Customer Reviews

Brother MFC-8890DW High-Performance All-in-One Laser Printer

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This is the newer version of the MFC-8860 from Brother, and is a step up from the MFC-8480 as the 8890 provides full duplexing on scanning, copying, and faxing. The MFC-8480 only provides duplex on printing.

I have Macs--several of them--so I've been looking around for a while for a multi-function laser machine I could use for printing, scanning, copying, and the occasional fax. I'm thoroughly impressed with this machine so far, and following the install from CD, everything just plain worked. The printer driver was installed, it included a fax option right in the driver itself (on one of the print option tabs), and so was the TWAIN driver for scanning, and so was their ControlCenter software, which provides access to all the settings for the printer, documentation, and a bunch of customizable presets for the different functions of the printer (most useful for scanning different kinds of documents to different apps on the Mac, including an OCR capability).

The duplex is great--the auto-document feeder reads both sides of documents for copying, scanning, and even faxing. Most less expensive models (like the 8480 and a Canon MF4370 I recently tested) will only duplex on printing, but the 8890 will both read and produce 2-sided docs for any function.

Network capabilities for Macs is also top-notch, with both wired and wireless network capabilities, you can use every function of the machine over the network, with seemingly quick transfer rates, even high-res color scanning. By the way, my previous favorite printer vendor, Canon, does not support network scanning to Macs on ANY of their multi-function printers, but this is not apparent until you buy one and try to do it--their support has since told me this is true. I think the only thing the Brother 8890 doesn't do via network to a Mac is faxing--it supports some kind of Windows fax server that Apple has no equivalent of. But since you can simply scan a document and have it sent to your Mac over the network instead, I hardly care.

So, if you want a fully network-capable machine that works with Macs, this is your machine. The 8480 is a bit less expensive, but does not fully support duplexing, for those with simpler office needs.

I bought this when I opened my own law practice. I have a small real estate law practice, but I do go through a lot of printing and copying, and this machine has been reliable. I use it with my laptop and wifi. I bought the extra tray for legal size paper, which was pretty easy to install (although you have to lift up the whole printer and set it down just right on top of the 2nd tray, kind of a delicate and tricky operation) and it reliably chooses the right size paper automatically.

The good: it has been reliable. I've had no major jams or breakdowns in a year and a half of use. I can print 100 pages or more at a time, several times a month. It is my only printer/copier/fax/scanner, and when I've got clients waiting on me to print/copy things, it is good to know I can rely on it.

The mediocre: maybe this is just how my IT guy set it up, but it's not great for scanning. It scans each page as a separate image doc, so I really can't use it for scanning docs more than a few pages. Some people also can't open the image attachment. I also can't get it to scan legal size, so I have to copy and reduce to letter size before scanning. Maybe it scans legal just fine and I haven't fully read the instructions, but at least scanning legal size is not "user friendly", because I haven't been able to do it yet. I stress again though that it's possible this is a problem with my setup or just "user error."

The bad: It will not duplex copy on legal size. What the heck? If I have front and back on legal size, I have to run the front, flip the whole doc over and run the back, and then sort through and put the copy pages together. Also, I really have to "babysit" the machine when printing or copying a large volume. In both the originals receiving tray on top, and the copy receiving tray underneath, even when you flip out the extra "tongues", which are meant to keep papers in place, it still sometimes begins to push documents out onto the floor. Even worse, I have had copies get pushed out onto the bypass tray and actually get sucked back into the bypass intake, causing it to print on top of the copy and then jam. Not cool. I've come in to work one morning after someone sent me a large fax, and found various pages of the fax scattered all over the floor.

Needless to say this is all a big pain. For large volume printing and copying, you have to keep watch over it, and when it starts to push pages out, you kind of have to shove them back in so they don't get out of order, fall onto the floor, or get sucked into the bypass tray.

However, I've worked in other firms with the really fancy, high volume printers, and they have plenty of their own issues with jamming, etc. Quite the contrary, with this machine repair and toner replacement have been very easy. I've had virtually no "mysterious" jamming or repair issues like the big expensive machines have all the time. when there is a jam or toner needs replacing, the machine is pretty simple, so unjamming and toner replacement have been very easy.

