Brother DCP-7010 Multifunction

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Good
Printing speed	Very fast
Colour sensitivity	Satisfactory
Ease of use	Very easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Excellent print quality .  Easy to use and setup, reasonabley cheap to run .
Disadvantages:	slightly noisy fan when printing .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

After my 9 year old multifunction decided to chew paper regularly, I decided it was time to replace it. I decided to look for a cheap laser mutlifunction and after browsing different website, I stumbled across this machine at Inmac in its clearance section. It usually retails at around £138, but being an open box product, this particular machine was a bargain £82. On to the review of the machine......

BOX CONTENTS AND SETUP:On opening the box you find.....

• The unit itself,
• A brand new full size toner (good for 2,500 pages) rather than a starter toner you get with other brands.
• Manuals and driver software CD.
• Power lead
• Some Free Polystyrene :D

Setting up of the Brother DCP7010 was very easy. Firstly, decide if you wish to use the parallel port or USB port (cable not included). Then simply load the driver CD into your CD drive, and follow on screen instructions until prompted to connect the unit to your PC and switch on. Simply setup which language you want on the units LCD display and away you go!FEATURES AND WHAT ITS LIKE TO USE :

The laser printing function works at speeds of up to 20 pages per minute which is fast enough for most home users and business users. The quality is at an impressive 2400 x 600 dots per inch (dpi), and after printing the test page, you could notice how crisp and sharp the text is. The paper tray takes up to 250 sheets of A4, and in addition, there is a manual feed tray for single feed use.
The printer can also print on envelopes, transparancies and labels.

The copying function of this machine is only 600 x 300 dpi but still up to 20 pages per minute and is very easy to use. Just load your document face down on the glass. Then, using the buttons on the control panel, you can select the contrast (light or darkness), the size (can reduce or enlarge up to 400%), the number of copies etc. Once happy with your selection, press the start button and almost immediately the prints are in the output tray which can take up to 100 sheets.

The only drwaback I found was that the fan when printing was a little noisy but its nothing bad enough to put you off using it everyday.

RUNNING COSTS AND VALUE FOR MONEY :

This unit uses a seperate drum and toner catridge. The toners typically last for 2,500 pages and cost approx £35 for genuine brother cartridges. You can get refilled cartridges for approx £25-30 also but my experience with refilled cartridges is that they don't last as long as genuine ones. The drum lasts for 12,000 pages or every 5 toner cartridges and costs around £55.
Based on once used for 12,000 pages, this equates to a running cost of £230 when using genuine brother toners/drum or 1.92 pence per page. Which considering a lot of places charge 5p per page for copying, it is very inexpensive to run.

As standard, the Brother comes with 1 year On-Site warranty. So if anything goes wrong, which I'm sure it wont, Brother will sent an engineer to your address or workplace to fix or replace it. Currently, the Brother website is doing an offer where if you register selected products before 30th September, you get another 2 years On-Site warranty, so thats 3 years altogether!!
So for £82, I've got a great little machine with 3 years warranty.

OVERALL VERDICT :

The Brother DCP 7010 is an excellent little machine which offers good quality prints and copies with good speeds and low running costs. Consumables are available from most retailers, and with 3 years warranty (on-site), it offers excellent value for money. If you are considering a black and white all-in-one machine then I would strongly recommend this model.