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This is a great printer–I give it 5 stars because it works AS ADVERTISED. This is HIGH PRAISE compared to the 6 other printers I’ve owned over the last 5 years (1 Brother laser, 1 Samsung, 4 HP’s; only the Brother laser is still in use; to be fair, one of the HP inkjets still functions, but I have chosen to stop paying $60 every 4 months for ink). In looking for a replacement color printer, my search criteria were high-capacity ink cartridges, fax capability, ADF (auto document feeder) for scanning, and networkability. (Ideally, installation would be automated and wouldn’t load my computer with megabytes of software that I didn’t want…sigh). I first looked at the Brother MFC-490CW which, on sale, would have been 60% of the price of the MFC-5890CN. Second, I looked at the HP J6480 AIO. I am at the end of my rope with HP printers (I could write pages on this) but it looked at it for 2 reasons: (1) 2 different sales people at 2 different stores said over and over that the HP had much better image/print quality than the Brothers and (2) it does have a high capacity ink cartridge option (74XL, 75 XL). Then I looked at the MFC-5890CN which I decided to buy. I did consider the Brother MFC-6490CW, but it would have been an extra $50 to $100 dollars and it’s HUGE (too big for my work space).

I think the Brother MFC-490CW is an awesome printer. It has good ink capacity (LC61 cartridges) but does not work with the high-capacity cartridges (LC65 series 25% more expensive for double ink) that it’s big brothers can use (5890CN and 6490CW). I REALLY WISH that the MFC-5890 I purchased included the 6×4 photo paper bypass tray that the MFC-490CW has (my only disappointment with it! maybe Brother will offer an accessory tray with that feature). It also has built-in wireless networking, which sounded like a big deal but, as I discuss below didn’t add anything–I am using the FULL capabilities of the MFC-5890CN wirelessly through my wireless router as I explain below. I decided to go with the MFC-5890CN over the MFC-490CW mainly so that I could use the LC65 high-capacity ink. Printing on 11×17 paper may also be useful to me. (It can NOT scan 11×17 documents as another review said. I guess that person never looked at it in the store as it’s obvious that the scanner glass is only 8.5 by 11 and not 11 by17 like the MFC-6490CW.) It also has double the warranty period, 2 years, and double the duty cycle–I hope this means it really will last longer but only time will tell.

I looked at the HP J6480 AIO very carefully. The price was the same as the MFC-5890CN. This was the only similar HP printer that I found that had high-capacity ink. It has built-in wireless networking. It does NOT have a color LCD screen. To test the image quality, I went to the store and made color copies of the same test documents (pictures my children made) with the HP J6480 and the MFC-5890CN, both on highest quality. The Brother MFC-5890CN was very much better than the HP. Do the test yourself–my Staples in town has all the printers plugged in and loaded with paper. The only benefit of the HP J6480 is an automatic two-sided printing feature. However, this isn’t too great a feature with inkjet as there is a pause to “let the ink” dry before it flips the page. Again, I tried this at the store–it was really annoying b/c if you only copy 1 side, the printed page pops out, the printer status screen says “Please wait, ink drying” or something like that, a few seconds pass, it sucks the page back in to flip it over, and then you can have your copy. If I want to duplex to save paper, I’ll just use my laser.

So I bought the MFC-5890CN. I have had several nice surprises since. First, it prints GREAT! photos using the ink provided. I bought the Brother “innobella” 4×6 glossy photo paper ($5 for 20 sheets), put it in the paper tray, put the memory stick from my camera into the printer card-reader slot, selected the picture I wanted on the LCD, clicked print, and after about a minute, out popped at beautiful borderless 4×6 glossy picture that, to my eye, was about as good as any photo I’ve seen (from another printer or Walgreens). I was very, very, very happy how easy this worked and how good the picture looked. It worked just as well using “Picture Bridge” which just means you connect the camera straight to the printer with a USB cable. Also, I used the built in red-reduction feature and I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked (this was a portrait type picture with one person’s face in the picture). I can’t vouch for pictures using other photo paper–you see a lot of postings that it’s better to match paper and ink. Second, I really like the Paperport software. I can scan directly into PDF and organize my files easily into different folders. Third, the color LCD screen is extremely useful, especially with direct photo printing. After 2 weeks, there are only two negatives–(1) I wish it had a built-in tray for photo paper as this would save time (it’s little brother the 490CW and it’s big brother the 6490CW both do) and (2) whoever designed the ink placement doesn’t have any small children around–my 3-year-old can pull the little door open and it’s hard for him to resist trying to pull out the colorful ink cartridges (most of the HP inkjets hide the ink deeper inside the printer).

