Brother MFC-685cw
Manufacturer: Brother International Part number: MFC685CW
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Accessories
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- The Brother MFC-685CW inkjet multifunction printer offers tons of great features at the expense of print speed and quality. If speed and quality are your priorities, look elsewhere.
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Where to buy
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| Amazon.com Marketplace |  | In stock | Enter zip code to get total price: Price +Tax +Shipping =Total price | as of 11/27/2009 |
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| OfficeWorld | Not yet rated | In stock | as of 11/27/2009 |
CNET editors' review
Brother MFC-685cw price range: $183.50 - $207.50
- Reviewed by: Felisa Yang
- Edited by: Matthew Elliott
- Reviewed on: 10/25/2007
The good: Compact design; offers PictBridge port and memory card reader; PictBridge port supports USB flash drives; wide-screen LCD; onboard handset and answering machine; secure mode lets you receive faxes in password-protected memory.
The bad: Average to slow task speeds; print quality needs a lot of improvement; refilling paper cassette and engaging photo tray require you to fully detach the cassette.
The bottom line: The Brother MFC-685CW inkjet multifunction printer offers tons of great features at the expense of print speed and quality. If speed and quality are your priorities, look elsewhere.
Design
The Brother MFC-685CW's low-profile design makes it a great fit for homes and home offices. It measures 18.4 inches wide, 14.6 inches deep, and 7.1 inches tall. The 10-page automatic document feeder is mounted flush with the scanner lid, which makes it less bulky than most multifunctions that have ADFs. Mounted on the front face of the printer are two memory card slots and a PictBridge USB port.
The control panel is straightforward. The 3.3-inch color LCD is unusual in that it's a widescreen LCD, something we haven't seen in on a multifunction printer before. The wide screen allows you to preview pictures on one side, while viewing relevant information on the other. On one side of the LCD is the printer's message center and fax panel. The message center includes buttons for playing back and erasing voice messages, while the fax panel includes an alphanumeric keypad and buttons such as fax preview, redial/pause, hold, and speaker phone. To the left of the message center is a corded handset for making phone calls or manually answering incoming fax calls. The other half of the printer's control panel offers controls for switching between tasks, as well as menu, OK, menu navigation, and start and stop buttons.
The paper handling system is consolidated into a single cassette that slides all of the way out of the printer. The bottom tier is the input cassette, which holds as many as 100 sheets of plain paper. Mounted on the cover of the cassette is a dedicated 4x6 photo paper tray that can hold up to 20 sheets. The printed pages fall out on top of the photo tray. There are a couple of things we really do not like about the paper system. First, in order to load paper--either into the photo tray or the main cassette--you must remove the entire cassette. This precludes adding more paper in the middle of a print job. Second, if you want to print from the dedicated photo paper tray, you have to manually engage it, which again requires removing the entire cassette first. After you're done printing on photo paper, you'll have to remove the cassette to manually disengage the tray. While we ultimately prefer photo trays that engage automatically, we'd be fine with this setup if you could engage the photo tray without having to take out the whole cassette first.
The Brother MFC-685CW uses a four-ink system with individual ink tanks. Instead of installing the tanks directly on the moving print head, they are installed in a compartment in the front of the printer. Tubes siphon the ink to the print head. The black tank is good for about 500 pages and costs about $23.49. Each of the cyan, magenta, and yellow tanks are good for about 400 pages and cost about $12.99 each. Using these numbers, we calculate that it costs approximately 4.7 cents to print an all-black page and 14.4 cents to print a full-color page.
Features
The Brother MFC-685CW offers a compelling feature set for home office users. The printer comes network-ready, with both Ethernet and Wi-Fi. The ADF is great for batch scans, copies, or faxes, though it's limited to 10 pages. And it has a built-in answering machine and telephone handset, great features for those in cozy offices.
The copy options are standard: you can make as many as 99 copies at once. You can scale copy sizes between 25 percent and 400 percent, using preset or custom values. And you can make 2-on-1, 4-on-1, poster (3x3), and collated copies. Using the control panel, you can always change the output quality.
Your scan-to options on the control panel are scan to e-mail, scan to image, scan to OCR, and scan to file. The scan-to-file option is preconfigured to save the file in your My Pictures folder, but you can reprogram the defaults in the ControlCenter3 utility. In fact, you can initiate a scan using either the physical button on the printer or with the virtual button in ControlCenter, and you can configure each button differently. Supported file formats include TIFF, JPEG, bitmap, PDF, and RTF. If you've inserted a memory card or a USB flash drive, you can scan directly to those targets as well. You can change the scan resolution and decide whether to scan in color or black-and-white. If you scan in black-and-white, the files are saved as TIFFs. If you scan in color, you can choose between PDF and JPEG formats.
