Category: Network Printers and All-in-ones

Introduction

I am reviewing Brother’s DCP-J562DW network multifunction printer which is their latest in their lineup of compact entry-level multifunction printers.

This printer is the  successor to the previously-reviewed Brother DCP-J552DW printer and uses the same inks as the MFC-J5720DW and other Brother printers released this year. There is a fax-equipped variant in the form of the MFC-J680DW which can serve well as a replacement for that old thermal-transfer fax machine that you use at home.

Photo – Insert high-resolution photo of product INLINE

Prices

Printer

DCP-J562DW: AUD$129

MFC-J680DW (fax-equipped): AUD$159

Inks and Toners

The printer itself

At first glance, the Brother DCP-J562DW appears to be a compact printer and I even found that it is slightly deeper than an A4 page positioned vertically and has a footprint that is slightly smaller than an A3 page. This would place it in a similar league to the original HP Envy printers when it comes to how much bench space it would occupy.

Connectivity

The Brother DCP-J562DW printer can connect directly to your computer via USB or to your home network via Wi-Fi wireless. Like most of Brother’s inkjet printers, the USB cable is snaked around to a port within the printer rather than an ordinary USB port on the back. I was so amazed about how reliable it is when handling the wireless connection especially if it is placed at the fringe of your home network’s Wi-Fi coverage.

Paper handling

The Brother DCP-J562DW uses the traditional paper-feed arrangement rather than the newer landscape paper feed. There is also a bypass slot for you to put gloss paper in the back of the printer but this requires you to use one sheet at a time.

It is also worth knowing that there is a mezzanine drawer in the paper cassette so you can load a small stack of 4”x6” snapshot paper or index cards. This is pitched more at householders that want to print out snapshots from their phones or digital cameras,

Walk-up functions

The control panel clicks to the chosen operating angle yet can be folded back without you needing to operate a latch to do so. This makes for a simplified operation experience that suits most users, especially older users who may find operating these latches difficult.

I have copied a few documents including some pages from books and this printer has turned them out relatively accurately. Like most scanners, it still has a problem with newsprint by causing the “other side” of the newsprint and other thin paper to come through in the copy. The lid is hinged in such a way as to allow you to copy bound documents easily without these documents slipping or the document’s binding being damaged.

It can be difficult to gain access to the “advanced copy” functions because you have to select the functions under the “Options” menu. Here, the printer could implement one-touch access to some of these functions like what is achieved with some of the models that are higher up in the range.

There is also the ability to print from or scan to a memory card courtesy of a memory-card slot located on the left of the display behind a flap.

As for online services, the Brother DCP-J562DW supports mobile and online service in a similar manner to what the rest of Brother’s network-capable printers offer. This includes print from and scan to the popular online services, Apple AirPrint, Google; and these services can allow multiple-user enrollment as I have previously mentioned with similar products

Computer functions

Normally, when I review a printer, I try to download the software from the manufacturer’s Website. This is to obtain the latest code and also to find out how well it installs if you are loading it on to a computer that isn’t equipped with an optical drive. Here, I needed to use the supplied CD because the downloadable software came through with file-inconsistency errors for the compressed “file of files”. An alternative way to go about this would be for the installation software to be kept on the printer and for users to download it via a machine-hosted Web page for network setups or a USB Mass-Storage Device for local-connection setups.

Once I had got the driver software in to my computer, the user interface was very consistent and similar with other Brother printers. The ControlCenter scan application could benefit from a few tweaks such as being able to split and merge documents and could even support “poster-style” scanning.

Print speed and quality

The Brother DCP-J562DW turns out sharp printouts as expected for a typical home inkjet printer and the printout speed is similar for that kind of product.

The photo quality is very similar to the Brother MFC-J5720DW stablemate which uses the same print engine, with the proper contrast, brightness and definition. But the colour saturation was reduced and the skin tones in the group photograph came across more natural rather than being redder. This is a situation that I still find Brother working hard at where HP, Canon and Epson are “running ahead” with printers that are pitched for “photo-grade” printing, especially when these brands use extra colours like “photo black” or “grey” along with the standard colours.

The improvements that Brother had done with keeping a stable Wi-Fi connection have allowed this printer to turn out larger print runs even though it is on the edge of a wireless home network.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

This printer has Wi-Fi as its only connection to the network which is a trend affecting low-end personal/home multifunction printers and their network connectivity. But I would like to still see an Ethernet connection, even as a user-installable aftermarket option, or integrated HomePlug AV500 / AV2 powerline network functionality so as to cater for difficult setups.

