Brother MFC-J825DW review: Midpriced MFP with CD/DVD printing

Brother's new $150 (as of September 27, 2011) MFC-J825DW color inkjet multifunction printer (print/scan/copy/fax) is a budget-friendly choice for your small or home office, enhanced by a few higher-end features--namely, CD/DVD printing and some Web connectivity. A two-year warranty sweetens the deal.

The MFC-J825DW installed easily via Wi-Fi (USB and ethernet connections are also available), and it has a clearly designed interface. The front LCD is 3.3 inches wide diagonally--so small that you might not recognize it as a touchscreen. Though it's a tad cramped, it works; and it also offers access to some Web apps, including Evernote, Facebook, Flickr, Google Docs, and Picasa. The straightforward control panel has a keypad for faxing and labeled buttons for the main fax, scan, copy, and photo functions. The photo functions are for snapshots loaded via the unit's SD and MMC media card slot or PictBridge port. The on-screen printer driver is easy to navigate, and PaperPort 12 is included for organizing scanned documents.

The MFC-J825DW's ability to print to CD/DVD is a nice perk. Simply remove the caddy handily stored within the scanner lid, load it with printable discs (regular 120mm size only, not 80mm minis), and feed the caddy into a special slot in the printer's front input area. Regular paper handling is adequate for a low-volume home or small office, thanks to a 100-sheet input tray, a dedicated 20-sheet photo tray, and a 20-sheet automatic document feeder for the letter/A4 scanner. Duplexing is automatic for printing, but not for scanning. The unit scans from the control panel to a PC without a lot of configuration fuss. The like-priced Canon Pixma MG5320 offers CD/DVD printing and better paper capacity.

In our testing, the MFC-J825DW printed text pages at a rate nearly 10 pages per minute on a Mac, and at 9 ppm on a PC. For printing snapshot-size photos on plain paper, the MFP clocked in at 4.6 ppm, but when we switched to Brother's own photo paper, the print time slowed to less than 1.2 ppm. A letter-size, high-resolution color photo took nearly 1 minute, 52 seconds to print on a Mac. Scans came out quickly, at between 20 and 35 seconds for snapshot and letter-size photos.

Overall, the quality of the MFC-J825DW's prints was good. Text looked dark and crisp in most fonts. Photos printed on Brother's own glossy stock looked quite nice as well, though the color palette was a little on the light side. On plain paper, the same photos appeared faded and grainy. Scan quality was one of the few disappointments--orangey and a bit cartoonish, with harsh shadows.

Brother's prices for replacement ink cartridges for the MFC-J825DW are about average. The 300-page, standard-size cartridges include a $15 black (which works out to a slightly high 5 cents per page) and $10 cyan, magenta, and yellow (3.3 cents per color per page). The 600-page, high-yield cartridges are a $25 black (4.2 cents per page) and $15 cyan, magenta, and yellow (2.5 cents per color per page). A page with all four colors would cost an unexceptional 14.7 cents with the standard-size cartridges, and an economical 11.7 cents with the high-yield cartridges.

An inkjet multifunction printer bedecked with a few advanced features, the MFC-J825DW is a worthy contender for your low-volume, small-office bucks. The Kodak ESP Office 2170 offers cheaper inks, but it's much slower and lacks automatic duplexing.

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Samsung CLP-775DN review: A Midpriced Workhorse Color Laser

Samsung's CLP-775ND color laser printer has power to spare for a busy workgroup, at a midrange price of $750 (as of September 21, 2011). It breaks no new ground in output quality--photos are a challenge for it, as they are for most color lasers; but aside from that, it's a printer well worth considering.

The CL-775DN can connect by USB or ethernet. Setup is easy on both PCs and Macs. The printer's driver and control panel are intuitively designed, the latter consisting of a four-line monochrome LCD and a straightforward array of navigation and selection buttons.

The CLP-775ND is ready for high-volume use. Standard features including automatic duplexing; a 500-sheet main input tray and 100-sheet multipurpose tray, accessible via a front panel; and a 350-sheet output tray. You may add tone or two bottom-mounted, 500-sheet feeder trays (CLP-S775A, for $200 each), if you need more. Overall, the unit is quite sturdily constructed. One of our few concerns with regard to the design involves the transfer belt, which is fully exposed when you open the printer's front panel to reach the toner cartridges. If you're not extremely careful, you might easily drop a cartridge on it.

Speed is a good reason to buy a CLP-775ND. Equipped with a 600MHz dual-core processor and 384MB of memory (expandable to 896MB), it printed text pages at a swift rate of 18.1 pages per minute on the PC and 17.5 ppm on the Mac--a good 3 to 4 ppm faster than the average rate posted by other printers in its class. Snapshot-size photos printed at 3.9 ppm, well above the average. The full-page, high-resolution photo we print on the Mac clocked in at 1.8 ppm, one of the fastest times we've recorded. The CLP-775ND's speed printing a PDF document with a mix of text and graphics was a middling 4.5 ppm.

