Brother has consistently proved to be a force to be reckoned with when it comes to printers in general and multifunction mono laser printers in particular. Having established an admirable reputation for producing fast, efficient and reliable workhorses in this area, we were therefore hoping for similar results from the company's latest 8000 duplex range, and the top-of-the-range MFC-8890DW certainly doesn't disappoint.

Unlike many All-in-Ones, the MFC-8890DW doesn't have a standard ‘box' shape with the scanner section the same size as the feeder tray at the bottom. Instead it's more of a ‘T' shaped design, measuring 531 x 451 x 475mm and weighing in at a sturdy but not back-breaking 18.6kg. The light and dark grey tones will blend in well with a modern office and loading the ink is a doddle: simply open the front cover, slide in the drum and then replace the cover.

Starting from the bottom, the standard paper tray will hold 250 sheets of A4 and you can double that with an optional lower tray. To the left of the 150-sheet output tray is a USB port for Flash memory sticks and above that is the extensive control panel.

The panel is user-friendly with large backlit buttons for Fax, Scan and Copy below the sizeable 22-character, 5-line, backlit LCD screen in the centre. Nearby are 20 one-touch keys for up to 40 stored phone numbers, with the main keypad and menu controls on the left.

At the bottom of the panel are further controls for Print (including separate Secure and Direct print options), Fax and Copy: the latter features a duplex setting which is a major selling point.

Also here are controls for Contrast/Quality, Enlarge/Reduce, Tray Select, Sort (for the Automatic Document Feeder) and a useful 'N in 1' button so you can copy 2 or 4 pages onto one page. Above the scanner is the 50-sheet ADF and round the back is a USB 2 port next to an Ethernet socket and (in a blast from the past) a Parallel IEEE1284 connection.

The standard print resolution is 1200 x 1200dpi and Brother's claim of 30ppm is remarkably close to the 28ppm we experienced in our tests, both for single and duplex operation. Wireless network setup was easy to establish via the LCD, especially if using Secure Easy Setup, while scan resolutions can be enhanced to 19,200dpi, the default being 600 x 2400dpi.

Business users will appreciate the range of scan functions to FTP, USB, Network, email, image, OCR and file, as well as the low energy Sleep setting that uses just 19W. Print quality throughout was impressive in our tests, with solid unbroken blacks and deep greyscale tones.

Verdict
Brother has proved once more that it can deliver well made, strong mono laser powerhouses to meet the needs of small businesses, complete with efficient duplex and wireless facilities.

Company: Brother

Contact: 0845 6060626

Tags: universal serial bus automatic document feeder liquid crystal display fax ethernet laser printer multifunction printer hardware