Phone Unit Separates From Brother Industries' Multifunctional Printer

Sept 1, 2010 13:17 Tetsuo Nozawa, Nikkei Electronics

Brother Industries Ltd and its subsidiary, Brother Sales Ltd, announced 11 new models of the "Mymio" multifunctional ink-jet printer Aug 31, 2010, in Japan.

One of its new functions is the "wireless printing," which transmits data from a PC to the printer.

Multifunctional printer freed from PC, phone line

Though functions similar to the wireless printing have already been employed for other manufacturers' multifunctional printers, the most distinctive function of the Mymio is the "wireless faxing." This function enables to physically separate a phone unit from the printer and use a fax function in a place away from a phone line. The wireless faxing was employed for four models of the "Mymio Free," which are the "MFC-J850DN," "MFC-J850DWN," "MFC-J800D" and "MFC-J800DW."

So far, Brother Industries has added functions of fax, copier, scanner and answering machine to its multifunctional printers. But, this time, the company moved in an opposite direction.

"Traditional multifunctional printers have been freed from PCs with the use of a wireless LAN," Brother Industries said. "However, when they have a fax function, they have to be placed near a phone line. We separated the phone unit so that our multifunctional printers can be freely placed."

The separated phone unit uses a wireless function designed for a cordless handset, and it does not interfere with a wireless LAN.

However, the MFC-J800D and the MFC-J800DW do not come with the wireless printing function and have to be connected to a PC via a USB cable, etc. In other words, only the MFC-J850DN and the MFC-J850DWN can be used away from both a PC and a phone line. The reference prices of the MFC-J850DN and the MFC-J850DWN are ¥35,000 (approx US$415) and 45,000, respectively.

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