While the CLP-775ND's speed stands out, its output is more pedestrian. Text looks very good, but monochrome graphics slightly less so. Color images have an orange tinge and a noticeably grainy background. The color controls available through the driver help improve the results. Among competing color lasers, the Dell 3130cn is a little slower, but less expensive and better at printing photos.

Economical toner is a highlight of the CLP-775ND. It ships with 3500-page starter cartridges. The sole replacement cartridge size has a 7000-page yield and costs $125 for black, and $182 apiece for cyan, magenta, and yellow. That works out to 1.8 cents per page for black, and 2.6 cents per page for each color. A four-color page would cost a low 9.6 cents. After 50,000 pages, you'll need to replace the transfer belt ( $200), adding 0.4 cents per page to the price of the next 50,000 pages.

The CLP-775ND is a fast color laser that is economical both initially and over time. Larger, busier workgroups may gravitate toward faster and pricier models such as the Lexmark c734dn, but the CLP-775ND should satisfy a wide swath of more mainstream offices.

View the original article here

Samsung CLP-775DN review: A Midpriced Workhorse Color Laser

Samsung's CLP-775ND color laser printer has power to spare for a busy workgroup, at a midrange price of $750 (as of September 21, 2011). It breaks no new ground in output quality--photos are a challenge for it, as they are for most color lasers; but aside from that, it's a printer well worth considering.

The CL-775DN can connect by USB or ethernet. Setup is easy on both PCs and Macs. The printer's driver and control panel are intuitively designed, the latter consisting of a four-line monochrome LCD and a straightforward array of navigation and selection buttons.

The CLP-775ND is ready for high-volume use. Standard features including automatic duplexing; a 500-sheet main input tray and 100-sheet multipurpose tray, accessible via a front panel; and a 350-sheet output tray. You may add tone or two bottom-mounted, 500-sheet feeder trays (CLP-S775A, for $200 each), if you need more. Overall, the unit is quite sturdily constructed. One of our few concerns with regard to the design involves the transfer belt, which is fully exposed when you open the printer's front panel to reach the toner cartridges. If you're not extremely careful, you might easily drop a cartridge on it.

Speed is a good reason to buy a CLP-775ND. Equipped with a 600MHz dual-core processor and 384MB of memory (expandable to 896MB), it printed text pages at a swift rate of 18.1 pages per minute on the PC and 17.5 ppm on the Mac--a good 3 to 4 ppm faster than the average rate posted by other printers in its class. Snapshot-size photos printed at 3.9 ppm, well above the average. The full-page, high-resolution photo we print on the Mac clocked in at 1.8 ppm, one of the fastest times we've recorded. The CLP-775ND's speed printing a PDF document with a mix of text and graphics was a middling 4.5 ppm.

While the CLP-775ND's speed stands out, its output is more pedestrian. Text looks very good, but monochrome graphics slightly less so. Color images have an orange tinge and a noticeably grainy background. The color controls available through the driver help improve the results. Among competing color lasers, the Dell 3130cn is a little slower, but less expensive and better at printing photos.

Economical toner is a highlight of the CLP-775ND. It ships with 3500-page starter cartridges. The sole replacement cartridge size has a 7000-page yield and costs $125 for black, and $182 apiece for cyan, magenta, and yellow. That works out to 1.8 cents per page for black, and 2.6 cents per page for each color. A four-color page would cost a low 9.6 cents. After 50,000 pages, you'll need to replace the transfer belt ( $200), adding 0.4 cents per page to the price of the next 50,000 pages.

The CLP-775ND is a fast color laser that is economical both initially and over time. Larger, busier workgroups may gravitate toward faster and pricier models such as the Lexmark c734dn, but the CLP-775ND should satisfy a wide swath of more mainstream offices.

View the original article here

Brother MFC-J825DW review: Midpriced MFP with CD/DVD printing

Brother's new $150 (as of September 27, 2011) MFC-J825DW color inkjet multifunction printer (print/scan/copy/fax) is a budget-friendly choice for your small or home office, enhanced by a few higher-end features--namely, CD/DVD printing and some Web connectivity. A two-year warranty sweetens the deal.

The MFC-J825DW installed easily via Wi-Fi (USB and ethernet connections are also available), and it has a clearly designed interface. The front LCD is 3.3 inches wide diagonally--so small that you might not recognize it as a touchscreen. Though it's a tad cramped, it works; and it also offers access to some Web apps, including Evernote, Facebook, Flickr, Google Docs, and Picasa. The straightforward control panel has a keypad for faxing and labeled buttons for the main fax, scan, copy, and photo functions. The photo functions are for snapshots loaded via the unit's SD and MMC media card slot or PictBridge port. The on-screen printer driver is easy to navigate, and PaperPort 12 is included for organizing scanned documents.