Personally, I would like to have all the Brother inkjet printers that are based on a particular engine or design and use a particular ink-cartridge range use all of the ink cartridge sizes that are in that range. This can reduce the need for you to think of particular cartridge sizes for particular printers especially if you purchase machines using that design.

Another feature I would like to see implemented across the board would be the landscape printing because this can lead towards a highly-compact printer that turns out the documents quickly.

Similarly, Brother could take a few cues from what HP had done with the Envy printers and the high-end Photosmart printers to design equipment that excels at aesthetics especially if they want to target such equipment for use in the main household living areas like the kitchen or family room.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

I would recommend the Brother DCP-J562DW inkjet multifunction printer or the MFC-J680DW fax-equipped variant as an option to seriously consider for a light-duty home printer.

One key application I would definitely place it for is a secondary printer to keep in the kitchen, the upstairs study or the bungalow (granny flat); or a machine that you give to your oldest child when they approach their senior secondary school or college years.

Article

Epson EcoTank ET-L355 printer

Epson: Cheap printers, expensive ink? Let’s turn that upside down | The Register

From the horse’s mouth

Epson UK

Product Page

Press Release

Epson USA

Product Page

My Comments

Epson is running a lineup of inkjet printers that break the rule of how inkjet printers are sold. Typically these printers are sold at a cheap price with the cost made up in how much you pay for the consumables.

But this lineup of piezo inkjet printers is sold at a premium and comes with 2 years worth of ink along with high-capacity ink tanks. The desktop printers use a box on the side for housing the ink tanks and use a similar pipe system to recent HP OfficeJet, Brother and other Epson printers. It is also driven by Epson’s experience in industrial inkjet printing presses and wide-format printers.

Epson EcoTank ET-L555 office printer

Models already available in the UK sell at £299.99 including VAT for the premium ET-L555 office model that has an automatic document feeder and £219.99 for the home model without the automatic document feeder. The ET-2500 will go for US$379 while the ET-4550 which has all the features will go for US$499 in the US.

Personally, I would like to see Epson offer the EcoTank or SuperTank high-capacity printing as a user-installable option for some regular office inkjet printers so that those of us who want to push these printers as short-run printing presses can do so.

Similarly, using the EcoTank system along with quality-optimised printing for promotional material could raise the concept of having that desktop printer earn its keep as an organisational short-run printing press. Oh yeah, you should know where to obtain replacement ink for these printers and refill their ink tanks promptly to avoid airlocks.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother MFC-J5720DW multifunction inkjet printer which is the second generation of Brother’s landscape-printing A4/Letter inkjet printers. It still has the compact form factor of these printers and can be set up to print on A3/Ledger paper by you either using the feed tray on the back of the printer or elongating one of the paper drawers.

Prices

Printer

The machine’s standard price: AUD$299 Recommended Retail Price

Inks and Toners

The printer itself

A highly compact printer

The Brother MFC-J5720DW and the MFC-J5320DW come across as being a highly compact printer that doesn’t take up much desk space. This is thanks to the landscape printing inkjet mechanism which works on the long edge of the sheet of A4 or Letter paper. It also lets them print on to A3 or Ledger paper which can come in handy with signs and other similar work.

The model I am reviewing is the MFC-J5370DW which has as its extra features a single-pass double-sided scanner as well as an extra tray whereas the cheaper MFC-J5320DW omits these features.

Setup

Up-front ink cartridges

The printer is capable of being connected to a Wi-Fi wireless network with WPS setup or an Ethernet network and I chose the latter more for reliability and the fact that it is better to connect printers that are normally sessile to a network via a wired connectioni.e. Cat5 Ethernet, HomePlug AV or MoCA.

The printer, like other recent Brother inkjets, requires you to lift the lid to connect it to a computer or wired network. This can be confusing but allows you to have it tightly against a wall.

Everything about this printer was simple when it came to getting it going for the first time. This included installing ink cartridges which are located up front.

Walk-up functions

Loaded view – with document in ADF and printed output.

The copying function comes through easily because of the use of “one-touch” access to the common copying jobs. The copies come out very sharp and clear but you may miss a few millimetres at the edge and this shows up when I was doing a test ID-copy on a hotel keycard, and this can exasperate users who put documents to the edge to make sure they square up when copying off the platen. Even a duplex copy went according to plan with both sides coming through properly and quickly. Here it achieves the speed goal by scanning to memory before printing.