The fax options are fairly sophisticated for an inexpensive multifunction. You can save as many as 80 two-digit speed dial number to the address book. Additionally, you can set up groups for fax broadcasts; send delayed faxes; forward received faxes; and set up paging (the machine pages you when it receives a fax), fax storage, fax preview, and PC fax receive. You can also retrieve faxes remotely using a numeric code. If you're concerned about receiving faxes securely, you can turn on memory security. This will store incoming faxes in memory and print them when you enter a passcode. When security is on, you can continue to receive and forward faxes, as well as get paged or retrieve them remotely, but activating secure mode will not let users send faxes or use any of the other functions on the unit.
In addition to the usual fax features, the MFC-685CW has an onboard answering machine and handset so you can use it to make and receive phone calls. It even has a speaker phone for hands-free operation.
Using the memory card slots and PictBridge port, you can print photos from cards, USB flash devices, or PictBridge devices such as digital cameras. The MFC-685CW lets you print all, scroll through the contents of your device or card to select individual files, or sort the contents by date. You can print an index of the contents of your card, but it's not scannable. Instead, the printer assigns file numbers to the images, allowing you to key in the file number to print that particular photo without having to click through all the images. Photo effects include autocorrect, enhance skin tone, enhance scenery, red-eye removal, black-and-white, and sepia. Photos may be trimmed (cropped), too.
Performance
When compared to other $200 office inkjet multifunctions, the Brother MFC-685CW didn't stand out. It was the slowest of the bunch at printing text, producing it at a pokey rate of 2.76 page per minute (ppm). The Canon Pixma MX700 was almost three times faster, scoring 7.41ppm. The Brother came out on top with 4x6 photo prints, scoring 1.30ppm. The Canon was the next fastest with a score of 1.05ppm. The Brother was in the middle for both scan tests, scoring 4.29ppm for mono scans and 3.65ppm for color scans. When copying via the ADF, it scored 2.78ppm; again, in the middle of the pack.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Copy | |
Color scan | |
Mono scan | |
4x6 Photo | |
Text |
Where the Brother MFC-685CW really falters is task quality. The black text prints were nicely dark, but every character showed jagged edges, to the point that text at small point sizes looked downright fuzzy. (We printed on the coated inkjet paper that Brother provided.) The color graphics print exhibited the same issue with fuzzy edges, plus photo elements looked grainy, color blocks weren't as saturated as we like, and the color had an overall dull, dark quality to it.
The grayscale scan showed severe compression on both ends of the grayscale, resulting in washed out details in highlight areas and lost details in shadow areas. The scanner also failed to capture some of the smaller-size text on the original. The color scan was the highlight of the Brother's performance, though it still has room for improvement. The color reproduction was decent, but the entire image was marred by faint horizontal striations, and details in the photo elements could be sharper. Overall, you can definitely get much better quality for $200.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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Color scan | |
GrayScale scan | |
Photo | |
Graphics | |
Text |
Service and support
Brother backs the MFC-685CW with a one-year warranty. Toll-free phone support is available 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET. You can also e-mail tech support via an online form. Brother's site has FAQs, downloadable software and drivers, and user guides and manuals.
User reviews
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Great Machine
by the computer genius on February 6, 2008
Pros: Well built, Scanning feature, software that comes with it, Print quality, Wireless Works great!!!
Cons: Slow speed at High Quality Levels and the Fact it's an Ink Jet.
Summary: I'm in the IT Field and I upgrated to Vista so my old fashion scanner went bye bye. The space in my bedroom is limited. I first brought the ...
Summary: I'm in the IT Field and I upgrated to Vista so my old fashion scanner went bye bye. The space in my bedroom is limited. I first brought the lexmark (some 6000 series) first thing I didn't like was when you wanted to hook it wirlessly it wanted you to use a usb cable I also didn't like how it was built. The price was fine.
I knew to stay away from HP because of there software issues, so It was either a Canon or Brother. I would prefere the cannon but they don't make a wireless one so I went with this printer.
Software is great it comes with paperport. Awsum software, I have 3 computers at home and it links all the time weather it's vista or xp. The Scanning is great the pictures are great. I do compaire them to my Canon IP4300 and unless you squint you can't tell the difference. However the cannon is faster. The cannon maybe has a 1% better quality difference (if you set it on hight like you should on both of them.
