Review You’re in very cramped quarters and need a machine that can print, scan, copy, fax and handle photos, but it would also be good if it had a phone and digital answering machine. Brother’s petite MFC-990CW has the spec for this, but can the metal and plastic match up?

Brother originally got into inkjet all-in-ones from the fax end rather than the printer side of its business – its printer division is nearly all lasers. This is one reason why the styling of its multifunction machines still has them looking like fax machines. The MFC-990CW is no exception and has the sloped top cover that has become something of a trademark.

Here, though there’s a very low-profile, 15-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) built into the top of the scanner lid. Unusually, paper’s loaded onto the bottom level of the feeder and feeds out to blade-style supports above, but in practice this is no more awkward than the more conventional, top-down approach.

In front of the ADF is the control panel and the big feature here is a wide touchscreen. Most of the functions, such as menu settings, and scan and copy control, use the touchscreen, though this isn't as easy a device to use as similar panels on high-end printers from some of Brother's competitors. The screen itself has a slightly soft feel and button selection isn't as positive as it should be. It's possible to touch the screen lightly and not select what’s on screen.

To the right of the touchscreen are four mode-selection buttons and to the right of those are three more to start and stop mono and colour scan and copy jobs. Going left, there's a number pad for fax dialling and controls for the built-in telephone answering device. This is similar to the digital devices you often find in DECT phones, though here you have a useful 29-minute record time.

Hanging on the end of the machine, in a built-in cradle, is just such a DECT phone, this one with a four-line by 16-character, backlit LCD display and a key layout similar to many mobiles. However, it's a lot more chunky and quite a bit more plasticky than a typical mobile - and than many other DECT phones, too. 'Serviceable' is almost a flattering description.

---

At the top of the front panel are two memory card slots which between them can take most of the current types – though Microdrive isn't mentioned – and there's also a PictBridge socket, which doubles as a walk-up USB slot for Flash drives.

Below the card slots is the paper tray arrangement, where a slightly flimsy, 100-sheet A4 paper tray has a photo tray, capable of holding up to 20 photo blanks, built into its lid. To print photos you have to pull out the paper tray, slide the photo tray forward by hand and reinsert the tray combo. Other all-in-ones at the £200 price point can do this automatically, whenever you select photo print, so it's a shame Brother hasn't managed it, too.

As well as USB and Ethernet sockets inside the machine – lift the scanner section and reeve the cables round inside – the MFC-990CW supports Wi-Fi, as you can see by the longer than normal aerial at the back of its right side. It would be neater to build the Wi-Fi aerial inside or hide it at the back.

Setup is straightforward, as the machine can be linked to a wireless network of choice from the front panel. Other software in the support bundle includes Brother’s own MFL-Pro suite, which is the same as supplied with many other of its all-in-ones.

The print mechanism is also common to many cheaper Brother models and setting it up is simply a question of flipping down a front-panel cover and sliding in four ink cartridges – it could hardly be easier.

Print speeds are fantastic. In fact, they’re such a work of fantasy you wonder if anybody can believe this machine is capable of 33ppm printing black pages and 27ppm printing colour. Even printing single lines of text in draft mode and excluding processing time, you’d be hard pressed to get there.

---

In normal printing mode, we saw a five-page text print complete in 1m 47s, a speed of 3.8ppm, though the machine took 13 seconds before starting the first page. A 20-page print, which normally gives a slightly higher print speed, returned 3.0ppm, so no advantage there. A five-page black text copy from the ADF completed in 1m 52s, and a single page colour copy took 42s.

Five copies of our black text and colour graphics page took 2m 13s, or 2.3ppm, so the machine is pretty slow here, too. These speeds are all slow in comparison to other machines in a similar price bracket. For example, the £185 Kodak ESP 9 achieved the same 2.3ppm speed for text and colour graphics, but managed 5.1ppm on our 20-page text print - over 66 per cent faster. The one place the Brother machine is quick is in printing 15 x 10cm photos, where we saw a good time of 49s from an SD card.

The quality of black text is reasonable, but not as sharp or crisp as typical Canon or HP output. Colours are bright, but large areas of colour fill look mottled, often a sign the paper is under inked and fibres are showing through. Black text registration over colour is good.

Photo images are well reproduced, with natural colours and good levels of detail. Colour copies are noticeably paler than the originals and this is mainly down to the scanner, as images scanned into a PC also have a faded look. This is reasonably common with all-in-ones, particularly those using contact image sensors, as here.

The ink cartridges are the only consumables in this machine and are available in two capacities. Brother states the ISO page yields of the high-capacity cartridges as 900 for black and 754 for colour, so at home or in a small office, they should last a fair time between changes. A new set of high-capacity cartridges will still cost you around £40, though, giving a cost per page of 2.5p for black and 5.8p for colour. These costs are reasonable, in comparison with competitor machines at this price.

Verdict

If you know what you're looking for when considering this machine and its compactness and multi-function design are paramount, you won’t be disappointed. The inclusion of a DECT phone and answering machine is handy, and the touchscreen is worthwhile. In comparison with mainstream all-in-ones, though, it's performance is far from outstanding. ®

More Printer Reviews...

(http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/09/review_inkjet_printer_brother_mfc_5890cn/) Brother MFC-5890CN

(http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/16/review_printer_multifunction_epson_stylus_photo_/) Epson Stylus Photo PX800FW

(http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/01/07/review_colour_laser_printer_lexmark_c543dn/) Lexmark C543DN

(http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/03/review_colour_laser_printer_kyoceramita_fs_c5200dn/) Kyocera Mita FS-C5200DN