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Brother has definitely solved the problem of landscape-orientated paper feeds curling the paper. Print-outs from the Brother MFC-J4510DW are as flat as those from any desktop inkjet printer - in fact, they're flatter than most.
Our 20-page test document printed perfectly, without a hint of a curl or crease. Nor did it suffer that wavy texture that curses some printers' outputs, caused by the paper pausing as it goes through the rollers.
You can't fault the Brother MFC-J4510DW for text speed either. The aforementioned 20-page test document printed in one minute, 13 seconds, which is an excellent result for an inkjet printer.
Image printing was less speedy. A standard quality photo print on plain A4 paper printed in 43 seconds. Using photo paper and the corresponding printer setting, an A4 photo printed in two minutes, nine seconds. These speeds are about average.
The quality of the Brother MFC-J4510DW's text printing is workmanlike; it gets the job done with few significant faults, but without the style and panache you'd get from a Canon inkjet or HP Officejet.
Bold type lacks the vivid quality of the market-leading inkjets, and the characters tend to bleed a little around the edges. Text gets very flaky at low point sizes. That's not to say it's poor - it's serviceable and readable, but put it next to some of its rivals, and it looks a little tired.
Image quality was a mixed bag. An A4 photo print on plain paper at default settings proved very disappointing, with washed out colours, weak detail and a distinct green hue in the greyscale ramp.
Using proper photo paper and the appropriate printer settings (which are based on the paper used rather than any sort of quality scale), it's much better. Colours are vibrant and accurate, and despite a little speckling, the overall standard is very good for a four-tank inkjet system.
As a photocopier, the controls are easy to use and its scaling features are comprehensive.
Copying a magazine cover in A4 produced a reasonable (if a little speckled) print, but when scaling it up to A3, the print-out was cursed by a horizontal band running across the image every couple of inches. This band also marred some A4 documents printed from PDF.
Like many Brother printers, connection cabling such as Ethernet and USB leads pass under the lid of the printer and into its body before being plugged in, so make sure your lead is at least a couple of feet longer than you imagine you need.