So, bottom line, for the price I would recommend this printer. It's reliable and a good value.

I would also definitely recommend the high volume toner. I've been getting it on amazon, which is a lot cheaper than buying it in the office supply stores.

This is my 3rd or 4th All-in-One from Brother. I've always had good luck with the brand and so far this one is no different. Worked great out of the box, although setting up the wireless LAN wasn't exactly simple. But even I, a non-techy, got it to work after an hour or so of tinkering. Plus I got the incoming FAX setup to work well with my 2-line remote-handset phone with built-in answering machine (always a nail-biter).
Regarding the envelope wrinkling problem, just follow the instructions of another reviewer that posted here (thank you!); open the back door, and push down on the two levers marked with the envelope symbol. I now run my machine with those levers down 100% of the time with no issues whatsoever. Prints well on plain paper, labels and envelopes. The scanner works well for business documents and the duplexing option is really very cool. I don't use the Fax very much, but incoming faxes are working just fine.

I was shopping around for all-in-one printer, to replace an old HP DeskJet 6127 Color Printer inkjet printer and an even older HP LaserJet 6p. I wanted an all-in-one with fax, print, copy, scan and built-in duplex with networking support for scan to PC and fax from PC. For some reason, the HP inkjet AIO printers do not support faxing from the PC (their laser printers do, but not the inkjet printers). They also are pretty horribly reviewed. So, even though I generally love HP printers, they were ruled out.

After a lot of research, I selected the Epson Artisan 810 All-In-One Printer. Set it up, connected it, and started doing some test prints. The quality was pretty awful compared to my ancient HP Deskjet, using the same paper. We decided to send it back, because we just couldn't put up with that bad text and dim image quality.

After some more thinking, I decided to keep the old inkjet for my color printing needs, and get a black & white laser multifunction printer. The Brother MFC-8890DW fit the bill, at a not unreasonable price. I was able to read all of the manuals at the Brother website and be certain that it could do everything I wanted. We especially liked the ability to copy, scan and fax from double-sided originals via the automatic document feeder - a lot of duplex devices only support duplex for output, not input. Additionally, the ability to work with legal-sized media was a bonus, as I'm going to law school next fall.

When the device arrive, I noticed a very nice, thoughtful thing Brother had done. When you open the boxes of most components, there are little diagrams telling you how to unpack the device. Brother, on the other hand, included instructions on how to re-pack the device. Since we tend to keep packing materials and reuse them when we move, this was a very nice touch.

The setup instructions were very clear, with step-by-step instructions for USB, parallel, wired and wireless networking setup split out, as well as Windows and MacOS software installations split out. There are also detailed instructions on setting up your fax line, depending on what other devices you have on that phone line and other things like distinctive-ring. Setting up the device was absolutely trivial - everything worked exactly as shown in the manual. The most complicated part of the setup was keying in my WPA-PSK code, which uses a mix of upper- and lower-case letters and symbols. Input is via a form of multi-tap input, which is probably trivial for texting young folk, but I prefer alphanumeric keypads. But it worked right the first time.

Software installation on Windows XP SP3 was also straightforward. The CD that comes with the device has support up to Vista, but there are Windows 7 drivers and a complete software package on the Brother website. The Brother Status Monitor application started up and asked if I wanted to monitor for firmware updates, which I did. It immediately found an update and took me to the Brother support site to download it. Installing the update went completely smoothly. The device beeps a lot while the update is in progress, but that's the only annoyance.

Another nice thing Brother does is to support testing your fax configuration by faxing back your registration form. After you fax it to them, you will receive a fax confirmation back from them. No need to go bother a friend to test your fax. Nice touch.

The printer is blazingly fast, even with duplex printing. The quality is quite good, but not the very best I've ever seen. There's a HQ 1200dpi mode available, which shows marked improvement on printed images. I've use dedicated HP laser printers for the last couple of decades, and they have better print quality. But the Brother's output is excellent.

