Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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188 of 189 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good value; easy set up; quiet; great wireless integration, January 2, 2009
I was skeptical of Brother printers, but after having a miserable experience with HP trying to get a 6380 to work (two broken units delivered; two units returned; 4 hours on phone with tech support), I broadened my search and found consistently good reviews of this printer. I live in a mixed household (Windows and Mac), which also eliminated many competitors. Finding it on sale tipped the scales.
Out of the box, the printer is compact, has a low profile, and is a bit sleeker looking than the competitors. Overall workmanship is solid.
Only exception is the paper tray which feels a bit flimsy, but nothing that would deter me. There is also no easy way to feed envelopes or letterhead without pulling out the papertray -- and to run envelopes, you need to remove regular paper since the bypass tray is only for photo paper.
Fax machine is a nice feature to have and, thankfully, it does not come with a phone handset attachment which would just take up space for no reason.
Per the manual, the printer can NOT handle both wireless and wired USB/network connection at the same time. Not a problem for me at all as the unit will only be used via wireless.
It is energy star rated and defaults to putting itself to sleep after a period of non-use. Startup out of sleep is very fast when you send a wireless document. I tend to unplug my power strip when I won't be using the computer for a while and was afraid that the settings would wipe, but when I plugged it back in the printer sprang back to life with all wireless configurations intact.
Set up was pretty simple. Following the quick start instructions went fine. Found my wireless router, connected, printed test page, no problem. Installed drivers/software on Windows XP, and it looks to be a lot less heavy than HP's full software. Only wrinkle in installation is that it asked me several times to connect/verify the wireless connection (each piece of software plus the hardware basically asked me the same thing a few times... I probably didn't need to enter it so many times, but it wasn't difficult so I decided to be safe). No problems with Mac install either. Very simple.
Overall, the set up was easy and quick. Brother could learn a bit from HP in terms of integrating the documentation and the printer set up a little bit better, but that's a minor issue. It was easy and the thing worked right away.
Automatic document feeder on top of the machine is a great feature to have in a printer at this level, and it works well.
The wireless integration is well done. I was able to print wirelessly immediately, and, quite a pleasant surprise to find that the "scan" feature actually worked as advertised.
Scanning was as simple as dropping a document into the feeder, hitting scan, selecting which of my two wireless PCs I wanted to receive the doc, and then hitting start. Seamlessly scanned and dropped the PDF onto my hard drive.
Ditto for requesting an OCR of the paper document. OCR quality is pretty amazing. I haven't had experience with desktop/consumer OCR in a few years, so maybe they are all of similar quality now, but I was pleasantly surprised. No formatting came over, but I was able to take a memo sitting on my desk and scan/OCR it in a few seconds. The text dropped into a plain text file and had no errors in text recognition or punctuation.
Print speed appears to be slower than the box claims. I haven't tested it, but it feels slower than a lower quality HP deskjet it replaced. Could be a function of the wireless throughput. I'm not terribly concerned since this is for a low-volume home setup. Print quality is good, not fantastic (I will play with settings and see if I can't improve that). Photo prints onto plain paper are not as clear as HP.
I am also very happy with the low noise level. The printer is quiet (much more so than my prior HP inkjet) and it doesn't rattle and shake and rumble like my prior HP inkjet.
If you're having trouble getting the photo paper bypass to work, I had to resort to the manual. You need to physically move the bypass tray forward and lock it into place -- there is no software setting or configuration switch in the print properties. (You can select paper type and all the normal options there, but not the bypass.) Then when done, you pull the paper tray out and physically move the bypass tray back into standby position. At first I was annoyed, but given the frequency of printing via the bypass, I don't care. And I figure not having two paper paths probably means less chance of paper jams.
The model higher than this one is essentially the exact same unit but with a phone handset and a built in digital answering machine. I didn't think that was worth an extra $50, but if you need an answering machine it might be worth it to save footprint.
So far so good. I highly recommend this printer. For the price, features, ease of set up, size, and quiet, it is a very good deal.
I had tried the HP 6380 which had (to me) slightly better print quality, but lacked the automatic document feeder fax and the very well integrated wireless software. I also was unable to get multiple of them to work -- fatal errors on hardware, plus bad customer support, so I gave up and went to this unit... glad I did. I saved money and got a printer better suited for me.
I will update this review in a few weeks if I have any issues with reliability.
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79 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So far, I love it!, November 30, 2008
I've only had this for about 2 weeks but so far I love it.
I cannot say how durable or reliable it will be but here's what I can say:
1) it worked great right out of the box and was not difficult to hook up
2) it prints much faster than my Canon Pixma
3) the scanning software is easier to use than my Canon Pixma
4) it has a fax which - again - worked the first time, very easy
5) it SEEMS to use less ink than the Canon or the Epson I had before that (you do have to buy 4 ink cartridges not just one, but you can buy only the one you need, you don't have to buy all at once)
6) You can turn it off and when you call for it by clicking PRINT on a document or photo, it turns itself on - very nice! (and it comes on quickly)
This may or may not be a downside: the manual is very thick and there are lots of options. I haven't even felt like going through them all and I figure I may never do so unless I need something to work a certain way that does not, as it is, out of the box. I did have to set a few things on the menu, like turning off the ringer of the fax, but that was easy.
My ONE complaint is that the scan screen is smaller than the pixma, so if you have a document or picture larger than about 11x14 (not sure the exact size - see the specs) then it won't work for you. The Pixma had a larger screen.
All in all, if this thing gives me 2 years of good service I will be satisfied.
So far, I would give it a hearty recommendation.
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67 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome All-In-One Printer, Small Footprint!, December 3, 2008
Just bought the Brother MFC-490cw to replace my dead Lexmark X83. Simply stated, this is an awesome all-in-one printer! Setup was quick and easy. The printer found my wireless router in seconds. Loaded the proper drivers in the various laptops and BAM! we were printing without wires!
The print quality for both text and color images is very good. the 3.3" color screen is a very nice feature. Having true CMYK print cartridges (meaning 4 different cartridges) means you only have to replace the color that is empty. It also has slots for memory cards and flash drives so that you can fax/scan straight to those when you don't have a PC handy. All things considered, I couldn't be happier with this printer. At $79.99 it was a steal of a deal!! Wi-Fi printing, the only way to print!!!!
Update: We've used this printer quite a bit since we purchased it, both for my daughter's many high school homework, reports, photos, etc., and for my writing and editing work. This printer is AMAZING. It takes every wireless job with ease and speed. It prints edge to edge if needed, and it's use of the CMYK print cartridges is excellent. I really can't believe I was able to get such a great all-in-one machine for under 80 bucks!! If you haven't looked closely at this printer, you should. I've seen $200+ printers that weren't nearly this good. IT ROCKS!!!
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