Brother MFC-L2690DW All In One: In-Depth Review and User Opinions

The Brother MFC-L2690DW is an affordable all-in-one monochrome laser printer designed for small offices and home offices. It combines printing, copying, scanning and faxing into a single compact device. This allows users to handle all of their document management tasks from one machine.

The MFC-L2690DW is part of Brother's line of feature-rich monochrome laser printers. It is designed to deliver fast print speeds, high quality output, robust paper handling and connectivity options. The 2-line LCD display offers intuitive menu navigation and control.

Overall, the MFC-L2690DW provides an excellent balance of performance, features and value in an all-in-one monochrome laser designed for personal and small business users looking for a reliable, easy-to-use device. This review will take a closer look at the key strengths and weaknesses of this multi-function printer.

Design and Build

The Brother MFC-L2690DW all-in-one printer has a space-saving design with modest dimensions of 16.1 x 16.1 x 12.2 inches and a weight of 25.4 pounds. Despite its compact size, it has a sturdy plastic construction that feels solid. The printer features a clean, professional look with a matte black finish that will blend into most home or office settings.

The top of the printer provides access to a 30-sheet automatic document feeder for scanning and copying multi-page documents. The front houses a 2.7" color LCD touchscreen to manage all functions. The input paper tray sits on the front bottom and can hold up to 250 sheets of letter or legal-sized paper. Overall the brother has a fairly standard all-in-one printer design that emphasizes function over flair. While not the sleekest model, it takes up minimal space without appearing cheap or flimsy.

Print Speed and Quality

The Brother MFC-L2690DW offers fast print speeds for both text and graphics. It can print up to 33 pages per minute for monochrome text documents. For documents with a mix of text and graphics, the print speed is approximately 15 pages per minute.

For print quality, the MFC-L2690DW has a maximum print resolution of up to 2400 x 600 dpi. This produces sharp and clear text, even at small font sizes. Graphics and images also print cleanly with good detail. The high print resolution allows you to produce professional quality documents from this home office printer.

Overall, the print speeds are fast enough for most home office needs. And the print resolution provides excellent text clarity and graphic quality for both business documents and photos.

Copy and Scan Features

The Brother MFC-L2690DW all-in-one printer offers fast copy speeds and high-quality scans.

When copying documents, you can make single-sided copies at speeds up to 21 pages per minute. For two-sided copies, the speed is a bit slower at 10 images per minute, but still reasonably fast for a home office printer.

The automatic document feeder can hold up to 20 pages, allowing you to easily copy multi-page documents without having to manually feed each page.

For scanning, the MFC-L2690DW can scan at up to 600 x 600 dpi using the flatbed scanner or 50-sheet ADF. This high resolution allows you to capture fine details in photos and graphics. You can save scans directly to your computer or to a USB thumb drive inserted into the printer.

The printer also supports scanning to popular cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and more. The 2.7" color touchscreen provides an intuitive interface for managing scan jobs.

Overall, the copy and scan capabilities of the Brother MFC-L2690DW are robust for an all-in-one printer in this price range. The fast speeds and high resolution will meet the needs of most home office users.

Connectivity

The Brother MFC-L2690DW offers both wired and wireless connectivity options. It has built-in Ethernet and wireless 802.11b/g/n network interfaces that allow you to connect the printer to your network or directly to a computer.

For wired connectivity, the printer has a 10Base-T/100Base-TX Ethernet port located on the back. Simply connect an Ethernet cable from the printer to your router or switch. This provides a reliable and fast wired network connection.

For wireless connectivity, the printer supports Wi-Fi standards 802.11b/g/n. You can connect it directly to your WiFi network by entering your network name and password on the printer's control panel. It's easy to set up and maintain a wireless connection, providing the flexibility to place the printer anywhere within range of your wireless network.

The printer also supports Wi-Fi Direct, which allows you to connect your mobile devices directly to the printer without a wireless router. This allows for convenient wireless printing directly from smartphones and tablets.

Overall, the wired and wireless connectivity options on the Brother MFC-L2690DW provide the flexibility to integrate the printer into your preferred network setup.

Paper Handling

The Brother MFC-L2690DW has a built-in 250-sheet paper tray that can handle letter, legal, and A4 size paper. It also has a single-sheet manual feed slot for envelopes, custom sizes, or heavier paper stocks.

