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A List of Printers with AirPrint (Part 1) : Brother MFC-J4510DW

7/17/2013 9:08:42 AM

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

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

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

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

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