Forget big black boxes: today’s home
printers are mobile and stylish enough for the living room
These are turbulent times for
the trusty inkjet. Since we last rounded up the best printers
on offer, we’ve seen both Lexmark and Kodak throw in the towel, leaving
just four big names to fight it out: Brother, Canon, Epson and HP.
A tighter focus is not necessarily a
bad thing though, particularly as these manufacturers have survived
primarily by keeping the quality high while cramming in the features.
Wi-Fi is now standard, and mobile printing is a priority, which means
manufacturers are honing their designs to fit not just in the home office, but
also the living room. Thanks to the freedom of phones and tablets, the printer
is now another mobile accessory.
Take the HP Envy 120, for example. With its
flat body and glossy black finish, it wouldn’t look at all out of place under
the TV, and it comes at a price premium of which Apple would approve. It’s
basically a designer printer, and it’s not alone: Epson is taking steps down a
similar path with the similarly expensive Expression Photo XP-750.
Alternatively, the style connoisseur on a tighter budget can buy the Canon
Pixma MG6350 in glossy black or white finishes.
Thanks
to the freedom of phones and tablets, the printer is now another mobile
accessory
But while these printers vary more than
ever in their styles, what all six have in common is support for Apple’s
AirPrint. This means your iPad or iPhone can see them on the Wi-Fi network, and
send documents and photos directly for printing without any drivers or software
installed. It’s now a mature enough technology that you won’t need to worry
about firmware updates or compatibility issues – it really does just work.
Cloud thinking
It’s not the only method, though. Most also
support Google’s Cloud Print, for printing directly through the Chrome browser
or the search giant’s mobile apps, and both HP and Canon have their own
solutions for printing via dedicated apps or over email. You might find one
method works better than the others depending on the kind of apps and services
you tend to use.
What’s most interesting is that this is no
longer a premium feature. You won’t get the full range of mobile printing
solutions on every device, but even the $119 Canon Pixma MX455 supports
AirPrint and dedicated mobile apps. That’s great news, as it leaves you free to
base your decision on more important factors. There’s plenty to consider, so
read on to find out which printer is right for you.
Brother MFC-J4510DW
Printers that can handle A3 paper tend to
be big beasts, but Brother has hit on a novel solution: flip the A4 tray
around by 90 degrees. By loading the paper sideways, the MFC-J4510DW’s print
area is wide enough to handle an A3 sheet fed in manually when required.
Brother
has hit on a novel solution: flip the A4 tray around by 90 degrees
To add to that strong media handling,
there’s a 150-sheet paper tray in the base and a 20-sheet ADF on top for big
copying jobs, and it offers fax functions too. To get the full use of its
AirPrint functions we set it up over Wi-Fi, and the 9.7cm touchscreen quickly
showed its strength when we had to enter our security key by hand. That was
after finding and downloading the latest driver from the Brother website, as
the software on the setup disc didn’t support OS X 10.8.
Mac installation had its hurdles, then, but
from there on we had no problems. The MFC-J4510DW’s four individual inks slot
in behind a door on the front, and the high-yield cartridges each print an
impressive 1,200 pages. Even with a combined cost of nearly $120, that makes
for attractive running costs of just 2.7p and 6.6p for a mono and color page,
respectively.
The
MFC-J4510DW’s four individual inks slot in behind a door on the front, and the
high-yield cartridges each print an impressive 1,200 pages
Print quality isn’t the best photos were on
the pale side with pinkish reds, and areas of solid black in documents showed
speckling but it’s fine for running off prints at home. And you get them at a
decent rate: we measured 8.3ppm for mono and 5.8ppm for color prints at normal
quality, and it rolled out a 6 x 4in photo at best quality in just 55 seconds.
Buying Advice
This grey and white box is fairly
attractive and offers solid all-round performance, but is that enough to
justify the price? We’ve seen it for sale online at closer to $262, and the
running costs do compensate to some extent, but that still looks a premium
price for what is really a solid mid-range device.
Brother MFC-J4510DW Specs
·
Price: $322
·
Ratings: 3/5
·
Pros: A3-capable tray; low running costs;
compact; fax function
·
Cons: Expensive; no Mountain Lion driver in the
box
·
Company: Brother, www.brother.uk
