Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)If had to describe this multifunction device in one word it would be "incredible". Since this is a fairly complicated device I will not be able to cover all uses of it but hope to give people some useful information regarding it. This is somewhat brief review on usage since I just received it but want to inform people of my initial impression.
Background:
This MFC device is going to be used by Mac OS X systems that are connected to the local network via ethernet and Wi-Fi. The MFC is connected to this network via Wi-Fi through an Apple Airport Express Base Station. I am hoping to replace both a Canon CanoScan 8600F scanner and Canon Pixma Inkjet printer.
Size, Weight, & Packaging:
The box it comes in is fairly large and heavy. The location of the "handles" built into the box is designed for two people to pick it up and I would highly suggest having two people carry it. I managed to carry into the house myself but it was extremely awkward and difficult to do. Opening the box the printer is fairly well protected with formed styrofoam pieces. The weight of the machine by itself is almost 60 lbs. You will need fairly large areas to place this device. The actual desk space it takes up is 16"W x 19"D. The manual however recommends an additional 4 inches of air space on the left and right side and approximately 10" at the back. The height of this device with the scanner lid fully open is 36". I currently only have 26" of clearance so the lid does not open all the way. Once you get the device out of the box you now you get to spend the next 10-15 min removing all the packing tape and material! There is at least 20 pieces of blue plastic tape and plastic orange pieces protecting the device during shipment that must be removed before turning on the device.
Drivers:
For Mac OS X the drivers are installed automatically as soon as you "add" the printer from any Print dialog. The operating system will download the drivers over the internet and also be kept up-to-date via the normal built-in Mac OS X software update mechanism. I assume drivers are on the included DVD as well in case you don't have internet access.
Initial Setup:
I wanted to setup this device on a Wi-Fi network. It also supports USB and ethernet connections. One word of WARNING, the Wi-Fi on this printer only supports 802.11b/g. This means if you have your wireless access point set to only support 802.11n like I did you will never be able to get this device to access the Wi-Fi network. I had to switch my Airport Base Station back to supporting 802.11 b/g as opposed to just 802.11n. This results in a slower connection for all wireless devices since the base station switches to using the slowest wi-fi connection type that any of its clients are using. This would not be an issue for "dual-band" wireless access points such as the dual-band Airport Extreme base station.
The easiest way to connect the MFC-9560CDW to your wireless network is with the "automatic wireless mode". If your wireless access point supports this you simply tell the MFC to use this mode and it will automatically get the information it needs to connect to your wireless connection including password. To do this with an Apple Airport device you need to use the Airport Utility program and select Manual Setup from the Base Station menu. Once you select that you can then choose "Add Wireless Clients..." from the Base Station menu. This will then allow you to use the "automatic wireless mode" or AOSS that the MFC-9650CDW supports.
Printing:
Color photos printed from the MFC-9560CDW appear to me to rival that printed from the Canon iP4500 and is an order of magnitude faster.
Faxing:
I have not attempted to use this yet.
Copying:
Copying works as expected. I've copied book pages without needing any interaction with a computer. Simply place the facing book page on the scanner/copying glass and press the Copy button. You have options on the LCD to adjust size, contrast, etc. The lid is hinged such that a 2" book had no problem copying while still keeping the scanner lid flat. It should easily take thicker books but haven't checked how thick it can handle while still keeping the lid flat.
Scanning:
Scanning is supported wirelessly from Mac OS X using the ImageCapture application that comes with Mac OS X. Basic differences between the Canoscan I currently use is: the MFC-9560CDW can not scan legal size documents (the MFC-9970CDW can) and the CanoScan comes with plastic devices allowing you to easily scan photo negatives. I have used the scanning feature now a number of times and being able to scan wirelessly is quite remarkable. In ImageCapture the Brother MFC instantly shows up as a Shared device even when it is "asleep" (uses 9 watts when sleeping). Scanning at 100 dpi for black and white text documents is fast and produces small file sizes. A full page scan at 1200 dpi will take considerably longer then the 100 dpi scan and produce a file a couple hundred megabytes in size. I scanned a color magazine's front cover and you can easily pick out the individual ink drops of the magazine cover when zooming in on the scanned image.
Documentation:
The documentation was fairly thorough and had separate instructions for use in Mac OS X and Windows where needed. One thing I did not care for with the instructions is that you may need to reference multiple separate documents to find the information you are looking for. There was a Quick Setup Guide, Basic User's Guide, a PDF file of a Network Users Guide, and others. If everything goes well you should only need to refer to the Quick Setup Guide and later the Basic User's Guide.
Compared to the MFC-9970CDW:
You should compare this model to the MFC-9970CDW at Brother's website to fully see the differences but the main ones are: MFC-9970CDW supports legal size document scanning, has color touch screen, higher monthly duty cycle, 50 page automatic document feeder as opposed to 35, slightly faster printing and copying. Had I realized all the differences listed above before ordering this (especially the legal size scanning) I would have purchased the MFC-9970CDW instead.
What's in the Box:
Besides couple manuals, warranty, CD with more documentation, the box include a power cord and telephone cable for the fax. There is no USB cable or ethernet cable if you are going to use that instead of the wireless to connect the device. The toner cartridges are pre-installed in the machine.
Toner cartridges:
The toner cartridges included are not starter ones but they also aren't the "high yield" versions either. The black is rated at 2500 pages, and the 3 color ones rated at 1500 pages each. For replacement cartridges you can purchase high yield black rated at 5000 pages, and the color ones at 4000 pages.
Power usage:
On a "cold" startup it (power switch was off) fluctuates from less then 20 watts to 970 watts for around 30 seconds. After that with LCD lit and waiting to instantly perform any function it stays at a steady 11 watts. I have it set to go into sleep mode after 2 minutes of inactivity (time until sleep is user configurable). When it goes to "sleep" is uses a steady 9 watts. There is also a Deep Sleep mode. It will not go into deep sleep mode however if you have the wireless network activated on the device. The manual mentioned this only happens for the MFC-9560CDW only but it isn't clear from the manual if that means the MFC-9970CDW goes to deep sleep even with a wireless network activated or what.Update 01/31/11: Added What's in box, toner cartridges, more copying info, driver info.
Update 02/20/11: Added power usage and more scanning info
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