Charlotte on Amazon 7 years ago
05/16/2016, 11:00 AM
Very Impressive Home-Office Printer
I received this printer a few weeks ago to complement a smaller color Canon printer. My goal was to have a printer for my home office with higher printing speeds, faster/easier scanning capabilities, and greater paper capacities. I've put it through some testing to assess its capabilities. In general, I am extremely impressed with this printer.
Details below...
UNPACKING, SETUP, AND INSTALLATION
The printer is boxed securely, everything protected nicely for shipping. All pieces come out of the box and their protective wrappings very easily. It does take some time to remove all the tape inside the printer (which keep parts from opening during printing). I forgot a couple of pieces after I thought the printer was ready and had to open up some compartments to remove the remaining tape. But it's not difficult and you can be done with this part in less than 10 minutes.
The printer comes with a "Quick Setup Guide" sheet with a great visual/text overview of initial steps. The manual is designed and written pretty well -- always a pleasant surprise with any product!
It's very easy to get this printer set up on your wireless network (no need for cables). Simply press the "WiFi" button on the control panel, select your WiFi name, and enter the password. The touchscreen is large enough to display a fair-sized keyboard, which makes it easy to enter the information. The whole WiFi setup is done in about 1 minute. This is a model for how all printers should work!
Configuring the printer from the computer is also very fast. On my iMac, I accessed the printer from the computer's settings (wirelessly) and the system immediately ran through its configuration and was done in less than a minute.
TOUCHSCREEN CONTROLS
All printer options are easily available from the main screen, with very intuitive choices. I did not make any changes from the basic settings, but the way to make the changes was clear. A "home" and a "back" light allow you to quickly navigate through the available options. It's all in a clean, simple interface that allows you to access detailed configurations in a way that does not seem detailed! The software developers at Brother deserve credit for their efforts here.
PRINT SPEED AND QUALITY
Printing quality is as good as it gets. I tested this with several font sizes, typography, and line charts. It all looks great. The printing is deposited in an easy-access shelf in the front of the printer, which accommodates hundreds of sheets if necessary.
After a very brief start-up (less than 15 seconds) the printer starts working. In my tests, the speeds reported on the spec sheet (42 ppm) are accurate.
SCANNING
This printer allows color or black-and-white scanning. The number of options offered for handling scanned documents is impressive, including sending it via FTP or other share points. However, scanning from the machine itself is the one weak point for this printer. I found the controls for scanning on the printer to be more work than just scanning from the computer via the "Preview" app (Mac). Scanning photos via the PC/Mac is super fast -- done in less than 2 seconds for a photo at 300dpi.
Scanning documents with the feeder is terrific on this printer. The document feeder smoothly and reliably pulls the documents through and creates scans in seconds. I ran a test document of 10 text pages, again working from "Preview" instead of the printer itself. The printer pulled the sheets through the feeder and output the PDFs to Preview in less than 20 seconds. From there, it was simple to save the scans.
COPYING
Using this printer as a copier is terrific! Insert the document(s) in the paper feed tray, then select "Copy" from the touchscreen display. All the relevant choices for copying are presented clearly on the touchscreen (number of copies, print density, and all choices for 2-sided printing). The way Brother designed the user interface for this is a lesson for other companies! The copying speed is also great. I ran several documents through, converting 1-sided sheets into 2-sided sheets and other configurations. A 10-page document is done within 20 seconds.
ACCESS TO TRAYS
The main paper tray is very easy to access, and pulls out smoothly. Other trays, located in the back of the printer for specific uses, are also easy to access. When opening the main front paper tray, the system prompts you to ask if you wish to change the paper type. Most of the time, if you are just adding more paper, this is not necessary. However, it is nice as a reminder for those times when you do need it. You also have the option to tell it to stop asking.
TONER USAGE AND EXPENSE
I did not use this printer long enough to test the longevity of the toner. I will report back with an updated review at a later date on that.
CONCLUSION
This is my first Brother printer, but I am thoroughly impressed with all aspects of this machine. In quality, speed of printing, and in the design of the machine, Brother did a terrific job. The software behind the control panels and user interfaces for this printer are simple, clean, intuitive, and really well-designed. I strongly recommend this printer to anyone who needs a dedicated laser printer for a small office.