Although it might not always be the very first name you think of for printing, Brother has created a powerful niche market within the small business area. Their latest colour laser multifunction printer (MFP) printer is the Brother MFC-9440CN.
Network-ready having both USB and also LAN interfaces, the Brother MFC-9440CN combines a fax, copier as well as scanner with a colour laser printer as one device weighing-in at a significant 33kg not to mention measuring 43x49x48mm. So, it isn't among the largest MFPs available on the market, but it will use up some space.
The MFC-9440CN's panel offers 16 fax number presets, as well as controls for copy, fax as well as print functions. A dialling keypad happens to be included, and something element we definitely loved were the two start buttons regarding the copier, one in order to copy in black and white, and the second in colour. This can be a helpful feature regarding companies seeking to control their colour printing expenses. One problem is the dialog display screen on the panel, which is two lines and text only. This hinders some of the MFC-9440CN's walk-up functionality.
Brother has chosen to go with single-pass laser technology. This results in speedier printing than traditional laser systems; with Brother claiming the MFC-9440CN can achieve rates as high as 22 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white and 17ppm in colour. New cartridges for the MFC-9440CN are simple to put in and replace. High-yield cartridges can also be found at a higher price, and an ecology setting within the printer menu allows for further toner conservation.
We thought the MFC-9440CN's 300-page capacity of the print tray to be at the small side, and with regard to the common small to medium business customer acquiring the extra lower tray could well be worth taking into consideration.
In regards to the printing side we were really impressed with the quality and speed of the MFC-9440CN's output both in monochrome, and also colour. There are a number of diverse quality options to select from, while both text as well as pictures printed magnificently. This also means four separate Brother MF9440CN toner cartridges, one each intended for black, magenta, cyan and yellow.
For the scanning facet the MFC-9440CN provides two options: from the device on its own or from the desktop computer. We performed the greater part of scanning from the pc using the included scanning software. Whilst simple to use, we found the scanning engine fairly low in functionality. You can also scan straight from the MFC-9440CN, however this just takes a scan of the whole scanner bed and then transmits it to a file on your computer, leaving behind certain editing to be completed.
Image quality of scanned photos was superb. Nevertheless, we found end results of the MFC-9440CN's optical character recognition (OCR) engine to be disappointing. It identified all of the characters, nonetheless they were fairly muddled. Copying speed is a touch slow when compared with a dedicated copier, yet well inside the range for an MFP. Quality again was superb.
The front of the MFC-9440CN contains a USB port in order to plug-in a memory stick or even a digital camera, permitting the printing of pictures from the memory card. This is an excellent function, but again the lack of an Liquid crystal display hurts, as you need to know the actual file name in order to print it. So you can get around this, a contact sheet can be printed with file names and image thumbnails. A USB port additionally supports the direct printing of PDF files.
At the selling price point we feel an Liquid crystal interface ought to have been included. However, the Brother MFC-9440CN is a robust and resilient appliance which in turn offers top quality output at great speeds. Brother toner cartridges are available here.
