Review: Brother MFC-440CN multi-function device

The MFC-440CN is part of Brother's new all-in-one range and includes a fax, copier, scanner and photo capture tools within a compact and stylish enclosure.

A well-designed control panel combined with a colour 2in LCD makes the individual tools a breeze to use, with the unit guiding you through configuration and quality selection via the built-in display.

Print quality is good but not perfect. For text you’ll benefit from using dedicated inkjet paper rather than standard stock, which lets characters bleed slightly over the page. Print speed here only gets near the quoted 25ppm (pages per minute) at the very lowest draft setting, expect more like 6ppm at default quality.

Printing full colour photos is easy thanks to the built-in 6x5in photo paper tray, but you’ll be waiting a while for your prints to appear. A full A4 high-resolution image at the highest quality settings took around 15 minutes. Results were clear with good colour reproduction, although slightly faded and you can see faint lines across the picture from the print head if you look up close.

The all-in-one features of the printer are a joy to use. The copier makes instant duplicates of any source (although you can’t copy heavy weight paper such as glossy photo paper) in less than 30 seconds.

The scanner takes between 10 and 45 seconds to output contents to either a file, image, OCR (optical character recognition) or email. You’ll also find a photo capture tool and card reader that, in conjunction with the LCD screen, allows you to preview images, choose which to print or run off an index page of all your snaps.

In a single PC environment the MFC-440CN will happily hook up via USB, although an Ethernet port is also available for network operation.

Overall this Brother printer outputs text and photos at a decent enough quality, but it isn’t the fastest out of the blocks. However, an excellent interface and range of features combined with a very reasonable price tag more than make up for this and the MFC-440CN is a suitable addition to any home office.

Also consider:
Lexmark X3480
A cheap inkjet printer, scanner and fax, but colour output isn't its strong point

Canon Pixma MP800R wireless MFD
A capable MFD with built-in wireless networking that's easy to set up and use

Lexmark X8350
Photo printing quality is acceptable, but there are some useful small office features

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