This is the best ************ I've owned. it has everything a slot for a camera card fax Telephone printer and scanner. Yes standalones are generally better (but you really can't tell the difference with this one. In fact the scanner beats the hell out of my old vissioneer paperport 7100 Excllent machine.3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Print Quality Failure- Black wouldn't print
by lookny on January 10, 2008
Pros: Don't know- didn't get past setup
Cons: Poor Print Quality at Setup- Poor Support
Summary: Didn't get past setup as unit wouldn't effectively print in black. Had missing lines- and attempted over 20 times. Bought new black ink cartridge, but still wouldn't ...
Summary: Didn't get past setup as unit wouldn't effectively print in black. Had missing lines- and attempted over 20 times. Bought new black ink cartridge, but still wouldn't print black effectively. Printed document- and has missing letters in the document. Not good- Poor Customer support. Didn't keep record of my call, and wanted me to redo all previous steps. I returned to Staples, which they were very helpful.
3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Very nice all in one
by techie shopper on November 21, 2007
Pros: Everything works as it should
Cons: None so far
Summary: I've been so pleased with my Brother MFC-420cn that I just had to get another Brother. I keep the old one on the main floor in our kitchen and ...
Summary: I've been so pleased with my Brother MFC-420cn that I just had to get another Brother. I keep the old one on the main floor in our kitchen and this new MFC-685cw in our upstairs office.
Install is amazingly smooth - With a suite that includes so many features, it just seems that something would go wrong - But it didn't. I've got it hard-wired on the network and installed the client software on 4 desktops and a laptop. As I said the installs were painless.
More about the printer. The quality and speed are great - Don't let some of the speed specs fool you - This thing is FAST at normal settings. I bought an epson once based on speed specs...Got it home (the Epson) and found that I had to put it in some kind of ultra rough draft mode to achieve the advertised ppm - Yes, then it was fast, but I never used that setting as it looked so terrible.
This brother is easy paper/envelope handling, easy ink, nice big display - user friendly software, user friendly menus.
Quick, affordable, fairly quiet (no banging at least - some printers sound like they're about to print their last sheet).
Brother has an easy to navigate support area at their website.
I highly recommend this printer.3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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This is no Brother of mine
by beezley2 on January 11, 2008
Pros: Didn't catch fire
Cons: Most unreliable
Summary: Everything from poor print quality to inconsistent printing and jamming put this printer on my worst list. I have never had a more frustrating experience in my life.
Also, print ...Summary: Everything from poor print quality to inconsistent printing and jamming put this printer on my worst list. I have never had a more frustrating experience in my life.
Also, print cartridges constantly got "low ink" or "replace" warnings for no reason.
This one's a real stink bomb.2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Better buy a good printer
by sagawal on October 2, 2009
Pros: There are 9 features packed into 1. Wireless feature is nice, The scan feature is good too.
Cons: Extremely poor print quality. You can visibly notice coarse pixels. Even with gray; it mixes colors to create black print. Color ink goes away in huffy; so next time your color inks are gone - it won't print black at all (it was full in my case).
Summary: I am extremely disappointed on the quality of print. I think I wasted my money.
Summary: I am extremely disappointed on the quality of print. I think I wasted my money.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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GREAT VALUE!
by vpogi on June 19, 2008
Pros: MULTI FUNCTIONS IN ONE SMALL CENTER
Cons: PRINTING SPEED COULD BE BETTER
Summary: Great all around performance. Great design and feel, easy to use, great fax and scanner, print quality is very good, printing speed is medium to good. Love the wireless connectivity!
Summary: Great all around performance. Great design and feel, easy to use, great fax and scanner, print quality is very good, printing speed is medium to good. Love the wireless connectivity!
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Love It, Love it, Love It!
by breathe3 on January 17, 2008
Pros: Great printing, Great support!
Cons: Machine is heavy.
Summary: I have waited and waited to see reviews on this machine before I bought it. I did alot of research first but decided to take the plunge! I was very ...
