Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)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
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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.
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MFC-420cn Inkjet Flatbed Color Fax Printer/Copier/Scanner/PC Fax (BRTMFC420CN)
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