BROTHER MFC-5890CN

Finally, my CISS modified Canon MP145 has expired. The office got no printer and we need it quick. It has to be CISS (Continuous Ink Supply System) modified. It has to be ink based, not laser or thermal printer since I hate the idea of using excessive electric (laser printer surges up to 200W during warming up) over a few couple of idiotic printouts. It has to be the least hassle CISS enabled printer. After a few days of not-so-intelligent covert ops and asking around, the option was narrowed down to Brother MFC-5890CN or Brother MFC-6490CW. Both printers is basically an A3 size multifunction printer, capable of printing, faxing, copying, scanning, wireless printing, direct printing from USB based device (DPoF) and of course, can be fitted with the CISS. Brother MFC-6490CW is priced at RM1399 while the smaller version, Brother MFC-5890CN is priced at RM899. We had a visit to Harvey Norman the next day, and eventually they’re having the Brother MFC-5890 plus the option of getting another 4 years extended warranty with additional RM200. Cool bargain, so we took home the MFC-5890CN.

The Brother MFC-5890CN is extra-ordinarily huge size printer for a Home Office, weighing around 10kg and about 50cm x 50cm wide and 30cm thick. It has an internal memory of 64MB and a 3.3” LCD above the control panel center, in the middle section of the printer. It’s a typical Brother design. The black-beige MFC-5890CN is energy efficient, much better than any laser printer in the market. This is the MFC-5890CN power consumption fact as compared to Brother HL-2140 (Laser Printer); 

MFC-5890CN                      Brother HL-2140

Power Save Mode          0.8W                                        -

Sleep Mode                    4.5W                                      5W

Standby                           6W                                       80W (You sure?)

Operating                       27W                                       460W (No Kidding!)

Inside the box, it is provided with 4 Brother Innobella cartridges LC67HY-BK (Black), LC67HY-Y (Yellow), LC67HY-C (Cyan) and LC67HY-M (Magenta), User manuals and Quick Setup Guide and few other accessories. Setting the printer up is easy and it need quite some space on my desk. Since we urgently required a printer for few important printouts needed, so I did just the basic operation of the printer during the initial phase.

The printer is equipped with an adjustable/extendable paper tray according to the size of the paper up to A3. However, only one type of paper size can be used at a time. Up to 200 papers can be fitted into the paper tray at once. I ran out few test pages using used-papers. It worked flawlessly. Printing speed is somehow slow for a printer at this range of pricing, and print quality is slightly better than average. It is pretty far from the claimed of 35 ppm for black and 28ppm for color printing. Scanning speed and copying is pretty quick using the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF). The ADF can hold up to 50 pages and feeds each sheet individually. The flatbed scanner is quite heavy, since it also carries the weight of the ADF unit. Scanning using the flatbed is not easy if I opened the flatbed at the wrong angle (not from the front side). However, the Brother MFC 5890CN has a sturdy built of equipment. The Ethernet cable is routed nicely inside the printer unit, in a huge opening, just below the flatbed scanner unit.

I’ve encountered several situations where the printing operations halted and the paper jammed inside the unit. Getting it out is pretty simple. Stuck papers can be access from the front side and from the back compartment, namely the Jam-Clear Cover. It turned out that the unit is pretty selective on the type of papers it can use. Normally 80gm and 70gm will do, but a used or printed 70gm most likely get torn and stuck inside the unit.

The unit has four mode keys on the control panel; Fax, Scan, Copy and Photo Capture. The amount of time that the MFC unit takes after the last Scan, Copy or Photo Capture can be set and changed before it returns to Fax Mode. There are also security features that the unit offers such as Secure Function Lock, Administrator Password, Public User Setting and Function Restriction Settings. Operation is pretty straight forward on with the LCD control panel.  Just select from the four listed mode keys according to the task, at the MFC will execute the task. Then the Control Panel will prompt for specific options for instance, either direct scan to PC, or direct scan to print, or direct scan to file etc.

The Unit has a One-Touch-Dialing key where we can store up to 6 fax or telephone numbers for automatic dialing. One other notable feature of the MFC unit is the watermark copy.  We can place a logo or text into the document as a watermark where we can select one of the template watermarks, data from the media cards or USB Flash Memory drive, or scanned data.

Direct Photo Printing by the Photo Capture Center can be done even if the unit is not connected to the PC. According to the manual, the unit is able to read up to 8GB of flash memory card. There are various photo enhancement options software that is installed inside the unit itself. These photo enhancing features are; Auto-Correct Mode, Enhance Skin Tone, Enhance Scenery, Remove Red Eye, Monochrome, Sepia and even trimming the picture. Pretty remarkable for a stand-alone multifunction printer, but doing all that through the 3.3” LCD panel is a daunting task.  I wish the LCD Panel is bigger.  

The CD-ROM includes the Software User Guides and Network User Guides plus additional software for the MFC unit such as the MFC driver itself, MFL Pro Suite, Presto! Page Manager, FaceFilter Studio, ControlCenter3 both for Windows and Macs and Remote Setup.

Not bad of a printing machine, that can do multiple of task at this kind of price range. I have installed the Brother CISS and it happens to be neatest of CISS around. There's no dangling ink tubes again, and less likely we need to get inside the unit to adjust and readjust the CISS. Getting the MFC-5890CN to accept the CISS is tedious and took me like 5 hours, but once it is done, that's it. Eventually, unlike Canon and Epson or others, the Brother printer is managing their ink levels through a mechanical system, not software based or chip settings than can be reset with few tricks of button clicks series.  Well, the unit is entering its 2nd month of service, and only al-'Alim knows what's in store for me with this MFC-5890CN. The Brother ink cartridge is design in way that the ink level can be measured in the front section of the cartridge by light. It’s like, inside the unit on the cartridge compartment, once the cartridge is placed inside, the unit will pinpoint the front side of the cartridge with a laser-like light. If the light penetrates it, the cartridge is considered empty and the printer will be on strike mode, until we put a new cartridge in. Solution, place a small cut of black (non-reflective) duct tape on the front side of the cartridge. The printer will identify it to be full. Ah, it’s time to print again.