Reviewed earlier this month by PC World, the Brother
MFC-6490CW Printer
is a reasonable feature-rich 3-in-1 (print, copy, scan) printer for the
home office or small business. It is capable of printing a maximum speed
of 33 pages per minute for black and white jobs and 27 pages per minute
for color jobs. The Brother
MFC-6490CW Printer
is not an oversized machine, measuring 7.1" x 14.8" x 15.4" (H x W x D).
The PC World reviewers cite a 50-page ADF with this printer, but Brother's
corporate website only rates it at 15 pages, which would appear to be a
large discrepancy that consumers will have to reconcile on their own. It
offers users the chance to print photos sans a PC directly from your camera
via a PictBridge port, or slots for CF, MS, SD, SM, and xD cards. The MFC
-6490 can be connected to your PC or Mac via a Wi-Fi connection, Ethernet,
or USB port. It also comes with a 3.3" color LCD screen that gives the user
access to menus, previewing faxes and photos, and other assorted functions.
In terms of ink, the Brother
MFC-6490CW Printer
uses a four-cartridges system with individual Innobella
ink cartridges for black (61-B), cyan (61-C), magenta (61-M), and yellow
(61-Y). One nice token offered by Brother is shipping the printer with high
yield ink cartridges to make up for the ink the printer spews out in the
setup phase. One oddity noted by PC World is that the ink cartridges-whether
or not Brother intended-can be placed in any of the slots and the printer
will still work.
They also noted that the print speed and quality were less than the competition.
A nice additional featured advertised by Brother is the availability of
wide-format printing, though, for Brother, that means the option of printing
things out on a maximum of 8.5" x 14" paper. Users who need larger jobs
than that may wish to compare the 6490 to the HP Officejet 7000. Overall,
it is not a bad printer, if you or your business have the patience for slow
printing or you are a home user that does not require speedy printing.
is a reasonable feature-rich 3-in-1 (print, copy, scan) printer for the
home office or small business. It is capable of printing a maximum speed
of 33 pages per minute for black and white jobs and 27 pages per minute
for color jobs. The 