Brother MFC-6490CW review

Brother's MFC-6490CW is an A3+ business inkjet MFP with integrated fax and A3+ scanner, so you can produce A3 posters and scan double-page magazine spreads and tabloid-sized newspaper pages.

Even the 50-page automatic document feeder (ADF) can handle paper sizes up to A3. Remarkably, it costs just over £200.

Like most business inkjets, it's sturdy, well built and looks very utilitarian. An unusually wide colour screen measures 1.2x3.2in. The screen makes it easy to search for and connect to your wireless network. You can enter your wireless security key using the same alpha-numeric keypad you use to dial fax numbers.

Both paper trays can take A4 and A3+ paper, up to a combined total of 400 sheets. However, the MFC-6490CW can't detect which paper size is loaded into which tray. To assign paper types to the trays, you must use the printer's integrated menu system to go to General Setup, Tray Setting and select each tray to define its default paper size and type. Only the 150-sheet upper tray can handle glossy papers. Loading paper correctly can be a challenge. Place it too far forward in the tray and the paper may jam or fail to feed correctly; too far back, and the printer won't recognise its presence.

Text prints weren't the sharpest we've seen. Normal-quality text looked fuzzy on close examination, but it's good enough for correspondence and most formal documents. Print speeds of 4.8ppm are average. Draft prints were quick, but too pale for most purposes. Colour graphs and illustrations were clear, bright and solid.

We found 6x4in photos printed in borderless mode had 1mm of white space at the top and left margins. Images weren't too grainy, but their colour balance at default settings was imperfect. Dark shades lacked intensity, which is typical of printers that combine cyan, magenta and yellow inks to produce composite black, while pale colours had a slight pink tinge.

The driver has basic and advanced colour controls. The basic option lets you select Natural or Vivid colour. The Advanced tab contains a Colour Settings menu that lets you adjust white balance, colour density, brightness and RGB channels. This is useful if you know what result you're after, but can be fiddly to set up. We'd have liked support for ICC colour profiles, which allow consistent colour reproduction that can be useful in a printer capable of printing A3 poster-size images.

Although the driver has seen some improvements, the scanner interface is much the same as Brother's earlier MFPs. It's easy to use, but hardly overburdened with features. It can't auto-detect paper size, so you either have to crop your images manually or select from a pull-down menu of common sizes ranging from business card to A3. Scans were sharp and clearly defined, and colours were generally accurate, although dark shades tended to merge into each other. An A3 scan at 300dpi took 44 seconds.

It's important for a business scanner to make accurate photocopies in a reasonable time. The MFC-6490CW didn't disappoint, with A4 copy speeds that compare well to most A4 MFPs in our Labs. We also timed an A3 mono copy, which took just 40 seconds. Copy quality was among the best we've seen from an inkjet MFP, with accurate colours and shading.

Although it's possible to find fault with the MFC-6490CW, it's astonishingly good value, and opens up the world of A3+ printing and scanning to small businesses on a budget. Print costs are reasonable, too, at 5.4p per page of mixed-colour A4. Despite unremarkable print speeds and the lack of an automatic duplexer, it is a Budget Buy.