Brother MFC-420CN Color Inkjet Network Multifunction

Other products by Brother

Product Details

• Item Weight: 13 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 16 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002UECXE
• Item model number: MFC-420CN
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (118 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 14, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
Its sleek, low-profile–and small-footprint–design make the MFC-420CN an attractive addition to any home décor. Yet this space-saving machine offers a powerful set of high-performance features typically only found in much larger and more expensive alternatives. So don't let its surprising compactness and affordability mislead you: this is a very full-featured all-in-one that delivers performance without compromise. Practically any requirement you have–for photo-quality color output, speed, color scanning, color copying, and convenience faxing–is met by the MFC-420CN.

The MFC-420CN includes the PhotoCapture Center feature, which provides digital media slots for almost all leading digital camera media devices, and the ability to print directly from those devices with or without your computer on, or to transfer images for storage on your PC or Mac. There's no compromise on convenience features, either. The MFC-420CN offers a front-loading paper tray that holds up to 100 sheets. It also includes a convenient auto document feeder for unattended copying, faxing and scanning of up to 10 pages.

It features a 14.4K bps fax modem for sending and receiving faxes–even without a computer–using the ITU-T30e Color Fax standard. Other fax functions of this machine include 20 speed-dial locations, 200 pages of out-of-paper memory, and 70 broadcast locations (black-and-white only).

The MFC-420CN adds several key enhancements to meet your needs now, and for the future. For one, it's network ready, with built-in Ethernet connectivity. So if you have a home network now–or plan to have one soon–the MFC-420CN is ready to connect, and share its powerful features with everyone on that network, anytime you are. Simply connect it to your wired or wireless router with a standard Ethernet cable (not included).

Color inkjet printing
Print high-quality photos with resolutions up to 6,000 by 1,200 dpi on glossy paper. Print up to 20 ppm black and 15 ppm color. Even print borderless photos for all standard photo sizes. Features a cost-saving 4-cartridge system, so you only replace the color that's empty!

PhotoCapture
Print crisp images directly from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, xD-Picture card, Memory Stick and Secure Digital media cards (not included). Preview images by printing an index sheet. The PhotoCapture Center feature also works as a removable disk drive to your computer so you can easily transfer the images to and from your computer for editing and printing.

Color copying
No PC required! The versatile flatbed design makes it easy to copy a single page or pages from magazines and books when permitted. Copy in color or black-and-white. Even reduce and enlarge from 25% to 400%.

Color scanning
Enjoy scanning resolution of up to 19,200 dpi (interpolated) and up to 600 x 2,400 dpi (optical). ScanSoft PaperPort and OmniPage OCR for Windows and Presto! PageManager for Mac are included.

Color faxing
No PC required! Send and receive color and black-and-white faxes. It works with your existing telephone line and answering machine. Or, with PC faxing, you can also send a single fax or broadcast the fax to multiple locations directly from your desktop using the PC Fax software application.

Features:

• Color inkjet printing, faxing, scanning, copying and PC fax sending
• 2-line LCD display
• Up to 20 ppm black, 15 ppm color
• Photo-quality printing up to 6,000 x 1,200 dpi printing
• Copy sorting and N-in-1 copying (black-and-white only)
• No PC required for faxing, copying, and printing digital photos
• 14.4K bps fax modem
• 80-station auto dial, 130-station broadcast locations (black-and-white only)
• Fax polling (black-and-white only), remote access, fax forwarding (black-and-white only) and fax paging
• PhotoCapture Center feature supports the following digital camera media cards: CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, xD-Picture Card and Secure Digital with the ability to print images directly from the media card or transfer the images to your computer (media cards not included)
• 8 MB memory (200 pages)
• Up to 10-page automatic document feeder
• Built-in network supports multiple computers on a network for printing, scanning, PC fax send and network access to the PhotoCapture Center feature
• Network compatible with the TCP/IP protocol
• 16MB memory (up to 480 pages)
• PC fax sending and receiving

Network Features
When you connect the MFC-420CN to your home network, you can quickly and efficiently share its features with every connected Windows PC or Mac user in your household.

• Network Printing–Print from any connected computer on your network
• Network Scanning–From the MFC to any connected computer on your network
• Network PC Fax Send–From your application, through your network, and through the MFC which will dial and send that fax
• Network PhotoCapture–Upload images from your media cards (not included) to any computer on your network using FTP browser to copy, edit and print pictures

What's in the Box
Brother MFC-420CN Multifunction, ink cartridges (black, yellow, magenta, cyan), auto document feeder, 100-sheet front-loading paper tray, user guide, setup guide, power cord, CD-ROM; USB cable not included

Product Description
This product offers a unique low-profile design, without sacrificing an up to 10-page automatic document feeder. It's ideal for a space-conscious home environment. It combines a convenient front-loading paper tray and an Ethernet interface so it's network ready. The MFC420CN offers Color Ink-jet Printing (up to 20ppm Black, 15ppm Color with resolutions up to 6000 x 1200 dpi), Color Copying, Color Scanning, Color Faxing and PC Faxing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 106 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing bargain, with A+ Mac OS X support, November 29, 2004

By	R. Matsumoto "Fly guy" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Update: Now I've had the Brother for over a year and a half, and I see that others have had bad luck with theirs. I will temper my original joy with the comment that my first unit did go bad (just wouldn't print), but Brother replaced it with a new one during the warranty period. They are so inexpensive that I bought another one to see me through the two weeks of repair/replacement time. That was less than great, but now I have a backup, for still less than $300.

