Brother MFC-990CW multifunction device

There was a time when a desktop multifunction printer was so big it took up most of the desk, but those days are far behind us, as proved by Brother’s latest colour inkjet all-in-one MFC-990CW.

It’s compact enough to put in a small office and you could even find space for it in a bedroom or study. Measuring 468x375x180mm (wxdxh), the MFC-990CW looks quite stylish, finished in a mix of gloss piano black, satin black and grey.

A 4.2in wide LCD touchscreen dominates the front panel of the printer with large touch-buttons that are easy to use. Some of the menu functions are spread over several screens, but this doesn’t present many problems. The rest of the buttons each side of the touchscreen are also easy to use and well labelled.

The front panel holds the print cartridge compartment, so the four cartridges are easy to reach and replace. A Flash card reader (supporting Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro, SD, SDHC and XD), a separate Compact Flash reader and a Pictbridge port are built into the front of the printer.

The MFC-990W has a print resolution of up to 6,000x1,200 dots per inch (dpi), a copier with a 1,200x1,200dpi resolution and a 1,200x2,400dpi optical (19,200dpi interpolated) scanner; it can even be used for colour faxes.

The connections include USB2, Ethernet, 802.11b/g Wifi and Bluetooth, together with a Dect handset and dock. Bluetooth allows you to send photos directly from a mobile phone to the printer.

The MFC-990CW prints around 15 pages per minute (ppm) in fast draft mode, but this drops to just over 3ppm for normal quality mono and just under 2ppm for colour. It takes around 27 seconds to copy an A4 page of text and 41 seconds for an A4 colour page. Scanning a magazine cover takes around 20 seconds at 300dpi, which is good for this type of device.