I called Brother Customer Service was more than 45 mins, once I got thru, they were able to resolve this issue thoroughly and courteously. Overall, I am very happy with the purchase!
Rating: 
Summary: Error 41
Review: As many others in the review section have found, I got the error 41 message after 11 months. Thankfully, my printer is still covered under warranty.
Customer service isn't particularly prompt... It took 14 minutes of elevator music to get a live person. Once I was through, the man was very knowledgable. Error 41 is the error of death. There is no easy fix.
Because it is still under warranty, they are sending me a "refurbished" replacement at no charge. They pay the FedEx both ways, so that is handy. If you print daily, however, the two day wait will not be particularly easy to handle.
The only other complaint I will add is that if you run out of color ink, the printer will not print a black document. You have to change all the inks in order to get it to print again. Brother really needs to look into fixing that quirk. Other than that ink issue, and now this error message, I love my printer. And I have to say I do appreciate that it died while it was still under warranty.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Based on all the reviews I purchased the MFC3100C model about 10 months ago to replace a HP printer I had used for 3 years. I use it lightly for home use and have not even had to replace any of the print cartridges yet. The outbound fax portion and scanner still work great but, unfortunately it will not feed paper in from the rear sheet feeder any longer. I am very disappointed in the quality of this printer. I think I will hook the HP back up and start looking for a new all in one not from Brother.
Rating:
Summary: Piece of CRAP!!!
Review: Do not buy this peice of crap!! Learn from my mistake. I should have researched this product before buying. Instead, i was fooled by the good-looks, low price, and many features.
I agree with all the other posts about the ink cartridges. Most of the time, the thing won't receive faxes or print b/c one of the ink cartridges is "empty." But, in fact, the cartridge is half full!! Every couple of weeks I'm having to run to the store to buy more ink...and I don't even use the stupid thing that much. And, it won't print in b/w without all colors being completely full of ink. I will NEVER buy another Brother product again.
Rating:
Summary: Misleading Product Information
Review: I absolutely agree with the other reviews posted here. This machine has four individual ink cartridges (CMYK) and separate buttons for "Color" and "Black and White," which led me to believe that: 1. I would be able to save on colored ink. and 2. The machine would operate if either colored ink or black in were out by pressing the appropriate button. However, I have the same ink cartridge problem as the other buyers and was told by Brother that no refund could be issued. I had used the "black ink only" button when making copies with the machine... and received several faxes (should have used only black ink). My magenta and yellow ink are currently out, and I have not been able to receive any faxes in spite of the fact that I still have plenty of black ink.
Also, this machine is a bit tempermental. Even when powered off, it will wake up (very noisy) temporarily if the power strip it's connected to is turned off, then on. It has also been known to start making racheting (head cleaning?) noises in the middle of the night when I had been certain I'd turned if OFF. The noises are rather startling to wake up to.
I am extremely disappointed in this purchase and am searching for a reliable replacement.
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Brother MFCs with the bad inkjet head mechanism
Review: I am another recent victim of the the Error 41 problem and just after warranty on this machine. Was plagued by the empty ink problems throughout its life even without much use. Please do a web search on Brother Error 41 before you even consider buying this. I would avoid any other Brother inkjet product unless you know for sure that it does not use the same printer head mechanism. This problem seems to affect a large range of MFC products.
Rating:
Summary: This machine really got to me...not in a good way
Review: I am generally a reasonably patient person and not too fussy about the equipment I use, but this machine really got to me.
I bought this machine about a year ago. All was well for the first three months...then the ink issue reared its ugly head.
Like other reviewers, all my printing is with black ink. Despite this, the color cartridges run dry every three to five months, even with absolutely no use. That is a pretty big deal to me already, but the real clincher is, get this....you can't print anything, even in black, even with a full black cartridge, if any of the color cartriges are empty. So, even if you just print in black, you have to replace the color cartridges, all three of them, on a regular basis. In my mind, this is either the ultimately stupid feature on a printer, or a blatant attempt to increase ink sales. Either way, it has come to bother me beyonds words.
I can't imagine what happens to all that color ink. The machine does have a disturbing habit of "cleaning" itself at all hours of the day and night, when not being used, so maybe that's when it gobbles up all that ink, but where does it all go?
I decided to try to get around this unexpected expense, which I had come to view as a regularly recurring and involuntary Brother surcharge, by buying bottles of ink and refilling the cartridges myself. I did this yesterday and boy, what a mess that was. I don't recommend this to the average person. My fingers may be stained for days. The worst part was, after replacing the ink in all of the cartridges, the MFC 3220C kept telling me that the cyan cartridge was empty, even though it was clearly full. This, if you have been following the story you will know, means the printer still wasn't going to print a thing.