Every feature I've tested works perfectly - print, copy, fax, scan, fax from PC, scan to PC, etc. We're using this at home, but it has a lot of features that are useful for a small office, including various network, security and remote management features.

This is an all-around excellent device, an absolute bargain. I give it my unqualified recommendation.

I have been using this multi-function printer for about a week and am thoroughly impressed. As previous reviewers have noted, this is a great choice for a Mac environment. I was able to easily set up the wireless function for the computers in our small office and it is very convenient as we have one main iMac and several Macbook users as well. It worked fine with both our older and new computers.

The printer has all the features I could want. We are considering using it for a lot of scanning and I love that it can scan things that are double sided. My test scans were of good quality and worked fine in the ADF. Print quality has been very good--so good in fact that I will likely now do many of our simple b/w brochures in house (they looked better on the Brother than what I get back from the our local copy shop).

The other thing I love is how much more streamlined the machine is than our previous multi-function (Canon). The footprint is fairly small and the sides are streamlined so that I can fit other office equipment right next to it. Almost all the functions go through the front or the top, so it doesn't take up much space on the sides.

I did have trouble with crumpled envelopes but I just tested out the trick mentioned in a previous review and that took care of it! So my only small complaint is that I didn't find that info anywhere obvious in the manual.

I've been using Brother printers for over 5 years, and like their reliability and ease of use. My new MFC-8890DW is no exception. It's a feature-laden printer that's faster and quieter than the one it replaced. I especially appreciate the full-duplex printing.

I give it one demerit, which probably doesn't deserve the subtraction of a full star. After following the documented instructions, I couldn't get wireless printing to work when the printer was in sleep (power save) mode. The included printer monitoring utility showed the printer as "offline", and sending a print job while the printer was in this state resulted in nothing but queued documents.

After a web search, I found a FAQ / troubleshooting article about print problems with Windows Vista (I'm using XP), buried on Brother's Canadian site [...]. It provides instructions on how to configure the print driver to use Raw protocol.

Why that works, I have no idea, but I can now print reliably whether the printer is online or offline.

This is a great machine, and I recommend it, despite this setup problem.

I had an HP LaserJet 3030 all-in-one laser printer for five years. HP discontinued the scanner driver for the Macintosh Snow Leopard operating system so I decided to not buy another HP. I read Consumer Reports and they recommended the Brother MFC-7840W. Then I saw that Brother's top-of-the-line MFC-8890DW only costs a little more. The toner cartridge is bigger and it prints on both sides of the paper so you save money on supplies. It's easy to set up on a wi-fi network, enabling every computer in my office to print without cables. Scanned documents look identical to the originals, with fine detail.

We have one problem a couple times. If your printer controller says "Looking for printer..." forever, here's what to do.

First, cycle power on the printer. Then use the menu to check if it's connected to your network. I use the wi-fi feature so I press Menu, 7. Network, 2. WLAN, 5. WLAN Status, and then 1. Status and 2. Strength. These should say Active and Strong signal.

Then delete and re-install the printer driver. On a Macintosh, open System Preferences > Print & Fax. Find "Brother MFC-8890DW" in the list of printers. Using the + and - at the bottom right corner of the printer list, delete the Brother driver. Now click the + and you should see Brother MFC-8890DW in the list of connected printers. Click and add.

Your printer should now work.

I'm giving the printer 4 stars only because these instructions should have been in the manual.

Let me start by saying this is a nice printer. Once you get it set up, it does pretty much everything you need it to do and does it well. Scanning, printing, copying, fax ... really nice. Setting it up can be a little tricky; you should know something about printers and wireless to make your life a bit easier. After that, no problem...for standard printing.

But then we come to printing envelopes. If you do a LOT of envelope printing, you won't like this printer. If you don't, you'll probably love it.

Issues:

1. You have to use the MP (multi-purpose ... read "manual feed") tray to feed envelopes. This also requires that you open the back door of the printer.

2. You can't stack more than 3 (that's right ... three). And you have to remove them from the back tray one at a time as they are printed.