INSTALLATION TIPS: I have an desktop running XP with Norton security suite; this connects via Ethernet to a Belkin Wireless router. I have a laptop running Vista also with Norton security suite that connects to the Belkin router wirelessly. I connected the Brother MFC-5890CN to the Belkin router with a direct Ethernet connection. I turned off the Norton Firewall and ran the standard Brother installation including Paperport software. (Note that I run the Norton firewall but keep the Windows firewall disabled on both computers.) Everything worked fine including Scan to functions selected from the printer. When I turned the Norton firewall back on, it stopped working. I add the printer “Node Name” to the Norton “Trusted Site list:” and everything now works. (The Node Name is a 12 character alpha-numeric code found on the printer as follow: click Menu button, scroll to “Network” and select, select “Wired LAN”, select “TCP/IP”, Node Name is at the bottom of the list–leave off “BRN”, e.g. my Node Name is 008077D3C1B5–maybe it’s the same for everyone–I don’t know. I tried using the printer IP address found at the same location but this did not work. To add to Norton “Trusted Sites” do this: open Norton security suite by double-clicking icon in system tray, find “Internet Security and Firewall Options” link and click in the “Settings” section, click, “Trust Control” on left, click “Trust” tab on top, click Add button to add. I think it’s all easier to do than it sounds.) It shouldn’t be so complicated but it seems like this kind of tweaking is inevitably necessary if you use Norton and Windows and want to network. My laptop was actually easier. I again turned off the firewall while I installed the software (unplug your WAN/cable/DSL line while the firewall is off). Even though the laptop connects to the router wirelessly, when I selected “Wired LAN Connection”, it found the MFC-5890CN just fine, loaded the drivers, and everything works fine. This includes walking up to the printer, loading documents in the document scanner, selection Scan To on the printer menu, selecting my laptop from the list, clicking OK, etc. To me, it seems like it works as well as it would if the printer itself had built-in wireless networking. I have not yet tried the Fax to PC function to the wireless laptop.

One other thing, built-in scanning options on the printer include Scan to Email, Image, OCR, File, FTP. These all scan to the Brother “Control Center 3″ program; you can change these virtual buttons to scan to Paperport via the XP or Vista control panel (double-click Scanners, select Properties, etc.) This is a bit buggy with Vista but works perfectly on XP.

I hope this helps someone. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Rating: 5 / 5

I bought this printer largely because of the good reviews and the 11×17 printing capability which comes in handy quite often.

I was NOT impressed with the text quality; could not print out a resume that looked good enough, even on the best quality setting. On a side note, quality settings below “normal” are pretty low quality – too low for legible emails, etc. I’m not sure who would ever want to use them to save ink, as you’ll be more frustrated with illegible prints.

When attempting to make multi-page copies using the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), the copies can be sorted (which is to be expected) but the pages print out in REVERSE ORDER!! I checked to make sure I fed the originals properly (face up), went through ALL of the settings, and also called Technical Support – all with NO solutions. The only solution offered by Support was to put my originals in “reverse order”!! Yeah, with a 30-page document – I DON’T THINK SO! For printing multi-page documents from the computer, I was able to check off “Reverse Order” in the printer driver (Preferences). There is no such setting on the printer itself (for copying). By default, prints come out face up: page 1, 2, etc. That drives me nuts! I want to be able to grab the stack, staple it, and go.

Also, color copying did not pick up light colors at all, even on the best quality setting. It also reduced the image size a smidge, which Support had no answer for. For some reason, it does not scan the document edge to edge either, so you’ll lose some items in the margin even when just scanning (can’t do a true 8.5″ x 11″ area).

Fortunately, I discovered all these problems within the first 14 days of ownership and was able to return the printer (bought at Staples). I never did get to test the 11×17 printing; the printer was not worth the headaches I discovered already. Sales associates noted that Brother has one of the highest return rates for printers. Hmmmmm….
Rating: 2 / 5

The Brother MFC5890cn is the best printer I have used. I operate 4 computers in a network with both Linux Mint 6 and Windows XP with dual boot for business and CAD use. Linux for online and Windows for CAD offline. Setting up this network printer was a breeze. The CD included with the printer set it up for Windows. I contacted Brother for drivers for Linux and within an hour received a response from the Japanese service center for Brother via email with instructions and references to the Brother web site for Linux drivers. The only things I miss are some sort of indicator light to tell me that the printer is on and a spare paper tray so I can have quick change of paper size. So far I have not been able to find a good source for paper trays. I like the 4 cartridge ink system, but would prefer that this printer used the same cartridge as another of my printers, a Brother DCP130C.
Rating: 4 / 5