News
Buyer's Guide: The Best Monitors 
Brother DCP-365CN
| Caractéristiques | |||
| Resolution | 6000 x 1 200 dpi | ||
| Speed B&W / color | 33 ppm / 27 ppm | ||
| Ink drop size | 1.5 pl | ||
| Number of cartridges | 4 | ||
| Number of base colors | 4 | ||
 Show all specifications
|
|||
| Scanner | yes |
| Copier | yes |
| Fax | no |
| WiFi | no |
 Hide specifications | |
Marine Goy
Test date: April 13, 2010
Test date: April 13, 2010
First Page: 50 seconds
In theory, 50 seconds is about average for waking up a printer. However, if you compare that to some of the printers we've tested recently, including those that get this figure down to just 29 seconds, than it seems a lot longer. 23 seconds to produce the first page after switching it on is much closer to what we've seen on rival models. 21 seconds to produce the first page is pretty standard.
HardwareAll of Brother's printers share a relatively similar base, and only the exterior changes from one model to the next. This multifunction inkjet printer is a member of their new range for 2010.
It's very much an entry-level option, but comes with separate ink cartridges, a single line 16-character black-and-white LCD display and an Ethernet port. The feature list includes printing, scanning, copying and reading files straight from a memory card. It might not be very easy on the eye, but it's light and has a small footprint. The cartridges are easily accessible on the right hand side, and are available by simply opening a flap.
Direct access to the cartridges
Why not get rid of all of these buttons and use a touchscreen interface instead?
Speed: slowBrother's tech specs claim that this printer can reach 33 pages per minute in black and white, but we only managed 4 ppm, around a third slower than similar products from other manufacturers like Canon. Printing speeds are the same in colour (4.3 ppm) and black and white (4.4 ppm). They go up to 22 ppm in draft photo.
Brother's tech specs claim that this printer can reach 33 pages per minute in black and white, but we only managed 4 ppm, around a third slower than similar products from other manufacturers like Canon. Printing speeds are the same in colour (4.3 ppm) and black and white (4.4 ppm). They go up to 22 ppm in draft photo.
Quality: better at photos than documentsLike all of Brother's multifunction inkiest, the 365CN has four separate ink cartridges, but printing office documents isn't their strong point. Documents have less detail than those produced by the competition: the colours are less lively, there isn't enough contrast and the ink drops remain visible. We'd give it two stars for office printing.
.jpg)
Compare the Brother 365 with the Canon Pixma MP650 in our Product Face-Off
Although it's far from perfect, photo printing is much better, both in colour and black and white. It gets four stars because, even if the colours are rather dull, photos are clear and sharp.
Energy Consumption & Noise LevelsThe Brother 365CN uses 12 W while printing and 2 W while on standby. These are absolutely standard figures for an inkjet printer, and a long way short of what you'd expect from a laser printer, which can sometimes reach 1200 W!
Although it's given as 50 dB in the spec, we only measured noise levels of 45 dB, which is very quiet.
Scanner & Copier
.jpg)
The scanner can produce digital versions of your documents at average speeds, but once again, the figures that Brother puts forward in its spec don't live up to what we measured in the lab. Using our test document, a preview took 14 seconds.A full scan of a 4 x 6'' photo at 300 dpi takes 12 seconds, and twice that (24 s) at 1200 dpi. A4 documents take 19 s at 300 dpi.
Now, the next part is interesting because it shows just why you can't always rely on numbers and measurements. The colour discrepancies across the whole spectrum are just 5%. Great: this is a fast scanner and the colours are accurate. Except that when we looked at our scans, we really didn't like the quality that was on offer. Look at the sample on the right. To put it simply, we felt like we were going from a photo with millions of different shades in the original, at the top, to a scan with just 256 colours at the bottom. What happens is that the scanner chooses the closest possible colour, which is why it does well on the colour discrepancy test, but it loses a lot of nuances, especially in gradients, and the whole thing is less detailed. Individual lines look less sharp, as if the file has been over compressed. That's exactly what happens, and that means that this will be a standby scanner, only really useful for making copies, which it's perfectly good at.
.jpg)
Black and white copies take 25 seconds, but colour takes almost twice as long at 42 s.
Cost per pageThe Brother DCP-365CN comes with standard-sized cartridges, and unfortunately, there are no XL versions available for this printer. Using them, the cost per page is 8.7 p.
ISO lifespan test for text documents
Pluses
-
Small footprint
-
Quiet
-
Doesn't use much energy while printing: just 12 W
-
Ethernet port
Minuses
-
Slow for printing office documents and photos
-
Poor quality office documents
-
No XL cartridges available
-
No WiFi or double-sided printing
The main advantage of this printer is the offer of a network port on an entry-level multifunction. If you're after a connected printer, though, we much prefer the MFC-295CN, which also has a fax machine and a document loader and is not much more expensive.
Pick your rival…
