Brother MFC-9440CN Toner Review

Although it may well not always be the initial name people think of for the purpose of printing, Brother has constructed a solid specialized niche in the small business place. Their most recent colour laser multifunction printer (MFP) printer is the Brother MFC-9440CN.

Network-ready utilizing both USB and also LAN interfaces, the Brother MFC-9440CN combines a fax, copier and also scanner along with a colour laser printer in a single unit weighing-in at a significant 33kg and additionally measuring 43x49x48mm. So, it isn't among the largest MFPs available on the market, however it will occupy some room.

The MFC-9440CN's panel features 16 fax number presets, as well as controls with regard to copy, fax and print capabilities. A dialling keypad happens to be incorporated, and another element we definitely enjoyed were the two start buttons regarding the copier, one in order to copy in black and white, the other one in colour. This is a useful attribute regarding businesses seeking to control their colour printing expenses. One down side is the dialog display on the panel, which is two lines and text only. This hampers a few of the MFC-9440CN's walk-up features.

Brother has selected to use single-pass laser technology. This leads to faster printing as compared to standard laser technologies; with Brother claiming the MFC-9440CN can achieve rates as high as 22 pages per minute (ppm) in non colored documents and also 17ppm in colour. This also means four separate Brother MFC9440CN toner cartridges, one each intended for black, magenta, cyan as well as yellow. Replacement cartridges for the MFC-9440CN are easy to fit and exchange. High-yield cartridges can also be found at a higher price, and an ecology function within the printer menu permits additional toner conservation.

We thought the MFC-9440CN's 300-page capacity of the print tray to be to the small side, and with regard to the usual small to medium business customer purchasing the extra lower tray could be worth looking at.

Regarding the printing aspect we were really impressed with the high quality as well as speed of the MFC-9440CN's output in both non colored documents, as well as colour. There are a variety of distinct quality configurations to pick from, and both text and also photographs printed magnificently.

For the scanning side the MFC-9440CN provides two choices: from the machine alone or from the desktop. We performed the greater part of scanning from the pc while using the included scanning software. While user friendly, we found the scanning engine fairly lacking in features. You can also scan from the MFC-9440CN, however this merely takes a scan of the complete scanner bed and then transmits it to a file on your computer, leaving behind certain editing to be done.

Image quality of scanned photos was excellent. However, we found the final results of the MFC-9440CN's optical character recognition (OCR) engine to be disapointing. It identified all the characters, but they were pretty jumbled. Copying speed is a little slower when compared with a dedicated copier, yet very well inside of the range for an MFP. Quality once again was outstanding.

The front of the MFC-9440CN contains a USB port to plug-in a memory stick or even a digital camera, permitting the printing of photos from the memory card. This is an excellent feature, yet the lack of an LCD display hurts, since you must know the actual file name to print it. To get around this, a contact sheet can certainly be printed with file names as well as image thumbnails. A USB port additionally supports the direct printing of PDF files.

At this price point we really feel an LCD interface ought to have been added. Nevertheless, the Brother MFC-9440CN is a robust and durable appliance which provides high quality output at good speeds.


Brother MFC9440CN toner cartridges can be found here.