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Decked out predominately in black, and box-shaped with rounded corners, the DCP-J562DW is a new addition to Brother’s range of multi-function devices for the home user.  Combining an A4 flatbed scanner with an inkjet printer, the DCP-J562DW offers print, copy and scan facilities with a choice of wireless or USB connectivity plus support for various remote print services such as Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print and Brother’s own free iPrint&Scan app.

Of average size, with dimensions of 400 x 341 x 181mm (W x D x H) and weighing 7.3kg, this product is probably best suited to a home office environment rather than the living room.  Adopting the de rigueur arrangement of the flatbed scanner placed on top of the inkjet scanner, this unit is then supported by a removable paper input tray.  With a capacity of 100 sheets of up to A4 paper size, this paper tray has an integrated photo tray element which can contain up to 20 sheets of photographic paper.  A drop-down single sheet manual feed slot, located on the rear of the unit, can be used for those occasions when a single sheet of special paper is required for a specific job.

See also: Multifunction printers

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Located midway between the scanner and printer units on the front of the device is a control panel that can be adjusted to various angles for improved visibility – a useful feature as I found it hard to make out the display when viewed in direct sunlight.  Centrally positioned on this control panel is a 6.8cm colour touch screen which does require a certain amount of pressure in order to activate its features.  This touch screen provides access to the features of scan, copy and photo printing plus settings and feedback regarding ink cartridge levels.  To the right of the screen are touch-sensitive buttons for Power, Home and Back options plus a bright red “X” to cancel an operation along with an icon indicating WiFi status if implemented.

Positioned either side of the control panel are two compartments concealed behind drop-down covers.  On the left is the media compartment with slots for inserting SD or MMC memory cards containing photographic images for printing.  The right-hand compartment houses the four inkjet cartridges covering black, yellow, magenta and cyan required by the printer.  You will need to insert the supplied cartridges as part of the initial setting up of this multi-function device.

The setting up procedure includes opting for the appropriate language and entering the current date and time.  Once the presence of the four cartridges has been recognised then an automatic test sheet will be printed and you can move on to the software element.

You are given a choice of WiFi or USB connectivity with a host computer.  Despite the software giving the indication that this should be possible via the computer, there was a failure to detect the presence of the printer by the software.  It was not until I established the WiFi connection from the Brother unit direct to my router that the software recognised the presence of the printer and the software installation could proceed to install the software elements consisting of Brother ControlCenter4 and Nuance Paperport 14SE with OCR.

The flatbed A4 scanner has a resolution of 1200 x 2400 dpi optical and up to 19200 dpi interpolated.  Scans can be sent direct to the printer in photocopy mode, as an email attachment, Web service or the host computer.  Speed of operations for scans worked out between 3 and 4 seconds for monochrome and between 4 and 5 seconds when colour is involved.

The print driver supplied with this multi-function device offers a choice of Best, Normal or Fast print quality mode in either portrait or landscape orientation.  Using my standard 101-word document in monochrome and again with colour and an additional image produced the page speeds listed below using the different print qualities.

While print quality in Fast mode would be suitable for internal use, I would be happy to use either Normal or Best for other tasks with Best being reserved for job that were not time sensitive.  For longer documents you can save on paper with automatic Duplex printing by turning on the appropriate option from the Print dialogue box.

Printing photos from CD media using the built-in PhotoCapture Centre facility was not particularly quick.  A 10 x 15cm image took 2 minutes 46 seconds while an A4 image required 6 minutes 43 seconds to be completed.  You will also need to adjust the paper input tray when using the integrated photo tray element.  Image quality was reasonable.

Speed issues aside with regards to photo printing, the DPC-J562DW produced reasonable results.  The unit is priced at £103.20 with replacing inkjet cartridges costing £16.79 for black and £9.59 for each of the three colours.

http://www.brother.co.uk/printers/inkjet-printers/dcpj562dw