Product Reviews

Multifunction peripherals (MFPs) based around a colour laser printer are becoming more common. In the past year, we've reviewed new models from Epson, HP and Konica Minolta, all of which cost less than £600 including VAT. With the MFC-9420CN reviewed here, Brother is the latest manufacturer to release one.

The MFC-9420CN uses the same four-pass colour laser print engine as Brother's HL-2700CN printer. This has a maximum mono print speed of 31 pages per minute (ppm) and 8ppm in colour. The flatbed scanner has an automatic document feeder (ADF) that holds up to 35 sheets of paper for multi-page copies or faxes.

This MFP is easy to set up, but the installation program seemed a bit piecemeal. It opened and closed various installers for different applications, but it detected the MFP across our network and installed it successfully. Once turned on, the MFP's control panel beeped to warn us that we hadn't configured the fax station ID, followed by a warning that there was no plain paper. When we removed the 250-sheet paper tray to add some, it bleeped

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to tell us it was missing.

During our tests we noticed that the MFC-9420CN was printing black text with four colour passes at a slow 7.6ppm. We obtained our fast mono benchmark speed by forcing the printer into mono only, but it's frustrating that Brother's driver didn't switch modes automatically. Text was as sharp as we'd expect from a good laser, but colour prints weren't great. Grey and coloured text had comparatively rough outlines and granular dither patterns were visible in our lightest presentation slides. Photographs were also a little coarse with a light-brown colour bias.

The scanner captured colours accurately, but images weren't especially sharp. Our 150 and 300 dots per inch (dpi) scans of office documents were fine, but the scanner didn't accurately capture the smooth progression of blues in the sky of one photo. Previews and low resolution scans were fast, but scanning at 300dpi or above was not. The Brother was remarkably quick to make single and multi-page copies, taking just one minute and 39 seconds to copy 10 pages in colour. Black and white copies were dark, though, and yellow shades became a little green in colour copies.

If you print fewer than 60,000 mono or 15,000 colour pages, you'll need to replace only the toners and waste bottle, giving low costs of 0.88p per mono page and 4.45p in colour. Print between 15,000 and 60,000 pages, though, and you'll need to spend £540 to replace the photoconductor belt and fuser. This, combined with the poor colour prints, means this MFP isn't worth buying. Epson's CX11NF, opposite, has lower mono running costs and produces better scans, prints and copies.