Brother MFC-6490CW in Printers

Printing to A3 saw no drop in quality, but you'll need a lot of patience. The Brother took over 17 minutes to churn out an A3 photograph at the highest quality. HP's Officejet K7100 is quicker. Copying the same photo montage took over 21 minutes, and scanning our test image at 1,200ppi took a lengthy 7mins 54secs.

The MFC-6409CW is relatively economical, though. Each of the four cartridges costs just under £8 and have a decent 750-page lifespan. It's an improvement over most other all-in-ones: the Lexmark X9575 and HP Photosmart C4380's cartridges, for instance, cost between £18 and £21 a time, but only last for around 500 pages. Again, however, it can't match the Pixma MP610 here.

It's clear then that the Brother MFC-6490CW is a middling performer. It excels at no particular printing, scanning or copying task, but despite that, we still think it's a pretty good buy. For, although it may not offer the very best in quality or speed, its uniquely low price, compact dimensions and long list of features more than compensate.

Author: Mike Jennings