Some key paper handling capabilities include:

• 250-sheet main paper tray capacity
• Manual feed slot for 1 sheet
• Supports paper sizes up to 8.5" x 14"
• Paper weights from 17 lb bond to 28 lb bond supported
• Envelope printing supported in manual feed slot

The main paper tray is adjustable, allowing you to use letter or legal sized paper. For higher volume printing, an optional 500-sheet paper tray can be added on for a total capacity of 750 sheets.

Overall the paper handling of the MFC-L2690DW is very flexible for home office use. The manual feed slot allows you to easily print envelopes or special media like cardstock when needed. Just be aware the standard capacity is 250 sheets - fine for moderate use but you may need to refill the paper more often compared to printers with higher tray capacities.

User Interface

The MFC-L2690DW has an easy-to-use 2.7" color touchscreen LCD display. The intuitive interface allows you to navigate menus and select options with just a few taps.

The control panel is well-laid out with buttons for the home screen, back, cancel, contacts, and settings. There are also dedicated buttons to access copy, scan, and fax functions quickly. Numeric keypad makes it easy to dial fax numbers or enter copy counts.

Overall, the user interface is responsive and user-friendly. The menu system is logically organized so you can find settings quickly. The LCD screen is bright and easy to read. The buttons have a nice tactile feel when pressed. Even users who don't have much experience with printers should have no issues navigating the interface and using the various functions.

Cartridges and Consumables

The Brother MFC-L2690DW uses a high-yield 5,000-page black toner cartridge (TN-730) that helps keep operational costs low. The actual page yield will vary depending on the type of images printed and usage conditions, but you can generally expect to get high value out of each toner cartridge.

The printer also comes with a starter toner cartridge that yields around 1,000 pages. This allows you to get started with initial setup and printing right out of the box.

Replacement high-yield toner cartridges (TN-730) cost around $50-70 each. So the cost per page works out to be less than 1 cent, which is very economical for a monochrome laser printer.

In terms of drum life, the included drum unit is rated to last for up to 18,000 pages. This means the drum won't need replacing nearly as often as the toner itself. Replacement drum units (DR-730) cost approximately $70 each.

Overall, the combination of a high-page yield toner cartridge and long-life drum helps minimize ongoing supply costs with the MFC-L2690DW. The user-replaceable consumables are conveniently available from Brother and most printer suppliers.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Fast black and white printing speeds up to 24ppm
• Automatic 2-sided printing
• 250-sheet paper capacity
• Supports mobile and cloud printing
• Scans to searchable PDF
• Large 2.7" color touchscreen
• Easy to set up and use

Cons

• No color printing capability
• Maximum monthly duty cycle of 15,000 pages
• Smaller paper capacity than some competing models
• Lacks advanced scanning features like OCR
• No USB thumb drive support
• No fax capability

The Brother MFC-L2690DW is a reasonably priced monochrome laser all-in-one printer aimed at home offices and small businesses. It offers fast print speeds, automatic duplexing, and the ability to print from and scan to mobile devices. The touchscreen interface is intuitive, and setup is straightforward. On the downside, this model lacks color printing, has a relatively small duty cycle, and misses out on some convenient features like USB thumb drive support. But overall, it's a solid, budget-friendly option for those seeking an affordable monochrome laser all-in-one.

Conclusion

The Brother MFC-L2690DW is an excellent all-in-one printer for home offices and small businesses looking for a reliable monochrome laser printer with fast print speeds, a robust feature set, and flexible connectivity options.

With print speeds up to 33ppm, automatic 2-sided printing, a 35-sheet auto document feeder for scanning and copying multipage documents, and support for wireless networking, USB, Ethernet, and connecting multiple users through its built-in print server, the MFC-L2690DW offers productivity and convenience.

The 2.7" LCD touchscreen provides intuitive menu navigation and previews of scans and copies. Paper handling is also flexible with the 250-sheet main tray, plus 50-sheet multipurpose tray.

Print quality is excellent with crisp and detailed text even at small sizes, and the high-yield replacement toner cartridge keeps costs low.

Overall, the MFC-L2690DW provides robust capabilities for both home and office use at an affordable price point. It's a great choice for those seeking an all-in-one monochrome laser printer with fast, high-quality printing and versatile paper handling and connectivity.