USB socket and SD card slot

It has the card slots so you can quickly print from camera cards or USB thumbdrives if you just want that picture or document “there and then”.

It has access to mobile printing services like Google Cloud Print and Apple AirPrint along with the ability to print from online services like Dropbox, Evernote and Facebook. This is through an interface that Brother has set up for these devices and it allows you to have multiple accounts of the same service set up.

Computer functions

The driver software installed properly as long as you specified the model that was being installed and there was the “at-a-glance” layout for driver settings. They also use the ControlCenter scanner software which could benefit from the ability to reorder pages when you are scanning multiple documents or creating a “document-of-documents” PDF file.

Brother still maintains the ability to load ink cartridges from the front of the printer like they have done with most of their inkjet printers. This makes for an easy-to-use printer. The only let-down is that they are using newer cartridges which may be disappoint people who are upgrading from previous generations of Brother inkjet printer but have extra cartridges for their older equipment..

The multipurpose tray was a bit hard to use because of the effective availability of two trays as part if this tray. This can confuse anyone who wants to use the multipurpose tray to print a few sheets of paper.

Print Speed and Quality

I had this printer turn out a large report on both sides of the paper and it didn’t falter through the print job which is an example of a typical office print job. The landscape printing was able to help with improving the printing speed.

Regular documents came out of the Brother MFC-J5720DW with the same sharpness that is expected for office documents and this didn’t matter whether the printer was working single-sided or double-sided.

It comes across with the saturation for business graphics but could do a bit better when working with plain paper. This was from what I observed with a “carols by candlelight” bulletin for the church I go to and I showed my printout of that same bulletin to my pastor who had colour printouts of it done by a local Officeworks and he reckoned that it didn’t have the same as what they provided.

I printed out some test photographs on Kodak paper and had still noticed proper contrast, brightness and definition. But it still came across with a yellow tinge which may not play well with some pictures which may impair colour fidelity. This is although there is the strong colour saturation which may be desireable to make marketing materials “pop”. In my opinion, it is getting closer to the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Series but doesn’t overthrow it when it comes to a business inkjet printer that has marketing-collateral printing prowess.

Compared to the previous generation of Brother landscape-printing inkjet printers, the MFC-J5720DW and its peers have made better strides in print quality for photos and other similar material.

Limitations and Points Of Improvements

There are still some improvements that Brother could apply to the MFC-J5720DW and its peers.

One would be to improve the colour fidelity so that photos don’t come out with a heavy yellow tinge but come out with a proper amount of yellow. As well, Brother could still keep up the work with optimising their colour inkjet and laser printers to turn out the quality needed for them to become the short-run printing press for small organisations.

The mechanism can be improved by the use of an output shelf that isn’t integrated in to the paper cassette. This can allow for improvements like a self-retracting output shelf or one that comes out when a print job is being turned out.

Similarly, Brother could implement in to their business inkjet printers an A4 paper cassette which has a mezzanine shelf for 4”x6” paper like photo snapshots or index cards.

As for the on-machine user interface, it doesn’t come up to the standard of the MFC-L8850CDW colour laser multifunction which has a screen that is very large and useable or the HP business inkjets with their large touchscreens. Here, Brother could improve on this with a large LCD or OLED touchscreen for their inkjet printers. For that matter, printer manufacturers could try implementing OLED display technology on their printer’s control surface in a similar manner to what is being used on a lot of Android smartphones.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

I would consider the Brother MFC-J5720 multifunction inkjet printer as a all-round office printer for a home office or other small office. It can even satisfy short-run promotional printing needs very easily like turning out proofs or small infill jobs. If you want to save money and can do without the duplex scanning or second paper tray, the MFC-J5320 can satisfy your needs.

Update – Further conversation with a fellow user

After this review was published and I had promoted the review on LinkedIn, a church pastor had let me know that he had bought this same printer for his home office before I had run this review. I had subsequent conversation with him about his experience with this machine and he has enjoyed using it and took advantage of its A3-printing ability to turn out notices for his church’s noticeboard.

He found that it is of better value to use the higher-capacity cartridges especially if you are turning out a lot of A3 material. He also reckoned that the A3-printing feature would end up suiting small community organisations who need to print up material for their noticeboards.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother MFC-L8850CDW colour laser multifunction printer which is positioned as the step-up model in Brother’s full-speed colour laser multifunction printer lineup. This model is based on their HL-L8350CDW colour laser printer and is equipped with single-pass duplex scanning and a wide range of copy, fax and scan features.