At this point I had finally had it and I did what I had been fantasizing about for several weeks. I picked up the machine with my yellow, cyan, and magenta stained hands, took it outside, and threw it off our second story deck onto the driveway below. Boy, that felt good. This machine is now, finally, where it belongs.....in the garbage!
Now that I have that off my chest...and desk, I will indulge in some due diligent research and make sure I get a less aggravatingly stupid machine next time. I won't by the way, be looking at another Brother machine, now or EVER.
Rating: 
Summary: Initial rating: great for $50
Review: I bought this 5-in-1 after seeing the display model at Office Depot. At (...) after rebates you can't beat it. Pros: Installation ease, quality of software, print, fax and scan. Fax/scan was lightning fast compared to my old Sharp fax machine. Especially useful is that I can scan 20 pages into my hard drive with a single mouse click. Cheap (...) ink cartridge, any color. Cons: noisier than my Epson 600 printer, plus negative ratings by other owners. If it breaks after 1 year warranty, my lost is (...). I will update my rating.
Rating:
Summary: Can't use Scan button
Review: I bought this one (after a lot of research) and the primary reason was Brother. I felt that meant quality. I also liked the price and the rebate (which I haven't yet recieved). I think it is a good one but I spent three days trying to get the scan button to work. After uninstalling and reinstalling and doing about everything I could think of, I finally gave up and called the 800 number. POW! It was THEN that they told me the button on the scanner would NOT work with Windows ME. I had to use the software program "Paper Port" in order to scan. The program comes with the scanner and it turns out to be a good program but I was disappointed that they didn't make that clear before I bought it. Aside from that I am satisfied (so far) and would recommend it if you don't mind not using the scan button on the scanner. As I said, the Paper Port program is a good one with multiple uses.. Good luck!!! ~Bill
Rating: 
Summary: A decent fax machine, with free scanner and color printer!
Review: I went out to buy a basic plain-paper fax machine to replace a failing old one, but then I came across this device in the store. Since the price is very close to what I had expected to pay for an inkjet fax machine anyway, I figured the sheet-fed document scanner feature would more than make up for the difference. Also, this could work as a backup printer. This is a very inexpensive device, and looks it. It's bulky and plasticky and garishly decorated; at least the cheesy advertising decals do come off. It's also by far the NOISIEST inkjet printer or fax machine I've ever run across. If you get a phone call while this baby is buzzing away on your desk, you'll want to get up and move to the far wall, if not leave the room. The print quality is mediocre -- fine for everyday use, but I wouldn't waste photo paper on this. The scanner with the automatic feeder is great for filing documents, and the included Paperport software makes managing the resulting files easy, but the mere 24-bit color depth and lack of a flat bed make this a poor choice for scanning precious photographs or any thick or inflexible objects. The driver software seems hastily written and maps poorly to the user interface on the printer. The "Black Start" button seems to force either black and white threshold or dithered halftone; true grayscale seems to be unavailable as far as I can tell. Thus I prefer to scan from within Paperport, where all settings are easily accessible, and the documents always end up where you intend. Very importantly, this unit does have a stand-alone fax function, which is not the case with many other inexpensive multifunction devices. This is what cinched me on this device: unlike many other "all-in-one" devices, this is a genuine fax machine at heart! I'm not going to miss any faxes while Windows is rebooting, and I don't need to boot up Windows to send a quick fax. I did have some trouble sending a fax to a particular remote station; this may have been secondary to problems with the phone line or the remote station, however. It appeared that the Brother and the remote station simply refused to shake hands. I did manage to get a 12-page fax through to this particular station tonight on a different line. Overall, I've found this machine to be a great value. I figure I got a decent inkjet fax machine for a fair price, and it came with a free document scanner and backup printer! (...) ADDENDUM 4/21/04: After three months of very light printing use, the paper feeder now no longer works reliably, rendering this device useless as a printer or a receiving fax. The dumb thing can't even tell there's no paper in the path until it's sprayed half a page's worth of ink into its innards. The scanner still works, but my opinion of the included PaperPort 8.0 SE software has also gone down. Apart from the frequent crashes, a major problem is that this version can't export multipage documents in any format that an average Windows user is likely to be able to view correctly, so sharing files with others becomes a pain. (While the self-contained .EXE files theoretically work for anyone with Windows, they tend to get eaten by ISP email virus scanners.) I guess the moral of the story is: never buy a device that comes with advertising decals preinstalled. Rating dropped from 4 stars to 2 stars.
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