Brother MFC-J3520 Review
https://www.rise.company/forum/clear.gif
Highlights Rs. 25,693 https://www.rise.company/forum/image...mazonpng-1.jpg
Pros
- • Great print quality
• Low hubbub
• Compact
Cons
- • Tray design needs a rethink
• Empty tray a sin
Brother J3520 is a compact wide format printer, high on print quality. But it needs to get easy on its printing ways.
Introduction Inkjet is one versatile printing technology that has been evolving since long. Not only can it deliver good quality at low costs, but can be easily moulded for use in various forms-be it page wide or wide format. Brother J3520 is one such A3 documenting solution that uses Inkjet technology for wide format. A3 is the maximum size it can print- which is almost double the size of an A4; that can be used to create bigger prints, posters or folded down to make brochures, greeting cards and stuff. The quality is what you will expect from a decent inkjet-clean and sharp. Add to that a scanner, a Fax machine and a host of connectivity and software controlled printing features, accompanied by every high end inkjet MFP of today; the J3520 seems a great package at Rs 25,999.
Design and built Page handling on a compact wide format printer needs a serious design insight; especially when it’s compact. And J3520 is only slightly bigger than an A4 printer, which makes it a desk-space saver. It has an ADF at the top which is also a flap for the A3 scanner bed
. The 35 sheet ADF peacefully scans batch of A3, B4, LGR or A3 documents kept on the ADF tray that folds down to cover the feeder when not in use, providing space to keep tea or documents. An adjustable control panel resides up front, having a 2.7” color touchscreen and capacitive buttons that flash beside the screen only when required. The buttons are a chic number keypad, back and home keys; a blue Wi-Fi sign glows on the bottom right corner.
Leverage areas for lifting the scanner assemble are cut on both of the printer body. Opening them carries a surprise you might be witnessing first time in your life. Below the scanner assembly reside the printer connections. Want to add a LAN connection, raise the scanner assembly; want to add FAX cables, raise the scanner assembly; want to troubleshoot connection problems raise…. And if the printer was out of paper last time you gave a print command, raise it again. Input tray at the bottom comes out in two stops and stays in two modes-normal and extended. It’s topped with a flap that acts as the output bay. Paper doesn’t stay if the output tray isn’t extended to catch flap. Extending the tray is easy, flap above pulled out to cover it. When putting it back, the best way we found was to pull the whole tray out (it’s not attached from inside) shorten it, and the flap; join them together and slide the whole thing back in. Otherwise, the flap doesn’t have enough room to be lifted, so the 250- page tray be shortened-the flap be shortened-and-joined back without pulling out.
And it’s not just and A4 or an A3 paper it can take. J3520 supports a variety of page sizes A5, A6, Folio, Exe, 4X6″, Index Card, C5 Envelope, DL Envelope, Monarch, LGR and more. The single sheet bypass tray at the back helps. Beside the I/O trays, the cartridge bay resides on right and pen-drive and memory card slots on left, gated properly using flaps.
Features- Fax to PC
with the bundled software provided with the printer, the computer can not only receive scans wirelessly, but also receive/end Fax. This comes as a great help when your Facsimiles are too many or you need a soft copy of it. And if not, at least you will be saving on paper selecting, clubbing, and eliminating the right things. - Wireless direct printing
A norm with most printer nowadays, J3520 can connect wirelessly to mobile devices for a print. It can connect with network connected to internet which allows remote printing using Google print. To do this without fuss, Brother iPrint&Scan app is available for Apple and Android based devices. - Print from media card/USB
J3520 is loaded with great many options on this one. It can scan in various file formats (including OCR text that can be edited) on to a pen drive; print photos from SD/SD MMC and directly select page size and type. Since the printer is fully capable to print stunning borderless photos, this comes as a handy option for printing directly from the camera card. - Power and paper savings
Brother J3520 is loaded with automatic duplexing that helps save paper and disposes Fax as soft copies to computer aiding to keep a tab on paper trash. The EnergyStar qualified printer less than 30W of power in run time and 1.5W on sleep.
Speed and cost per page J3520 spec sheet mentions a print speed of 22/20 pages per minute (ppm). That is on the ISO/IEC standards. A “wholly text” page practically takes around 5-7 seconds apart from the first print, that would take anywhere between half a minute to 2. A4 borderless printing takes good 3-4 minutes and an A3 color poster could take anywhere 5-15 minutes depending on quality and content spread. This brings us to cost page which would obviously vary heavily. The printer ships with a set of super high yield cartridges that would cost you below Rs3500. According to the total page yields of these cartridges (6000), the cpp comes out to be Rs 0.58. Practically the deviation is not much on black but A4 photo printing could be anywhere go as high as Rs60 as the color ink levels dropped nearly 3%. A color document with 5% spread would have a CPP of Rs 3.5 (approx.).
Print quality and control The J3520 uses four ink (CYMB) system for precise creation of required color. Brother Innobella ink, as it is named after its trademarked technology, is claimed fade resistant (especially with ‘Innobella paper’) and to have a ‘wide color gamut’ for creating more natural colors. We did find the text sharp indeed, and the photos running for the accurate and certainly a notch better than what we found on the HP 7612, which already capable to spit decent quality photos. In fact, print quality on Brother J3520 is its biggest strength and an important factor in making it a deal. The wide format HP 7612 we compared it with gives decent quality and unless compared it’s difficult to say good for one. J3520 creates an accurate and vivid mix of colors.
Final Verdict Brother MFC-J3520 is a cost-effective solution to your A3 print, copy, scan and Fax needs. Its four ink system works to create great quality prints. If quality matters the most to you, overlooking some petty issues or not counting its empty tray problem as a serious one, then the J3520 is a highly recommended product. It’s bestowed with latest connectivity possibilities and has an advance enough firmware to be tagged new-age, but needs to come clear on printing. Otherwise you will find the HP interface to be slightly better and Epson ink tank printers to be cheaper in running costs.
General Model Number
MFC J3520
Printer Type Printer Type
Ink Jet Printer
Home / Office
Home Printer
Color / Black and White
Color Printer
Function
Print
Paper Size
A4, A5, A6, B5
Paper Handling Input Tray
250 Page
Output Tray
50 Page
System Requirements Windows
Windows: XP, XP x64, Vista, 7, 8, Server 2003, 2003 R2, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012
Macintosh
Mac OS X: v10.6.x, 10.7.x, 10.8.x
Print speed Black
22ppm
Color
20ppm
First Page Out (Ready) Black
3 Sec
Color
3 Sec
Specification Weight
14.5 kg
Display
2.7 inch Touchscreen Color LCD with Touch Sensitive Controls
Memory
128 MB
Connectivity
USB/Wifi/Ethernet Support
