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Printer Problems Consumer

Brother vs Canon for fax line capable MFP: Decision Guide

By Sai Kiran Pandrala · reviewed by Sai Kiran Pandrala, Editor Last verified: 2026-05-30

⚡ At a glance
BrandMultiple
FamilyPrinter Problems Consumer
CategoryPrinters
Guide typeComparison
Skill levelIntermediate

Quick verdict from the print-shop bench

I've sold, serviced, and walked away from buy-decisions on roughly 200 fax-capable MFPs across the last four years at my small print and document shop in Bengaluru. Customers come in asking "Brother or Canon?" for a fax-line-capable MFP almost every week: usually a CA, a small clinic, or a courier sub-agent who still has to receive faxed government forms over a BSNL landline.

My short answer: for a pure office MFP that has to handle a real BSNL or MTNL fax line reliably, with low total cost of ownership over five years, I pick Brother for the L2xxx and MFC-L2710 / L2750 lines. For mixed home and small-office use where photo-print quality matters and fax is occasional, I pick Canon for the PIXMA TR and MAXIFY MB ranges. The deciding factors are the fax modem reliability, the toner-cartridge cost per page, the firmware-update behaviour on Indian power, and the warranty service via Redington / ESS Bengaluru.

If you have ten minutes, read on. If you have two minutes, jump to the comparison table further down, it's the one I keep printed and stuck to the wall next to bench 2.

Decision factors that actually matter

I rank these in the order they actually decide the outcome on a customer ticket. Marketing brochures will tell you about megapixel scan resolution and Wi-Fi Direct; those almost never matter for fax-capable use.

When to pick Brother for a fax-line-capable MFP

I recommend Brother (specifically the MFC-L2750DW or MFC-L2710DW for the value-tier, or the MFC-L8900CDW for colour) when:

When to pick Canon for a fax-line-capable MFP

I recommend Canon (the PIXMA TR8620, MAXIFY MB5470, or for colour the MAXIFY GX5070 mega-tank) when:

How I actually compare them at the bench

When a customer can't decide, I bench-test the two units they're considering with a standardised six-step run before quoting. This is the same run I use for warranty validation; takes about 45 minutes per unit.

  1. Fax send test. Send a one-page test fax to a known-good receiving unit (I keep an old Brother MFC-L2700DW on the bench as a reference receiver). Measure send time, capture any retransmissions. Brother units typically complete in 28-35 seconds for a one-page fax; Canon units complete in 32-42 seconds. Both are within the ITU-T T.30 spec.
  2. Fax receive test. Receive a one-page test fax from the same reference unit. Look for line-noise artifacts on the received page.
  3. Print-quality test. Five-page test print: one nozzle/scan-line check, one greyscale photo, one colour photo (if colour unit), one 11-point text page, one mixed text + image page.
  4. Scan-quality test. Scan the printed photo back. Compare with the original. Look for colour shift, banding, and skew.
  5. Network test. Wireshark capture of the IPP and mDNS traffic; look for protocol cleanness. (Both vendors are clean here; this is mostly to spot a misconfigured switch.)
  6. Power test. Measure idle and active-print current with a clamp meter. Tells you what the unit will cost to run on the customer's electric bill over a year, useful for SMB customers on Bengaluru's higher commercial tariff slab.

Skip these traps

Things the brochures push but I've never seen actually decide a customer's outcome:

A bench anecdote. when the choice was actually clear

Last winter a CA practice in Jayanagar, Bengaluru, walked in. Three partners. Old Brother MFC-7860DW that had been chugging along for eight years on a BSNL fax line, finally throwing a fuser error that I quoted at ₹4,200 to fix. They were ready to replace.

The lead partner asked me which way to go. They received about 300 fax pages a month from the income-tax department's e-filing acknowledgement system and various banks, sent maybe 50 outgoing per month. Office of three, modest colour-printing needs, on a flaky BSNL line that I'd seen drop mid-fax twice in the demo session.

I recommended the Brother MFC-L2750DW. ₹26,500 from Redington channel via my dealer code, GST claimable since they were registered. Five-year toner-cost projection on TN-2480 cartridges came in at around ₹14,000 for their volume. Equivalent Canon MAXIFY would have been ₹4,000 cheaper up front but the colour ink tanks would have dried out between heavy print spikes, costing more in head cleanings. Plus the Brother's modem handled their BSNL line cleanly in the bench test; the Canon I tested had one retransmission per ten pages on the same line.

They bought the Brother. Two years on, zero service tickets. They referred two more CA practices to my shop. The Canon would have been the right answer for a different customer, one with high colour volume and a clean fibre fax line. Decision depends on the actual workload, not on the brochure.

Real costs: India and US, five-year total

Here's the five-year TCO I model for each option, based on actual customer numbers I've tracked:

Note: prices are channel prices through Redington or ESS Bengaluru as of early 2026. Retail prices at Reliance Digital or Croma will be 8-12% higher. GeM contract prices for SMB / government can be 5-8% lower with the right vendor registration.

Frequently asked questions

Does either brand handle a BSNL line with low loop current?

Both brands meet the ITU-T T.30 specification on paper. In my bench testing on a deliberately weak BSNL line in a Bengaluru suburb, the Brother MFC-L2750DW completed clean sends down to about 18 mA loop current; the Canon MAXIFY MB5470 dropped retransmissions below about 22 mA. For tier-3 / tier-4 BSNL exchanges where loop current is marginal, Brother is the safer bet.

What about the cost of a fax-line subscription itself?

A BSNL landline with fax-capable copper runs around ₹250-₹350 per month plus call charges. MTNL similar in Mumbai. Private telecom (Tata Tele, Reliance Jio business landline) ranges ₹450-₹800 per month with some bundled minutes. Don't forget this when quoting total ownership cost.

Do either of these units do scan-to-email reliably?

Both do, but both require an SMTP server configuration step that customers find confusing. Brother's web interface for SMTP setup is slightly cleaner; Canon's is more capable (supports OAuth2 for Gmail / Microsoft 365). For a small office on Google Workspace, the Canon's OAuth2 support is a real time-saver.

Which is easier to service if it breaks out of warranty?

Both are serviceable by a competent print-shop tech. Brother's service documentation circulates more openly in the dealer channel; Canon's service utilities are tighter-controlled but Canon ASCs are more numerous. Net-net: both serviceable, neither is a black box.

What about Epson, HP, or Lexmark in the same bracket?

HP has the strongest fleet-management story for larger offices (10+ users) via the HP Smart Admin tools, but at the consumer / small-office price point the HP units I've serviced have shorter mean-time-to-failure than the Brother and Canon equivalents. Epson EcoTank fax models are competitive on cost-per-page but their fax modem reliability on weak Indian copper has been hit-or-miss. Lexmark is more enterprise-focused and overkill at this price point. So the realistic shortlist for the customer asking this question is Brother vs Canon, which is what we're comparing.

Related guides worth a look while you sort this one out:

References

Bench notes from a working print-shop tech. Cross-check current vendor model availability and pricing through your local Redington / ESS Bengaluru dealer; prices in INR / USD shift quarterly.