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CNET editors' review
- CNET editors' rating: stars OK
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/22/2009
The Brother DCP-165C is the reason why people dread hitting the print button on their computers. During the testing process, we were derailed with hardware malfunctions and hiccups that left us shaking our heads in disdain. Although the $80 price tag is tempting, you'll immediately regret the purchase once you see the results of your printed documents; that is, if you have enough time to wait around for the job to finish. We recommend you stay far away from the DCP-165C and check out the Canon Pixma MX330 instead: you'll be much happier with the Canon's auto-document feeder, 1.8-inch color LCD, and a handful of impressive driver features that will leave the Brother DCP-165C in the dust.
Design
If you've done any printer shopping at all prior to reading this review, you'll immediately notice that the Brother DCP-165C is light years behind the competition in terms of aesthetic design. We knew this printer would receive low design scores right off the bat due to what you could call hate at first sight. Its long footprint saves a bit of space at 15.4 inches wide by 14.4 inches deep by 5.9 inches tall, but the boring rectangular shape has absolutely no appeal to the modern consumer, especially when you consider the aesthetic achievements of printers such as the HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One. The Web site describes the DCP-165C as "low-profile," which might be the understatement of the year.
The button layout on the front lip of the control panel literally reminds me of my family's first dot-matrix printer back in the late '80s, with its small rubber buttons smashed around a pathetic one-line LCD that lacks a backlit screen for nighttime viewing. In addition, the screen is fixed at an angle that's actually difficult to read unless you're hovering over the device. We actually found ourselves having to squint to read the tiny characters during tests.
To the right of the screen, you'll find a series of buttons for photo capture, scan, ink levels, power, stop/exit button, and two buttons for color and black "Start." The photo capture button opens a folder to display images on a memory card from the reader built-in between the control panel and the input/output tray. The reader has slots for PictBridge USB (to connect a digital camera), CompactFlash, SD, Memory Stick, and xD cards.
The large drawer that pulls from the bottom of the device holds sheets of paper and the top doubles as a landing where finished prints come to rest. The glaring issue here is that the drawer sits flush in the printer when it's fully installed and doesn't extend far enough out of the device. That makes it hard to grab outbound prints unless you have a set of child's hands around to help with the job, and the control panel on top protrudes so far over the tray that it's actually difficult to see when a job is finished printing. This problem is most irritating while printing smaller 4-inch by 6-inch photos.
While the power port is easy to access on the left side of the rear panel, the USB port sits inside the printer. For some reason, Brother forces you to open up the machine, prop up the lid with a plastic arm (similar to the arm on the hood of a car engine), snake the USB cable (not included in the box) through a small plastic guide, and plug it directly into the internal components. Not only is this a hassle and unique to Brother, but you also wind up losing more than a foot of cable slack as a result of the extensive internal looping. It feels counterintuitive to lift up the lid and expose the print head to serve no other purpose other than to plug in the USB cord.
Features
The drivers on the installation disc give you the option to adjust the printer's quality settings from normal to fine, fast, and fast normal. In addition, you get a box to check natural versus vivid photo printers and a unique "True2life" color enhancement tool with customizable changes to color density, white balance, contrast, brightness, and other settings. Finally, the driver also installs a status monitor that pops up during job processing to monitor ink cartridge levels and quality control.
Brother also gives you the option to install a third-party imaging application called "Paperport" by ScanSoft. This program lets you edit photos in a file browsing setup similar to Apple's iPhoto, with basic photo-editing solutions for auto-enhancement, blemish erasing, and red-eye elimination. We played around with the software for awhile and enjoyed its simplicity compared with iPhoto, although don't expect the editing quality to be on par with Adobe suites; this is geared more for light users and amateur photographers with limited time and editing resources.
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Where to buy
Brother DCP 165C: $57.14 - $96.21 | store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
 | $89.99 | Yes |  |
 | $86.38 | Yes | |
| Amazon.com Marketplace | $57.14 | Yes | |
 | $79.99 | Yes | |
 | $79.99 | Yes | |
