Brother, the great laser specialist, developed its own inkjet technology to break into the multifunctional color device market. But while it may have a page feeder and fax, the MFC 590 is not about to upset the established order. Brother needs to do some more homework on its products. This one is slow and its print quality is poor.

Note: The Brother all-in-one is called MFC-590 in Europe and MFC-5100c in the USA. We were sent an MFC-590 for our tests.

Ergonomics

The MFC 590 / 5100c is very big, almost as bulky as the Canon SmartBase / MultiPass, and is the only one of these devices to have both, a document feeder and a fax. Another good point is that the button on the front enables you to stop the work in progress. The control panel is straightforward, with all the works, but not as smart as a Lexmark or HP.