The MFC-J825DW's ability to print to CD/DVD is a nice perk. Simply remove the caddy handily stored within the scanner lid, load it with printable discs (regular 120mm size only, not 80mm minis), and feed the caddy into a special slot in the printer's front input area. Regular paper handling is adequate for a low-volume home or small office, thanks to a 100-sheet input tray, a dedicated 20-sheet photo tray, and a 20-sheet automatic document feeder for the letter/A4 scanner. Duplexing is automatic for printing, but not for scanning. The unit scans from the control panel to a PC without a lot of configuration fuss. The like-priced Canon Pixma MG5320 offers CD/DVD printing and better paper capacity.

In our testing, the MFC-J825DW printed text pages at a rate nearly 10 pages per minute on a Mac, and at 9 ppm on a PC. For printing snapshot-size photos on plain paper, the MFP clocked in at 4.6 ppm, but when we switched to Brother's own photo paper, the print time slowed to less than 1.2 ppm. A letter-size, high-resolution color photo took nearly 1 minute, 52 seconds to print on a Mac. Scans came out quickly, at between 20 and 35 seconds for snapshot and letter-size photos.

Overall, the quality of the MFC-J825DW's prints was good. Text looked dark and crisp in most fonts. Photos printed on Brother's own glossy stock looked quite nice as well, though the color palette was a little on the light side. On plain paper, the same photos appeared faded and grainy. Scan quality was one of the few disappointments--orangey and a bit cartoonish, with harsh shadows.

Brother's prices for replacement ink cartridges for the MFC-J825DW are about average. The 300-page, standard-size cartridges include a $15 black (which works out to a slightly high 5 cents per page) and $10 cyan, magenta, and yellow (3.3 cents per color per page). The 600-page, high-yield cartridges are a $25 black (4.2 cents per page) and $15 cyan, magenta, and yellow (2.5 cents per color per page). A page with all four colors would cost an unexceptional 14.7 cents with the standard-size cartridges, and an economical 11.7 cents with the high-yield cartridges.

An inkjet multifunction printer bedecked with a few advanced features, the MFC-J825DW is a worthy contender for your low-volume, small-office bucks. The Kodak ESP Office 2170 offers cheaper inks, but it's much slower and lacks automatic duplexing.

View the original article here

Samsung CLP-775DN review: A Midpriced Workhorse Color Laser

Samsung's CLP-775ND color laser printer has power to spare for a busy workgroup, at a midrange price of $750 (as of September 21, 2011). It breaks no new ground in output quality--photos are a challenge for it, as they are for most color lasers; but aside from that, it's a printer well worth considering.

The CL-775DN can connect by USB or ethernet. Setup is easy on both PCs and Macs. The printer's driver and control panel are intuitively designed, the latter consisting of a four-line monochrome LCD and a straightforward array of navigation and selection buttons.

The CLP-775ND is ready for high-volume use. Standard features including automatic duplexing; a 500-sheet main input tray and 100-sheet multipurpose tray, accessible via a front panel; and a 350-sheet output tray. You may add tone or two bottom-mounted, 500-sheet feeder trays (CLP-S775A, for $200 each), if you need more. Overall, the unit is quite sturdily constructed. One of our few concerns with regard to the design involves the transfer belt, which is fully exposed when you open the printer's front panel to reach the toner cartridges. If you're not extremely careful, you might easily drop a cartridge on it.

Speed is a good reason to buy a CLP-775ND. Equipped with a 600MHz dual-core processor and 384MB of memory (expandable to 896MB), it printed text pages at a swift rate of 18.1 pages per minute on the PC and 17.5 ppm on the Mac--a good 3 to 4 ppm faster than the average rate posted by other printers in its class. Snapshot-size photos printed at 3.9 ppm, well above the average. The full-page, high-resolution photo we print on the Mac clocked in at 1.8 ppm, one of the fastest times we've recorded. The CLP-775ND's speed printing a PDF document with a mix of text and graphics was a middling 4.5 ppm.

While the CLP-775ND's speed stands out, its output is more pedestrian. Text looks very good, but monochrome graphics slightly less so. Color images have an orange tinge and a noticeably grainy background. The color controls available through the driver help improve the results. Among competing color lasers, the Dell 3130cn is a little slower, but less expensive and better at printing photos.

Economical toner is a highlight of the CLP-775ND. It ships with 3500-page starter cartridges. The sole replacement cartridge size has a 7000-page yield and costs $125 for black, and $182 apiece for cyan, magenta, and yellow. That works out to 1.8 cents per page for black, and 2.6 cents per page for each color. A four-color page would cost a low 9.6 cents. After 50,000 pages, you'll need to replace the transfer belt ( $200), adding 0.4 cents per page to the price of the next 50,000 pages.

The CLP-775ND is a fast color laser that is economical both initially and over time. Larger, busier workgroups may gravitate toward faster and pricier models such as the Lexmark c734dn, but the CLP-775ND should satisfy a wide swath of more mainstream offices.

View the original article here