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Brother HL-4070CDW, MFC-9440CN printer

Affordable Color Laser for the Home/Office? Oh, Brother!



A general trend with things technological is that prices and sizes drop and capabilities increase. So it is with color laser printers, which have gone from stratospheric hulks accessible only to large corporations, to much more manageable sizes and prices that nearly any home office can handle.

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A case in point is a pair of color lasers from Brother that I've been testing. Both are capable performers, albeit with different focuses, both are relatively affordable, and both do fine jobs of cranking out your dead trees, in color or monochrome. The HL-4070CDW offers just about all the features you could want from a standalone printer, and networks wirelessly thanks to its built in Wi-Fi capability. The MFC-9440CN eschews wireless capabilities, but is a multi-function device that combines printer, fax, PC fax, scanner and copier into one unit. Both printers are small compared to color lasers of old, though they're still big when compared with how inkjet printers have shrunk. The 4070CDW measures 16.5 x 18.7 x12.5 inches, so you may not want to perch it on the edge of your desk. Fortunately, because of its Wi-Fi networking capability (it also has an Ethernet port for wired network access), you could sit it pretty well anywhere you want (if you have a wireless network) as long as there's a wall socket nearby. That's excellent flexibility. I usually keep my laser printer in the basement, in what to other people would be a workshop but which to me is a network and junk room. It works fine there, and it's a short reach to the router, but I have to leave my office and walk about 50 feet to get my printouts – and if I sent the wrong document or if something went wrong with the printing I'd have to walk back up to my office, redo the print job, and go back down there again. Okay, it's probably the only exercise I get, but that's beside the point. So I set up the 4070CDW right in my office, beside one of my many shelving units. Since there's only one network cable coming into that room, and it goes to my PC, the Wi-Fi capability was perfect. I could print a job, swing around in my chair and pluck the output from the printer without even having to get up. It was like being in Sedentary Heaven. Of course, I didn't technically need to use the Wi-Fi capability to send printing signals from my office to the basement and back up to the office: I could have hooked the printer into my PC directly instead, via its high speed USB 2.0 or parallel connections. But that would have meant one more cable in what's already a rat's nest behind my desk, a long cable that, all things being equal, I'd probably trip over several times a day. So Wi-Fi turned my crank, once I had it configured. That configuration isn't onerous, but you have to punch in a bunch of alphanumeric info (network name, etc.) from a little four arrow button keypad. I can't think of a better way to do it short of adding a keyboard but, since you only need to configure the thing rarely there probably isn't much point. A USB direct interface lets you print directly from a PictBridge compatible camera, and you can print PDF or JPEG files from a USB flash memory drive. It's hardly unique, but it's handy. Consumables load from the front, the toner by swinging the whole front down and paper by loading it into a tray at the bottom or a single sheet feeder above. It's handy and simple. The 4070 will handle two sided printing (since there are two sides to every story), and its output resolution is up to 2400 x 600, which should be plenty for most tasks in this market segment. Brother claims a speed of up to 21 pages per minute (color or black) and, though I didn't time it, this seems as optimistic as an EPA mileage claim from a car maker. Both units use single pass laser technology (the paper only has to go across the drum once instead of once per color) to speed up output. Warm-up time is reasonable. Paper sizes handled include letter, legal, A4, A5, A6, B5, B6 and more. If only it would do more than merely print! And of course that's why Brother builds the multi-function 9440CN. Its specs are nearly identical to the 4070's, though it only has an Ethernet port for networking (there's no Wi-Fi). But what it loses in connectivity it makes up for in flexibility. It isn't much bigger than the printer-only 4070 (at 17x19.1x19 inches, it's really just a bit taller, thanks mostly to the document feeder on top), but because of its added flexibility it became my workhorse of choice, even though I had to risk tripping over wires. A keypad on the front panel lets you access the fax/scan/copy features, including a numeric keypad and memory buttons for fax numbers. The document feeder holds up to 35 sheets at a time and, though I only tried up to about 10 sheets at once, it worked just fine – and is a great time saver when you're scanning or copying multiple pages. You can scan up to 500 pages into its memory, and spew them out via fax to 366 broadcast locations. Brother says the scan resolution is up to 19,200 dpi, interpolated, and you can fax in color. I can't fault the print quality from either unit. Text and graphics were sharp and colorful. My only real quibble with the MFC-9440CN is that the paper comes out on top of the printer but below the scanning bed and instrument panel and it can be a tight fit getting your hand in there to pull it out. The set up process is a piece of cake. All you have to do is put the included CD into the drive and it brings up a step-by-step animated illustration of how to get it unpacked and up and running, including how and where to stick the toner cartridges (a very easy process). The toner cartridges, not surprisingly, are color coded, so it's pretty hard to put one in the wrong slot unless you're color blind. Driver installation is equally straightforward. The HL-4070CDW's retail price is $499 U.S.. The MFC-9440CN lists at $699, both of which seem quite reasonable, especially for what you get. Heck, I remember when you couldn't get an inkjet printer for that!


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Jim Bray, CFP Automotive Editor -- Bio and Archives

Jim publishes TechnoFile Magazine. Jim is an affiliate with the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada and his careers have included journalist, technology retailer, video store pioneer, and syndicated columnist; he does a biweekly column on CBC Radio One’s The Business Network.

Jim can be reached at: bray@technofile.com

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