Brother offers new Multi-Function Centers (MFCs)

Brother International Corp. on Tuesday announced four new inkjet Multi-Function Centers (MFCs) — devices that do multiple duty as printers, faxes and scanners. All the new Brother MFCs are expected to hit retail store shelves in October.

Features shared by all printers include print speeds of up to 14 pages per minute (PPM) monochrome and up to 12PPM color. They all feature 4800 x 1200 dot per inch (DPI) output resolution and USB 2.0 interface support. Also included on all models is a 20-page automatic document feeder and 100-sheet paper input capacity.

Optical resolution on the new devices is 600 x 1200DPI. They include Presto! PageManager for scanning and OCR capabilities.

The MFC-3220c and MFC-3320cn each feature 8MB of built-in memory for out-of-paper fax reception and broadcasting; the MFC-3420c and MFC3820cn models feature 16MB of memory instead. The MFC-3420c and MFC-3820cn are both flatbed models; they can handle books, magazines, and other flat-surface materials.

The MFC-3320cn and MFC-3820cn are flatbed multi-function devices featuring built-in Ethernet networking, and are compatible with Rendezvous, according to Brother. Both models also sport a Super G3 33.6Kbps faxmodem (the other two sport a 14.4Kbps faxmodem).

Both the MFC-3320cn and the MFC-3820cn feature built-in digital camera media slots that accommodate Memory Stick, CompactFlash, SmartMedia and Secure Digital cards. The printers can output a preview index page containing thumbnail images of all photos on the media card; a “Scan-to-Card” function enables users to scan directly to the media card without using a computer.

The MFC-3320cn and MFC-3820cn are US$179.99 and $229.99 respectively. The MFC-3220c and MFC-3420c are $129.99 and $179.99 respectively.

Brother lists the printers as compatible with Mac OS X v10.1 or higher or Mac OS 8.6 or higher. Some features, like network scan and PC fax receive, are Windows-only — visit the Web site for details.