Brother MFC-490CW

Brother MFC-490CW

Jayesh Limaye, Feb 17, 2010 1256 hrs IST

This WiFi enabled photo MFD is suitable for home as well as for office

Good print quality in normal mode, fast print speeds in fast mode, decent scanner, wide color swivel LCD, Wi-Fi and Ethernet, decent looks, good bundled software

Skewed text prints in the fast mode, reddish hue in photo prints, no FAX, no Wi-Fi on/off button/indicator, a bit expensive

Expert Rating :

Expert Review

We often review MFDs for home users keeping price constraints in mind, but some MFDs though a bit expensive may be a good option for home as a lifestyle product. The Brother MFC-490CW is one such MFD with functions of print, copy and scan. This one looks real snazzy with a host of memory card readers and PictBridge, and is also capable of photo printing. You can easily print border-less images and photos with as little as 1.5 picolitre droplets at a high resolution of 6000 x 1200 dpi.

A widescreen 3.3-inch color LCD facilitates viewing, editing and enhancing of images from media cards, PictBridge camera or a USB flash drive before printing. In addition to the above, it offers scanning to e-mail, media cards, OCR and more, in JPEG, TIFF and PDF format. To top it all, this MFD is network capable; not just Ethernet, but Wi-Fi too! With an increasing number of offices and even homes having Wi-Fi devices and networks, this feature makes the MFD even more appealing to this segment.

Bundle

Brother MFC-490CW
4 cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)
4" x 6" photo paper pack
Power cables with plug socket adapter
USB data cable
Software and driver CD
User manual
Quick setup guide

Brother provides a complete bundle and there is no room left for complaining. The power cable has flat pin plug, but they have provided an adapter to let it be plugged into any socket. To emphasize the fact that this is a photo-printing MFD. They have also provided a pack of 4" x 6" photo paper for you to get started with printing photographs.

Four individual cartridges are provided with this MFD to save on cost as you need to only replace that cartridge which is empty as against a whole tricolor cartridge even when it may have inks of other colors left inside. The cartridges are based on the Inobella inks, which are touted to produce long lasting prints with richer colors.