Brother's Multi-function Centre printer compact and impressive
Published Monday December 1st, 2008
There are literally tons of really good Multi-function ink-jet printers (MFPs), or in Brother's case, MFCs, (Multifunction Centres), on the market. More and more of them run Wi-Fi, so they'll work with your wireless network.
The latest one I've tested is Brother's new MFC-6490CW, a relatively small MFP that has the extra-added advantage of printing on 11- by 17-inch paper. Now that's not all that common in a decent quality printer for home use, or a small office environment - at a price point of around $350 Cnd.
Brother has tape all over the place, and setting up the two paper drawers with 8.5- by 11-inch paper in one and 11 by 17 in the other took about fifteen minutes. Setting up the printer to print the first test page took another four minutes and setting the printer to use my wireless network took about three minutes.
After all that work, printing the first page of typed copy took 10 seconds from the time I hit print on my laptop to the time the page came out. It's very fast and surprisingly quiet. Print speeds are rated at 35 ppm (pages per minute) for black and white, and 28 ppm for colour.
I'm quite impressed with this printer. The size fits quite comfortably on a desk and it's quiet enough that you can have the printer printing right next to you without it getting irritating.
I really like being able to print to ledger-sized paper - that opens up creative uses for students and anyone who wants to print something bigger than standard letter size. It not only prints to ledger paper, it also scans that size, so it's easy to spread a magazine on the scan bed and get both pages at once, for instance.
Along with the ability to print, you can scan, copy and fax documents on paper sized up to ledger. Scanning resolution is up to 1200 by 2400 dpi, and you can scan or copy in black and white or colour with the push of a button.
The printer is PictBridge compatible, so you can plug your camera into it and print the photos onboard directly through the printer, and it takes a variety of memory cards or USB drives. The large, bright, 3.3-inch widescreen LCD offers you the opportunity to preview your photos and edit them without having to be plugged into a PC.
The software runs on either a PC or a Mac, which is a great plus in my books, and the PC software package includes Brother's MFL Pro Software Suite, ScanSoft PaperPort SE with OCR and the printer and scanner drivers. The Mac package includes the printer and scanner drivers and Presto! PageManager software.
The 6490CW comes with a 50-sheet auto document feeder, so you don't have to copy those large documents one page at a time. The dual paper trays in the bottom offer up to 400 page capacity, but I've got mine set up to use letter paper in one tray and ledger in the other.
The printer comes with four separate ink tanks - one each for Magenta, Cyan, Yellow and Black, and higher yield ink cartridges are available. It prints using a 1.5 picolitre drop, which offers users the opportunity to achieve resolution of up to 6000 by 1200 dpi.
The 6490CW has a monthly duty cycle of 5,000 printed pages, which is quite robust for an ink-jet printer at this price.
The printer isn't just for use wirelessly. You can connect it to your computer via USB, or to your wired home network, but I really like the ability to use it wirelessly.
Size-wise, the 6490CW weighs in at 34.4 pounds, and the dimensions are 21.3 inches wide by 19.2 inches thick by 12.7 inches in height.
You can scan-to-e-mail directly, and scan, print and fax over your home network - that's a lot of features for a $350 printer.
Brother has a winner with this Professional Series MFC-6490CW, and if you're thinking of a multi-function device for the home office, I'd suggest you give this one a look - you'll be surprised.
PROS: Wireless, Ethernet or USB - connect it any way you want. Quiet operation, good print quality, ledger sized scan, copy, fax and print makes this a terrific device.
CONS: It can't duplex, so it's one-sided printing only. I still prefer a dedicated photo printer for my colour prints.
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