I've never experienced much in the way of paper jams, so I would guess that at this price point, Brother just isn't providing consistent build quality. That's too bad, because the prospect of a bad unit is a real disincentive. I'm still satisfied overall, but recognize that not everyone is having the same experience. And of course the downtime resulting in purchase of a second unit was a drag. I would consider a different printer, but Epson and HP have both been such poor experiences for me (with far inferior support), that I will still probably prioritize a new Brother model when I need to upgrade. No sign of that happening any time soon though.

August 30, 2006
---------------

Ok, I have only had this all-in-one for a little over a week. But after years of being a slave to the HP ink needle, I am so happy with it I want to dance.

I have never really seriously considered Brother in the past, and now I feel like I have been living in the wrong world. Like if someone told you "My new car does 0-60 in 5 seconds, gets 70 mpg, and cost $1500. What, you didn't know about those?"

For less than $150, I now have a very compact printer with 10baseT ethernet (goodbye nightmarishly technical HP JetDirect 300x external network box), separate ink tanks for all colors, more advanced features than my 3 year old HP that cost around $1000 with the JetDirect, sharper printing, and best of all, real, honest-to-goodness Mac OS X support. Their software and documentation shows an absolute commitment to doing Mac right. (It took a year and a half for HP to get the Mac drivers for my OfficeJet to be minimally functional, and never did manage to handle things like scanning from the unit to a computer on the network.) Brother has earned a long-term customer here, and I am telling everyone I know.

Like any AIO, the quality of printing and scanning is probably not up to what you can get in stand alone units. But for general small office/home office use, it is more than fine. If you want the highest photo quality, get a specialized photo printer with a 6-color head. But actually, the photo quality on this unit is still far better than you could get at any price only a few short years ago. It's just that we have gotten spoiled at the truly amazing quality of photo inkjets in the last couple of years.

I will probably get one of the Olympus dye-subs for photos eventually, but in the meanwhile, prints from this on photo paper are plenty good enough for posting on my refrigerator door. And the resolution and appearance of business graphics, while again possibly not up to what current stand-alones will do, are the best of any printer I have ever owned, and leagues ahead of the older HP OfficeJet I just gave away.

And the best part is, it could fall apart in 6 months, and still not cost much more to replace than I have been spending on HP ink cartridges. My OfficeJet sucked down ink like a storm drain, and the cartridges were EXPENSIVE. It became clear in short order that their business model was built around bleeding you dry on consumable costs. Those guys have quite a racket, but I'm happy to say I am out from under it.

Thanks Brother, I will sing your praises to the skies.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great little machine with a few gotchas, April 3, 2006

By	Prasad Upasani (Southern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I must say overall I am very pleased with this printer:
Pros:
- Networkable right out of the box. I connected it to my wireless router and was immediately able to print from my laptop using its wireless connection. Not just that, I can also scan to my laptop and fax from my laptop wirelessly!
- PC Fax function is excellently implemented: very user friendly
- Excellent B&W and color copy functionality using the document feeder
- Much more compact than most multi-function machines
- Uses four separate ink cartridges (3 color + Black) to reduce wastage
- Decent quality of printed photos though not really a photo-printer
- Has built-in slots for memory stick, SD, CF, etc.
- Allows easy cleaning and alignment via the menu
- Very cheap for the functionality: about a hundred bucks after rebates

Cons:
- Stops ALL functioning even if a single ink cartridge is empty. Say the Cyan cartridge is empty - not only can't you print in color, you can't print in black & white either. What's more you can't scan or fax either!! This is just bad design!
- Sometimes claims the ink cartridge is empty even when there is a little bit sloshing around at the bottom.
- Brother Tech support is TERRIBLE!!

By the way I found out details of the maintenance mode for this device after hunting around. This is quite useful, so here it is for anyone that needs it. Anyone getting errors that they can't get out of (such as shows no ink though ink is there) should try to reinitialize parameters using commands 91 or 01 of the maintenance mode.

Brother Maintenance Mode Commands:
- Quickly press Menu/Set * 2 8 6 4 to enter maintenance mode.
- Display should read maintenance.
- Press one or more of the maintenance mode commands below. After each command display should read re-init for a few moments then redisplay maintenance.
- Press 99 to exit the maintenance mode.

Maintenance mode commands:
01 Full RAM clear (see 91 below for retaining user programming)
02 scanner initialize (feed a white sheet, then a black sheet)
05 white level
09 print test
10 modify soft switches
11 print configuration list
16 panel test
19 CML test
20 signal test
21 tonal test
23 filter RX
54 scan edge
55 scanner area
66 test print memo
75 display drum life (if enabled on laser models)
76 reset drum life counter (laser models)
91 parameter initialize (user programming remains intact)
95 protection
99 Exit maintenance mode

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compact Functional All-In-One Ink-jet, October 25, 2004

By	James A. Wilson (Lancaster PA, PA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Pros: Compact size, Network interface, xD, et al printing, Large ink cartridges, fax compatable with ans machine

Cons: Slow printing, copying, typical cryptic fax tree menu

I looked carefully for this new offering of Brother because of Network connectivity and the small size. It takes half the space of my previous All-in-One Xerox Workcenter, and the fax does not scream at every caller on my line--it just waits for an incoming fax tone before responding ("manual" mode), then it comes to life--even if you pick up the receiver (upstairs), and it even ignores my answering machine. Very Slick! It connects to my computer via USB2 AND network cable, and it can allow faxes to go to the computer instead of printing. For $150, this is a bargain. So far I have no paper jams or problems. Note the limitation of 10 pages in the copy/fax paper feeder, but there is a 100 page paper tray. For home use, this answers my needs completely!

I had a little trouble registering at the site (Sunday Night)--it locked up without entering me--but I'll try later.