Summary: I have waited and waited to see reviews on this machine before I bought it. I did alot of research first but decided to take the plunge! I was very surprised at how heavy the printer is as no other printer weighs as much as this but, I guess because all the features they have packed in, it is heavy. It still has a small footprint and low profile. I took it out of box and put in ink cartridges and set up paper cartridge
I am fairly technical so as I went to connect to two wireless laptops. I found the insructions cumbersome and too lengthy. I gave up fairly early, thank goodness and called 1-877-BROTHER. It was Christmas eve morning. A gentleman asked about my registration and as soon as he took my information he transferred me to a delightful woman in Memphis, Tennessee. She had my printer hooked up flawlessly to two wireless laptops in 20 minutes. I had to find my WEP password so she could get in. It would have taken her less time if she weren't working with me. I couldn't believe how easy it was and I wanted to make sure that it was right. They have both worked perfectly.
PROS I love the fact that I can at any time, print something out. It prints beautifully and quickly.
I also love the paper cartridge like a copy machine as opposed to as Lexmark, which I have always loved in the past, where they are flapping out the back and getting dusty. Also this machine is 6,000 dpi instead of 4,800 for the Lexmark.
The display is beautiful and easy to use.
I scanned a written document and wasn't sure
how to put it in a word document so I called 1-877-BROTHER and they told me to go into tools and configure for Word. Great support. I had a Brother fax for 15 years and I finally did something to it so I got dark lines on it but I knew Brother products were great.
Also, I read in my research that it is best to buy Brother ink cartridges since the heads are on the printer and the generic ink can ruin the print heads. But I have found the black for 16.88 and color for 11.88. But I'm sure on the internet you can find them for less. Also paid $138.00 for printer.
There is a cartidge inside for 4x6 pictures
that is easy to use.
Stand alone fax and picture printer!
I got a new camera for Christmas so looking forward to printing pictures.
Well I hope this helped. Enjoy!1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Great for a small business
by John10 on December 30, 2007
Pros: Works as advertised, this AIO has what you need.
Cons: Printing a bit slow
Summary: After 3 weeks for use I find that his AIO works great. It is true that the print speed is a bit slow. The AIO has all the necessary feature ...
Summary: After 3 weeks for use I find that his AIO works great. It is true that the print speed is a bit slow. The AIO has all the necessary feature that you look for as a reasonable price. I use this wirelessly and is was no problem at all to set up for my Apple system, as for the PC in the house, I had to upgrade to SP2 for XP to get the wireless to work. I work recommend this product.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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This can not print in B&W if the color ink is empty
by jdc2010 on October 20, 2009
Pros: Low price and decent quality printouts
Cons: If the color print cartridges run out you can not print in black and white. Thus you have to buy all 3 color cartridges if they run out and they are not cheap. This is the case even if your black ink is full. There is no B&W only mode.
Summary: I was really dissapointed when I found out that you can not print in black and white even if the black cartridge is full. I really needed to use the ...
Summary: I was really dissapointed when I found out that you can not print in black and white even if the black cartridge is full. I really needed to use the printer one day and there is no way to get it to print . I bought extra black cartridges as I figure why do I need color printouts of google directions/maps etc. I guess they would never put that fact on the box or I don't think anyone would buy it. I would recommend getting a model that allows you to print black and white when you have a full cartridge.
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Feature Rich Mulitpurpose Printer, with flaws
by jqturnerCNET on January 14, 2009
Pros: I love the set of features in this printer. Scanner quality is outstanding
Cons: In addition to the slow high quality printing mentioned by other reviews here, the other flaws are its printing process paper feed mechanism and its fax/copy paper feed mechanism.
Summary: Brother just didn't get it right when the designed the paper feeding mechanisms. Every 5-15 feeds it picks up 2 sheets instead of one. This flaw makes it totally ...
Summary: Brother just didn't get it right when the designed the paper feeding mechanisms. Every 5-15 feeds it picks up 2 sheets instead of one. This flaw makes it totally unreliable for double sided printing where there are page numbers. I have to do all my double sided printing of page numbered documents, manuals, etc jobs on other printers. The multi-page fax feeding mechanism works most of the time with some extra effort.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Brother International
- Part number: MFC685CW
- Description: This All-in-One offers a unique, low-profile design, without sacrificing a 10-page ADF. It combines a convenient frontloading paper tray with a wide flip-up 3.3" color LCD, Ethernet and wireless (802.11b/g) network as well as USB Direct Interface. The MFC-685cw also includes the Message Center feature, a telephone handset and a full-duplex speakerphone.
