A lot of small businesses make themselves look bad by buying a cheap printer or fax machine. If you're short on space and bucks, it's tempting to use a fax/modem for incoming and outgoing faxes, or one of those cheapie 300dpi laser printers. But flaky faxing and fuzzy printing can make your business look amateurish.

Looking good on a budget is Brother's motto for its MFC line of multifunction printers. The Brother MFC-4550 packs a sharp 600dpi laser printer and traditional fax machine into a box two feet square--and throws in photocopying (with reduction and enlargement), TWAIN-compliant scanning, and document management software. Its like-sized sibling, the MFC-6550, adds a multi-box voicemail system.

Both units produce clean, crisp output. But when I really put both devices to the test, a few shortcomings started to appear.

Brother's MFC line of multifunction printers perform some tasks better than others.

IT PRINTS, IT FAXES, IT COPIES

The MFC-4550 and MFC-6550 really shine when it comes to printing and faxing. The 600dpi printer makes small text and grayscale graphics look sharp, and spits them out but fast. (From a cold start, the 6-page-per-minute printer output two heavily graphical pages in just under a minute--not bad at all). Memory is limited (512K, upgradeable to 1.5MB), but the units easily handled Word documents with four embedded photographs per page without choking.

The fax machine is robust. In the unlikely event the 200-page paper tray runs dry, the unit can store more than 30 pages of incoming faxes in memory. You can likewise feed up to 30 outgoing pages through the system and broadcast fax them to as many users as you want. Like any good fax machine, you can program up to 24 speed-dial numbers. And if you're away from the office, you can even forward faxes to another fax number or have yourself paged when a fax arrives. Want to send faxes when phone rates are lower? There's a delayed sending feature. There's even a side-mounted telephone handset in case you need to use the unit's phone line.

If the thought of programming speed-dial numbers from a fax machine's front panel, or setting up fax forwarding gives you the chills, relax. Brother's Windows setup software makes configuring these functions a snap. The unit is also pretty fast at photocopying--in multiples up to 99--and the four-button control pad lets you pick preset enlargement and reduction options (four of each). The document feeder can accommodate just about any paper size up to 8-by-14-inches, so long as it has a straight edge. (Don't, however, try to copy old newspaper clippings; the MFC merrily chews them up.)

PICTURES AND WORDS

When it comes to scanning, however, both units--especially the 4550--are only so-so. Although the 4550 and 6550 can scan images at 200dpi and 300dpi respectively (and via interpolation, boost that to 400dpi and 600dpi), neither unit captures enough grayscale information. For example, Logitech's cheapie PageScan snares 256 levels of gray; the MFC-4550 and MFC-6550, between 190 and 195. The result? MFC scans look fuzzy when printed out or displayed onscreen. The MFC-6550MC is touted as a six-in-one device because of its built-in 10-mailbox voicemail system. On the plus side, Brother's Message Center is easy to set up via software. It can also consolidate all fax and voicemail into a single in-box, so you can dial in and play back your voicemail or have a fax refaxed to your current location. And when you get back, you can transfer voicemail messages to your PC for archiving.

Unfortunately, if the fax machine and voicemail share the same phone line, you'll force your clients to hassle with menus when sending you a fax. Worse, the Message Center tops out at 20 pages of faxes or 15 minutes of voicemail with the MFC-6550's basic configuration. And no, you can't use your PC's big, fat hard disk to store voicemail and faxes on the spot.

Is limited voicemail and marginally better scanning worth the extra $200? I don't think so. For $200, you could buy two years of voicemail service from one of Ma Bell's offspring-voicemail that kicks in even when your phone line is in use. Or you could splurge and get a second phone line for your fax machine.

I WAS SET UP!

Configuring the MFC-4550 and 6550MC happens only once--thankfully. The hardware guide is clear and straightforward, but getting your PC to communicate with either unit is problematic. Although Windows 95 immediately recognized these Plug and Play devices, the steps outlined in the manual for for installing the software drivers differed from reality in subtle and doubt-inducing ways. Worse, once everything was finally installed, Brother's management software suddenly couldn't find the unit. The documentation fails to warn you that the MFC line has problems with EPP parallel ports, which are found on many PCs sold in the last two years. Making the final connection fell to Brother's busy technical support staff, who stepped me through arcane process of reconfiguring my PC's CMOS setup to treat the EPP port as an ECP port.

DOCUMENT MISMANAGEMENT

At first glance, Brother's fax and image management software seems like a big plus. The program lets you store faxes and scanned images in a customizable filing system. You can view images, annotate them, and save, email, fax, or print them.

But actually doing any of the above takes several dollops of patience. Brother's viewing tools are crude. Nor can you simply export faxes and scanned images and view them with another program. Brother's export utility only knows two formats: Unidoc (huh?) and a flavor of TIFF that five different graphics programs couldn't digest. In the unlikely event you'd want to use Brother's program to catalog other graphics on your drive, you'd still be out of luck, because none of the six common TIFF variants I tested made it through its import filter.

The obvious answer is to avoid Brother's software altogether and simply run the scanner with another TWAIN-compliant application, such as Photoshop. This you can do, but because Brother only ships the units with a 16-bit TWAIN driver, scanning is slowwww. For example, a scan that took less than 20 seconds with Brother's software took almost two minutes using Photoshop. Other TWAIN-compliant software, such as the superb Paint Shop Pro, didn't work with Brother's 16-bit TWAIN driver at all.

TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY?

Once they're up and running, the MFC-4550 and 6550 are great printers, fine fax machines, and capable copiers. But they're barely adequate scanners, and Brother's document management software is abysmal. If you need a scanner for anything above fax grade quality, pick up a Umax Vista-S6E and Visioneer's new PaperPort Deluxe scanning software. Don't waste your money on the MFC-6550. The extras you get--such as the nicely engineered but limited Message Center--aren't worth the premium.

However, my MFC-4550 isn't going back to the Staples branch I bought it from. The MFC-4550 is one neat little printer, fax machine, and copy center, rolled into one. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for this small office.

© 1997 Matt Lake. All rights reserved.

Where to Buy

MFC-4550
MFC-6550MC
Brother International
800/284-4329
www.brother.com List price: $779 (4550); $999 (6550MC)