Review: Brother Business Smart MFC-J4510DW printer
In a market full of cookie-cutter multifunction inkjets, the $200 Brother Business Smart MFC-J4510DW (copy/fax/scan/print) is a little special. Where most printers are oriented to feed letter-size paper length-wise, the MFC-J4510DW stores, feeds, and prints it sideways. That means the paper path is 11 inches wide instead of 8.5 inches wide, so the unit will also handle larger paper, up to 11 by 17 inches, fed one sheet at a time through the rear of the unit. It's a novel approach that also allows for a shallower-than-normal footprint.
Brother provides a 3.7-inch touchscreen to facilitate control of the MFC-J4510DW. For the most part, options are presented in intuitive locations and in logical order. The driver dialogs for the unit are nicely realized as well, and PaperPort SE is included for scanning chores. Push scanning is available, but only via USB. The MFC-4510DW may also be connected via ethernet or Wi-Fi.
The MFC-J4510DW has a good overall design. It comes with a bottom-mounted, 150-sheet paper cassette. On top, there's a foldout, 20-sheet ADF (automatic document feeder) for scanning or copying longer documents. The printer prints in duplex, but the ADF doesn't duplex; Brother provides the option to scan both sides using the letter/A4-sized flatbed and printer-based prompts, but that’s not ideal for longer documents. The unit is solidly built, carries a two-year warranty, and has a recommended page volume of 250-2000 pages (duty cycle is 13,000 pages).
The Brother MFC-J4510DW prints text and monochrome documents quickly, and photos at an adequate pace. On the PC, text pages emerged at a rapid 12.3 pages per minute (ppm), and on the Mac, 12.8 ppm. Four-inch by six-inch photos printed at about 4 ppm on plain paper using the default settings, and 2 ppm to glossy paper. A full-page photo prints in about 38 seconds. Scan speeds are excellent at about 2 ppm.
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