General
- Copier Type Digital
- Fax Type Plain paper
- Printing Technology Ink-jet - Color - Photo printer
- Monthly Duty Cycle (max) 2500 impressions
- Display Diagonal Size 3.3"
- Office Machine Features Print from memory card
- Width 15.7 in
- Depth 14.6 in
- Height 7.1 in
- Weight 18.5 lbs
Memory
- Standard Memory 32 MB
- Supported Flash Memory CompactFlash, Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, SD Memory Card, USB flash drive, xD-Picture Card, Memory Stick Pro
Copying
- Max Copying Speed up to 22 pages/min (mono) / up to 20 pages/min (color)
- Max Copying Resolution up to 1200 x 1200 dpi (mono) / up to 1200 x 600 dpi (color)
- Gray Scale Half-Tones 256
- Max Document Enlargement 400 %
- Max Document Reduction 25 %
- Maximum Copies 99
- Automatic Duplexing None
- Copying Features 2 on 1, 4 on 1
Printing
- Max Printing Resolution up to 6000 x 1200 dpi (mono) / up to 6000 x 1200 dpi (color)
- Max Printing Speed up to 30 pages/min (mono) / up to 25 pages/min (color)
- Ink Cartridge Configuration 4 cartridges (1 each: cyan, magenta, yellow, black)
- Ink Palette Supported (Colors) Cyan, magenta, yellow, black
- Color 4-ink
- Minimum Ink Droplet Size 1.5 pl
- Ink Type Brother Innobella ink
Scanning
- Scan Element CIS
- Optical Resolution 600 x 2400 dpi
- Interpolated Resolution 19200 x 19200 dpi
- Gray Scale Depth 8 bit
- Color Depth 24 bit
- Color Depth (Internal) 36 bit
Fax Machine
- Compatibility G3
- Max Transmission Speed 14.4 Kbps
- Data Compression System MH, MR, MMR, JPEG
- Total Memory Capacity 480 pages
- Handset Corded handset
- PC Faxing Yes
Fax Machine Features
- Broadcast Transmission 210 stations
- Remote Fax Retrieval (Polling) Yes
- Features Fax forwarding, Automatic redialing
Document & Media Handling
- Min Original Size 5.8 in x 5.8 in
- Max Original Size Legal (8.5 in x 14 in)
- Original Type Sheets
- Document Feeder Capacity 10 sheets
- Max Copy Size Legal (8.5 in x 14 in)
- Standard Media Capacity 100 sheets
- Bypass Feeder Capacity 20 sheets
- Output Trays Capacity 50 sheets
- Document & Media Handling Details ADF - 10 sheets size: 5.8 in x 5.8 in - Legal (8.5 in x 14 in), Input tray - 100 sheets, Output tray - 50 sheets, Bypass tray - 20 sheets - 4 in x 6 in
- Speed Details Printing : up to 30 pages/min - B/W, Printing : up to 25 pages/min - Color, Copying : up to 22 pages/min - B/W, Copying : up to 20 pages/min - Color
PC Connectivity
- PC Connection Availability Yes
- PC Connection USB, USB host, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Ethernet 10 Base-T/100 Base-TX
- Network Protocols TCP/IP
- Security Protocols & Features WEP, WPA, WPA2, WPA-PSK
- Operating System Support MS Windows XP, MS Windows 2000, MS Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS X 10.2.4 or later, MS Windows Vista (64-bit versions), MS Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
- Software Included Drivers & utilities, Presto! PageManager, ScanSoft PaperPort SE
Miscellaneous
- Direct Printing Specifications DPOF, PictBridge
- Included Accessories Scansoft PaperPort
- Microsoft Certifications Compatible with Windows 7
Manufacturer Warranty
- Service & Support 1 year warranty
Environmental Parameters
- Sound Emission 50 dB (operating)
- Min Operating Temperature 50 °F
- Max Operating Temperature 104 °F
- Humidity Range Operating 20 - 80%
Answering Machine
- Answering system type Digital
- Recording Capacity 29 min
CNET Labs' Benchmarks
- CNET Labs Color Scanning Speed Test (pages per minute) 3.65
- CNET Labs Gray Scale Scanning Speed Test (pages per minute) 4.29
- CNET Labs Photo Speed Test (pages per minute) 1.3
- CNET Labs Presentation Speed Test (pages per minute) 2.62
- CNET Labs Printer Graphics Speed Test (pages per minute) 1.99
- CNET Labs Text Speed Test (pages per minute) 2.76
Accessories
Manufacturer info
- Brother International
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Brother International products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.brother.com/
- Address:
100 Somerset Corporate Blvd.
Bridgewater, NJ 08807 - Phone: 908/704-1700