3. It can be very frustrating to get the setting right to get it to print envelopes at all. Some symptoms of this are:
a. It will refuse to print unless you close the rear door, which you can't do when using the MP for envelopes. Not cool.
b. It will complain about a paper size mismatch for the duplexer, even though you very clearly specified no duplexing when you sent the printout.

4. Unless you know about the secret levers (keep reading!) it will crease them severely.

Solutions (which it took me over 2 hours to figure out...you're welcome):

1. Be sure DUPLEX is set OFF on the main printer configuration menu. You can still print duplex on paper, it just won't be the printer default. This isn't usually a problem. You can generally set duplex as a default somewhere in your printer software if you want to, so you won't notice. Or you can select it in your software on an as-needed basis, which will also work fine. But if you don't set DUPLEX OFF on the printer configuration menu, it will throw a fit about the duplexer and demand you close the rear door whenever you try to print envelopes.

2. Inside the BACK door, toward the bottom, there are two small blue levers, one on each side. Push them both down to the Envelope setting. This prevents creasing, although they will still be slightly curled until they rest for a minute. You don't need to do this for any other kind of paper (including thick paper), just envelopes. I've heard you can just leave them down ... I plan to try that.

3. Unless you are printing Commercial-10 size envelopes, you should probably do a (usually one time) Custom paper size setup in your software. There are other selections, but rumor has it that setting up a custom size is the better way to go for sizes other than Com-10.

4. On the printer's Paper menu, set the paper size for the MP tray to ANY. Paper type can be left as Plain.

There you go ... Envelopes 101. Enjoy.

I bought this printer primarily for printing and scanning so that I can work from home (I was very pleased that I had no troubles printing from my work laptop through VPN, and from my home desktop at the same time - very seamless). Before now I've used an Epson photo/inkjet at home that works ok for color/photo prints, but is completely impractical for business needs.

I just unpacked and installed the printer last night, and have not set up or used the fax function, or the copy function, but I am very pleased with the print/scan performance. Since I'm scanning documents to Adobe format, I scan directly from Adobe Acrobat - I haven't yet used the bundled software. Scanning isn't terribly fast (compared of course to the larger networked machines I use at work) but the sheet feeder works great, and at lower resolutions suitable for documents, it actually scanned quicker than expected.

Now that the printer is installed and working, I'm very pleased with its performance - but wireless setup was not a total breeze. After removing all of the protective tape, installing the toner, and setting up date, time, etc. (the printer has a great looking, bright monochrome menu/interface screen), I dug into the quick setup guide to configure the wireless settings. After gathering the necessary wireless details from my router, the wireless setup wizard on the printer itself worked very well and had me connected relatively quickly (entering the WEP key can take a while - just like texting on a phone without a keyboard).

I would mention though that, after installing the suite of software on my PCs with the included CD-Rom and restarting both machines, I was not immediately able to print to the printer and had to restart the printer as well for it to work. Also, it appeared (can't say for sure, but it's never happened before) to cause both my PC's to reject my KVM switch until all USB devices were removed and reinserted). All of that was a bit annoying since I had brought home plenty of work to break in the printer and ending up spending well over an hour troubleshooting.

But again, now that things are set up, I'm very pleased with the printer. I was going to spend much less on a wired machine that does not duplex scan/print, but I'm so very glad I paid a bit more for this one. It's a quality product.

I have never owned a Brother printer. I do photos on Epson's and always had HP lasers and 2 4 in one Office Lasers. This may be more about how crappy my last HP was and how it never was usable with Vista though I bought it AFTER Vista came out. Then I got a contact HP support for upgrade message which was unfixable...I could have called Obama at the White House easier than HP.

Anyway, being so frustrated I went for this puppy on Amazon.

I am so, so impressed. I set up wireless printing from my laptop in no time just following the instructions and software. My Vista's are working great, seamless as are my XP's. I just need a wire to it and my hard line network and the entire place will be printing faxing and scanning.

Scanning was great though easier through Photoshop CS4 I felt. But it was going there anyway as it was an immage. A document scanned easily and went to PDF with no hitches anymore....

HP...I am done with you folks....this machine kicked yours out the door and into the recyclers....