Customer Reviews

Brother MFC-290C Color Inkjet Multifunction Center

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

So far so good. Absolutely no paper jams for the past year of use. Very good quality for black prints. Color printing on the other hand, is very dull. Even the black comes out looking gray.

Positive:
* Quick and easy setup. Software included does quick and simple scanning.
* Print time is decent for both color and black
* Very sturdy construction
* 4 separate print cartridges
* Printer cleans itself
* Auto feeder for copying multiple pages. (very useful while filing tax documents and making copies of it.)
* Also, has an open door option for manual feed scanning.

Negative:
* Black prints comes out looking dark gray. Not as rich as it should be.
* No USB cable provided (Like selling a car with no steering wheel)
* Printer uses INK to clean itself. 2-3 times a month. Even when the printer is OFF. ???
* Color photo prints on regular paper comes out dull. Very dull. haven't tried printing on photo paper yet.
* No envelope feed option on the paper tray. Very confusing at first, but after 2 attempts, I eventually figured it out.
* No WIFI connection

I still gave it a 4 because the majority of prints I do are black and white prints. (resumes, school work, labels, etc"). For Less than $100, you can't complain. Replacement cartrdiges are also very affordable.

For Photo printing, LOOK ELSEWHERE!

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UPDATE:
After using the inks until they were near empty, the colors seem to be more brighter for some reason and the blacks now looks black. I guess it needs some breaking in time?

Also, Printer will warn you that the cartridge are empty and must be replaced, even though there is a good amount of ink left. Enough for 30-50 more normal prints I would say. You can trick the printer into using it again just by removing the cartridge and reinserting them.

Looks like the printer is set to a certain amount of prints for each cartridge and just tells you to replace a cartridge after a certain amount of prints. It doesn't actually know when the cartridges are empty. There is a small window on the cartridges to let you see how much ink is left.

UPDATE 7/27/10
After updating the firmware from the Brothers site, you can now continue to print in (black only) if a color cartridge is empty. Before the update, if any of the color cartridges were empty, the printer would demand that you replace the color cartridge and would not allow you to print at all. Not even in black.

Fairly large in size, solidly built, and well designed printer. The set-up with a CD was a breeze and the written instructions were easy to follow. The four "starter" ink cartridges were no problem to install and the paper loading and discharge system is neat and efficient. An enclosed manual explains most details well. The buttons are not bad to figure out, although the LCD window providing instructions is too small and has NO backlighting -- you are better off going up by one model for much larger and better display.

The quality of the bw text is fine, and the bw and color photos look good. For me, a very desirable feature is that it is a QUIET printer, without all the clang-bang of every other inkjet printer I have listened to at Office Depot. I do not need FAX, but the scanner and photo capture devices work well and the speed is fast enough. Use a good quality USB cable to avoid any hassle.

Hey, brother, for about $100 or less, the avergae home-office user could hardly go wrong buying this printer. I recommend it.

I purchased this unit when it was on sale for $39, and I would not recommend it even at that price. The all-plastic construction is flimsy and I'm constantly afraid I'll break off a critical piece in the paper tray or elsewhere. The paper jams ALL. THE. TIME. Once it goes into sleep mode, it will not wake up for an incoming fax. I usually end up having to turn it all the way off and on again to get the fax function to work again, while fielding numerous calls from contractors who can't send me a fax. When sending a fax, I often can not get it to grab the sheets to send. It also doesn't properly print many of the fonts I use regularly - they all end up looking like a slight variation of Times Roman. The USB port is oh-so-conveniently located in the middle of the inside of the machine, under the scanner glass. No, I'm not kidding. After plugging it in, you're required to snake the cable through a series of tabs for it to come out the back of the machine. Not only does this eat up almost a foot of your cable, I ended up breaking off one of the flimsy tabs in the process. That was at 10 minutes out of the box, so I knew I was in for a bumpy ride. It is absolutely the worst machine I have ever had to rely on and it will be replaced. Problem is, I don't know what to do with this piece of junk - my conscience won't even allow me to GIVE it away.

A nice product. Amazing that I can purchase this for < $60!
Great quality too. Just looking at it....felling it.... and watching it work, I am a - maze - ed!!!

It copies, scans, prints, and..... faxes? Hey I haven't faxed anything in about 5 years. Nowadays I scan and email, so for me, this option is not needed.

Anyway, it does a nice job for your day to day black and white printing. It is quick and it is quiet.

If you are looking for PHOTO QUALITY, then this is not for you. I did not try this on photo paper, but I just see that the colors are not vibrant as on my screen even whey I print on good paper......

When you purchase a printer, you have to think about the ongoing ink cost! I bought some off branded ink at the time of the purchase, but have not used them yet. Cost was about $25 for the set of 4. OEM will cost more.

I definitely like the idea that you only fill up the color that runs out! The OEM cartridges are opaque, so you cannot see how much is left in the cartridge. Some of the replacements out there are transparent, which I feel is the way to go.

And, convenient! The ink tanks are in the front right side of the printer! No opening up the top and struggling...... it's an easy 'pop in" cartridge!

