Both my partner and I had been using the Dell all-in-one printer than came with her computer for some time. It was ok. It obviously printed in colour and had a scanner. However, I was becoming pretty annoyed at how much ink it used up when only printing in black and white. You see, this printer, in all its infinite wisdom only had one ink cartridge - of the 3 colours - and so used them all to print in black and white.

What I was after was a good quality, cheap printer which wouldn't be obtrusive. That is one that isn't too loud, and isn't overly sized, and looks good. I also wanted one that printed in good quality, and didn't take ages to spool. Not that I'm fussy or anything!

So - to the main point of this review - what is it like???

It comes packaged well, in a sturdy box, with the instructions, and driver CDs easily accessible. The printer itself is I think very attractive, in a plain (grey) get-on-with-the-job way. It is very small, official dimensions list it as being W 371mm, D 361mm, H 166mm. And it has an integrated paper tray holding 250 sheets. All this make it a compact, and lightweight device able to take its place on the desktop without being an eye-sore, or tucked on a shelf/under a desk.

The printer comes with two sets of driver CDs. One for Windows Vista, and one for Windows XP and earlier. At the time my computer was running XP, and so I inserted the CD and followed the instructions as per the CD. It even tells you when to connect the USB cable to your PC. All in all I was up and running in no time.
It was the same situation when installing it on my partner's computer using Windows Vista, follow the instructions and voila! However, at Christmas I got a new PC, with Windows Vista 64-bit. On installing the software from the CD as per the Vista installation disk it didn't seem to detect the printer properly. I had to go to Brother's website and download an updated driver. Having done this everything was back to normal - the printer was connected as it had been on my XP PC. It is just one of those things that comes with having a 64-bit operating system (as I am finding out every now and again).

So, my printer is now installed and ready to use. But did it meet up to my expectations. Yes. It has exceeded what I expected of it. It prints in very good quality (2400 x 600dpi at max quality), and very quickly too. It has a power save mode, whereby it switches itself of after a period of time, which serves to both save power, and reduces its noise.
The only problem with this printer is when it comes to printing light colours as greyscale. In many cases you can't make out what was clearly defined on screen. The only area where this has been a problem for me is in printing roadmaps from the internet (such as multimap or live maps), whereby it is hard to see the actual roads, and all you can see is the road names!!!
Other than this the printer has functioned well above any expectations or standards that I had set, and I am pleased with my purchase.