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The brother, in this case, is neither of the family or religious persuasion but a multi-functional device from the Manchester-based company of the same name.  Combining printer, copier, scanner and photocapture capabilities (that’s flash card reading capabilities to you and me); the Brother DCP-110C certainly looks stylish with its front mounted dual-purpose paper input/output tray.  It is compact in size, measuring 373 x 453 x 135mm (W x D x H) and weighs 5.5Kg.

The Brother DCP-110C certainly created a good impression straight from the box with its silver and black livery.  However that first impression soon took a jolt when I discovered that you needed to physically clip on a control panel cover.  While hardly an onerous task, this D.I.Y. approach marked the beginning of what turned out to be a rather long set-up process.

A “Quick” (brother’s terminology, not mine) Startup Guide leads you through the various steps needed to set up this device.  However this guide makes no mention of a warning light that remains lit on top of the unit under all four ink cartridges have been successfully installed.  Even experienced users could find this disconcerting as they look for possible reasons for the light to be on – I know I was bemused somewhat.

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The situation was not helped by the performance of the LCD that is supposed to provide feedback regarding the status of the unit and any tasks that need to be completed.  At first I was of the opinion that the text display kept fading away.  I was so convinced of this that I rang Brother’s press agency and they arranged for a replacement model to be sent to me.  Unfortunately the replacement had the same problem.  After some experimentation, I realised that the text was only visible from one angle.  Move your head only slightly and the text disappeared.  Once this problem was solved, it was easy to follow the various prompts to select the language, plus set the date and time before running a simple printer test.

Before connecting the DCP-110C to a computer, either Windows or Macintosh, you need to install the provided software.  At the appropriate point during this installation you are prompted to connect the unit via USB.  While I was not surprised to find no USB lead included, this is a standard practice with printer manufacturers, the location of the unit’s USB port did cause my eyebrows to rise.  Instead of positioning this port on one of the sides or rear of the unit, Brother has opted for an internal connection.  Although unusual, this location does reduce the possibility of the USB lead being accidentally dislodged.

While it is possible to access some of the features available from the DCP-110C without the intervention of a computer, the poor visibility of the LCD display is an obvious handicap.  Simple operations are fine, and just involve the pressing of a single button, but anything that requires the user to make a choice or select options is a struggle as you attempt to read the display.  By the time you have worked your way through the various levels of the menu, you could have booted up a computer and completed the task.

With the computer in the loop you have access to Brother’s ControlCenter software.  This utility provides the means of carrying out various functions from a front-end that allows for easy switching between scanning and copying plus accessing the supported flash cards.  Configurable settings let you scan photographs and document, with the latter being processed by an OCD (Optical Character Recognition) engine from OmniPage.  Items can be scan direct to an application, including an email client, or sent direct to a folder for saving.  Four different settings can be saved for one-click scanning or copying.  You can also access, print and copy the content of Compact Flash, Smart Media, Memory Stick, Secure Digital or xD-Picture Card devices via the appropriate slot on the front of the DCP-110C.

Brother claims that the DCP-110C’s output is rated at 20ppm for monochrome and 15ppm for colour.  Both of these speeds are 5% coverage which, while the standard accepted by the industry, is often not relevant to home/office use.  I struggled to reach even half these speeds with my tests but even so the resulting output was acceptable and should suffice for most users.  Scan resolution, at 1200 x 1200 dpi, enhanced to 19200 dpi by software, produced good results.  A discrepancy was noticed when an OCD document was displayed in Word 10 and WordPad.  Although the text recognition was good in both cases, formatting in WordPad was much nearer to the original.

The DCP-110C is priced at £99.98 with refill cartridges costing £16.44 for monochrome and £9.39 each for the smaller colour cartridges.  Overall the DCP-110C fared well; it was just a pity that the LCD display was not up to the task of providing easy visible text.

http://www.brother.co.uk/cms.cfm/s_page/55570/s_level/16990/s_product/DCP110CU1