Comments on: Brother MFC-790CW Color Inkjet All-in-One with Wide 4.2-Inch Touchscreen LCD Display and Wireless Interface

By: KAM

KAM — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:08:59 +0000

We love this printer. It’s very easy to use and the print quality is great.

By: Grover Wright

Grover Wright — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:03:01 +0000

MFC-885CW:

We use this only to accept FAXes, and the useage is VERY light (not more than 5 pages per month. At 15 months the black print head appears to have failed just like a previous reviewer has noted above. Ours though is out of warranty. We bought it at Staples, and also purchased their “2 year TSPP Coverage.” I usually do not purchase such covrage, so now, I am thankful I have a least a shot at getting this repaired. I wish I had purchased something else! This is just poor quality equipment!

By: Don

Don — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:13:44 +0000

I purchased this machine because I needed a fax with a phone right away and the separate ink cartridge system helped sell me. I appreciated the flatbed scanner for small stuff, and the small footprint. Setting it up was easy as a stand-alone unit. About half a day later however, when making copies, I got an error message that would not go away. Investigation revealed that the plastic strip that the print head apparently slid on had dislodged from one end. I was unable to reattach it (and being a do-it-yourself-er I really tried) and so returned the machine. I might be tempted into repurchasing if I could be convinced that was a fluke and not a serious design flaw. The machine lasted less than a day under light to moderate use. I notice the seller I bought from is no longer carrying them, at least online.

By: Charles W. Brownmiller Jr.

Charles W. Brownmiller Jr. — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:00:35 +0000

I bought this fax/copier/scanner/printer to replace 2 HP printers and a flatbed scanner. My main reason for picking the Brother machice was the individual ink cartriges.

What I like: network functionality, print quality, size.

What I don't like:
1. This machine can not be used as an auto-answer fax if there are other telephones on the line (typical home use). It must be set up for manual answer.
2. When another telephone in the house is in use, the front panel controls are inoperable -- you can not initiate a copy or a scan from them at that time. You can still use it as a printer, but you better not run out of paper until the phone call is over. This is a MAJOR shortcoming of this machine.
3. When printing on anything other than standard letter size paper (such as envelopes or photos), the machine insists that the paper in the machine exactly matches the size specified from your printing software.
4. While there is a HOLD button for the telephone, it will not release the call to another phone in the house (at least I have not found a way to do that except unplugging the phone line).

Had I know all this before I bought it, I would have bought something else.

By: Firefly

Firefly — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 10:12:25 +0000

The printer was much bigger than I expected. The print quality is ok – but then I dont do a whole lot of high quality printing.

What really makes me hate this printer is its software – its the most frustrating and badly designed piece of crap I’ve ever seen. I set this up as a wireless printer with a lot of painstaking key entry for the password (the lcd keyboard is AWFUL) and we have a 24 char password. So imagine my chagrin when I discover that I have to enter this password EVERYTIME I power the printer on!! Whoever designed this software must be a masochist or totally brainless.

And the other part of this great software us the setup on the computer. There is no way apparently for it to know whether it has a connection or not to the printer – so any documents that you print sit in the Q forever!! And if you want to really really print you have to add a new printer icon each time and set up a new instance of the printer. I wish I had bought this from a store – it wouldve been so easy to return it. But got it from Amazon so I’m stuck with it since its too much trouble to return it. DO NOT WASTE MONEY IN THIS PIECE OF CRAP.