Pros: Very practical print/scan configurations; simple operation
Cons: Susceptible to jams with low-quality paper
The Bottom Line: This machine is a compact digital photocopier and scanner that will make your life easier and your office less cluttered in no time. Watch out for jams.
magnus13's Full Review: Brother DCP-1200 Laser Printer
The Brother DCP1200 may very well be the happy medium that many people are looking for in a multi-function unit.
The DCP1200 consists of a laser printer with a paper cassette for just about all standard sizes of cut sheets, as well as a manual feed slot for cut sheets as well as envelopes, label sheets, etc. Atop the unit is a digital copier, which includes a flatbed scanner glass for copying single sheets or scanning photographs, etc. as well as an automatic document feeder which can automatically feed through up to 50 pages at a time for scanning or digital photocopying.
Copy functions include enlarging, reducing, contrast, 4-in-1, 2-in-1, poster and 3 copy modes: Auto, Text and Photo. The scanner can function in the normal image mode or as an OCR scanner, creating a text-editable document.
I use this printer at work on a PIII running Windows 98. The printer integrates flawlessly with my system - it's probably the only thing I have installed that hasn't ever crashed or caused my computer to crash. We have it networked here (installs just like any common HP printer) and it's a very popular printer in the office.
The print quality is excellent for its price range. For everyday office printing it does the trick fine. The printer takes about 15 seconds to warm up after it's been sitting for a while; after that it prints fairly quickly, about 10-12 pages per minute. It features an economy mode for printing at 50% toner usage. Its memory capacity is 8MB. The printer can sort or stack when making multiple copies.
The printer comes with several software packages, most of which are worthless except for the Visioneer PaperPort program. This is an excellent program which allows you to import documents from all kinds of sources, adjust them for printing and then print what you want to print. I find it particularly useful when dealing with large image files (such as technical blueprints). PaperPort automatically resizes these files to fit the page you're printing on; other programs sometimes just give you one corner of the file, full-size.
You can copy by pushing a button on the unit. For scanning, you can either push one of the scan buttons on the unit (Scan Image, Scan OCR or Scan to E-mail) or use your TWAIN software to acquire the scan from whatever program you're using (I use PaperPort frequently; Photoshop also works well).
The automatic document feeder is especially practical - you can scan up to 50 pages automatically in to PaperPort, for example, and then export them into an Acrobat PDF file. This is great for archiving old paperwork, etc. You can configure the printer to send the scans directly to your email program, too, ready and attached to an email.
The scan quality is excellent, especially in black and white. I scan almost exclusively in black and white for anything other than color (greyscale takes a while and picks up a lot of unnecessary tones). Color scans are of very good quality as well, though you may want to do some basic editing for high-resolution stuff.
Occasionally you will run into skewed sheet issues with the automatic document feeder if you forget to adjust the side guides tightly against your stack.
The only real problem we've had with it is that it has jammed a few times when it was loaded with low-grade paper. If you regularly use normal stock laser printer paper, you should be fine. Low-quality copy paper should be avoided.
All in all, this is a great unit for a small office or individual looking for a printer that can multi-task, reduce clutter and generally make life easier. Highly recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 899.99 Operating System: Windows
DCP-1200 provides a striking combination of Laser Printer and Flatbed Color Scanner! This high-quality digital copier from Brother offers a lot of use...More at eBay
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