Overall, it is a good printer. If you need to print color from time to time, but do not need the photo quality, this is a great choice.

Bought this printer and a few months later the color cartridges ran out. I had only printed a few color pages. The printer won't work, won't print black and white if any color cartridge is out. Called to complain and was told that every time the printer cleans itself, it takes out ink from every cartridge. Furthermore, the printer uses color ink to print black and white. I was told to avoid losing color ink by printing grayscale. For several months I went through the hassle of specifying grayscale on every printing. During that time, I only printed one color page. Next thing I knew, the color cartridges were out again. This printer guzzles color ink whether you print color or not. We're getting another printer and using this one only for scanning.

The skinny on this printer: If you need a good printer/fax/scanner buy this printer. If you expect to print photos and higher in color jobs, don't waste your money.

BUY IF: You are in need of an inexpensive multi-function this is definitely the choice. The built in fax works great once configured and making copies with the on board functions is a snap. Scanner is good quality that provides a lot of flexibility. The color prints from this machine are about as good as you can expect from a <$70 printer, which in my personal opinion is sub standard for my needs. If you are only worried about black and white and business use, pick this printer up today!

DON BUY: If you're a designer or photographer (or color print enthusiast) that requires test prints and draft work do not waste the money. I picked up this printer when I was in a pinch and it got by, but the color clarity/saturation is very poor. Photo prints were very unsaturated as well. I highly recommend a printer designed for these needs, such as the Epson photo series in comparison to this item.

I bought this printer to replace a Brother MFC-210 that I used for general printing. The 210 was a workhorse. We used it for 5 years until finally quit feeding paper. The 210 used LC41 cartridges that were translucent and easy to refill, significantly lowering the cost of printing. I didn't research the MFC-290, thinking it was just an upgrade of my 210. I was wrong. On the pro-side, the MFC-290 printer and software are easy to install and I haven't had any problems with incompatibility. The print quality is good for a low end printer. The copy function is slow, but it does have a 25 page document feeder that is a nice feature. On the con-side, the fax function on ours does not work well. We have trouble both sending and receiving faxes. My major complaint is that this printer is an ink hog. The cartridges hold less than 10 ml of ink (I opened one and measured) and the printer stops working when there is 1 to 2 ml of ink remaining in the cartridge. When one a color cartridge is empty, you cannot continue black printing. In addition, it uses ink when it runs routine cleaning cycles after standing. Now that I've gone back and compared the retail cartridge costs this printer has one of the highest per page cost. I have switched to off-brand cartridges, but you should note that use of these voids your warranty.

Bottom line up front: Don't waste your money on this!

I have owned this printer for about 6 months, and have noticed declining print quality after the first month of ownership. Despite numerous cleanings, the machine has since practically stopped printing anything black. Frustrated with the online troubleshooting steps and endless cleaning cycles and new test prints (resulting in needing to buy new ink cartridges!) all of which showed no improvement I called the Brother help desk, which lead me through a couple new maintenance steps which after a total of ten new cleaning cycles and test prints have resulted in no help. Their process to have the machine replaced with a refurbished model seem designed to only cause you to give up and purchase a new machine. Oh and by the way, the new ink cartridges which are three days old and have only gone through cleaning cyles and test prints are now nearly empty!!

I will continue to attempt to have this replaced by the manufacturer, but think I will have better results with using Visa's consumer protection... After the run around by Brother, I felt obligated to share this in the hopes that no one else falls into the trap of buying this. Your money is better spent on the brands that are known for making high quality printers.

I bought this all-in-one system on sale for $50 and it is working really well since then. The starter ink cartridge has lasted more than 50 pages and I am still waiting for it to finish up. This is great for regular document printing. scanning and faxing. I wouldn't expect a machine with this price to produce life-like photos in the first place but it does a decent job.

Pros:
1. Great quality & value for money invested
2. Long lasting ink cartridge and multiple cartridges for diff colors.
3. CHEAP INK !! $7 "compatible" black ink cartridge produces 450 pages.
4. Easy to use scanning, copying, faxing with good document feeder for scanning a bunch of sheets at the same time.
5. Large capacity document tray.

Cons:
1. If not used for a week, the printer takes 3-4 minutes to clean the cartriges before printing starts.

I was very pleased buying this printer as I have used many different types of printers but always came back to the Brother product. I read tons of reviews on this site(and others)before purchasing it. I had to go to Print Country to get a driver for the printer, but that wasn't real difficult. It purred for me from April of this year to August. Then the yellow ink would not work. I went on a how-to-fix site(because sending the printer in for a fix usually would cost more than the price of a new printer) and found many complaints of these printers not printing out Black ink after a while and others having problems with the Yellow ink not working.
That is when I realized I made a mistake buying this printer. Cleaning the printhead sounded like a good idea but what a nightmare trying to get to it.
I decided it was cheaper to throw away. I use a printer daily for printing
(documents not photos)and now I am searching for another economic inkjet printer
to buy.
Although this printer was not high-priced-I have proven to myself after spending $400.00 and up on Canon, Kodak, Brother, Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark printers for our business-the only difference is-spending more money makes them last a little longer. They all break down eventually.