Prices

Printer

RRP: AUD$849

Optional Extras:

High-capacity paper tray: AUD$249

Inks and Toners

Servicing and Other Parts (Laser Printers)

The printer itself

How the printer looks when it is used for any of these tasks

The Brother MFC-L8850CDW colour laser multifunction printer is based on the single-function Brother HL-L8350CDW colour laser printer and others in the series, thus sharing the same improved colour laser-printing technology as its single-function stablemate. This has all the same abilities like the quick page-turnout and the duplex printing that this series is known for where it appears to work on both sides of two pages at one time.

Like other Brother laser printers and multifunctions, this unit has serparately-replaceable components for the print engine such as the drum unit and belt unit. This means that you can gain a longer service life out of these machines and their parts and can factor in these costs over the lifetime of the unit while not paying too much every time you need to replace the toner. One perceived disadvantage may be that you may run in to print-quality and reliability issues when you are using a drum unit or belt unit that is near the end of its useful life.

Large LCD touchscreen

One feature I admire about the Brother MFC-L8850CDW multifunction printer is that it is equipped with a large LCD touchscreen that is its “walk-up” user interface. There is also a touch-operated keypad that lights up when you have to enter numbers in to the machine like dialling a fax number or determining the number of copies you can do.

LCD touchscreen and numeric keypad that shows when it is needed

People who have eyesight difficulties may benefit from this because of the large display area and avoiding unnecessary user-interface clutter which is a problem with a lot of business-focused multifunction devices that are in circulation.The only niggle that some people will find with this display is that the clock display takes a few seconds to update when you “wake up” the machine to start using it.

The automatic document feeder is a single-pass duplex type which scans both sides of a document at once for such jobs as double-sided copying. If you have to deal with bound original documents, this lid can be lifted up at the sides so that it lies flat on the original documents.

It, like most of the recent Brother business multifunction printer range, can work as a colour Super-G3 fax machine with a regular telephone connection or can work as a T.37-compliant Internet fax machine. This includes the ability to work as an “Internet-fax off-ramp” where it can receive a fax from the Internet and send it along regular telephone lines to an ordinary fax machine. This feature is pitched at users who have multiple locations separated by long distances and want to avoid huge long-distance telephony bills for sending documents by fax.

Walk-up functions – can be started from printer’s control surface

Task-specific copying options

This machine’s display leads to a simplified user interface that makes it easier for people to use it even if they haven’t used this model before. This is taken from the design cues used in today’s smartphones and tablets and you have such situations as function lists that scroll sideways and one-touch access to the common tasks.

When you copy documents with the Brother MFC-L8850CDW after not using it for a while, the unit will start scanning the originals to memory while the print engine warms up to start printing. This benefits such tasks as copying many pages from bound documents or simply to have the originals returned to whoever gave them to you.

The ID-copy function is, like on most recent Brother multifunction printers, still very simple to use because you don’t have to reposition the card when you flip it to copy the other side. On the other hand, if you line up any document to the edge of the glass surface, the printer clips a few millimetres from the edge of the document which can be of concern for those documents that are “worked to the edge”.

Task-specific apps now available

There are a variety of apps which provide extra functionality such as copying a section of text like a newspaper article. These apps also work alongside the popular online services like Dropbox, Facebook and Evernote so you can “scan to” these services. The Brother printer also supports the ability to print from these online services and the Brother Web Connect system allows multiple users to register their own accounts for each service on the same device. Furthermore, each user can protect their presence on these accounts using a PIN number.

The Brother MFC-L8850CDW does work with Brother’s iPrint&Scan mobile-printing software and the Apple AirPrint ecosystem to allow you to print from smartphones and tablets.

Computer functions

I downloaded the driver software for the Brother MFC-L8850CDW colour laser multifunction printer and had found it quick to install but you have to make sure you install the correct driver that pertains to the correct model of printer.

There is the “print-options at a glance” layout for specifying how the print job should be printed and you bring this option up when you click on the “Preferences” or “Properties” option when you specify your print job. This includes rough-previewing of how a duplex, booklet or “tiled” print-job should look like.

The Brother-supplied “ControlCenter4” scan software could benefit from direct access from the desktop rather than via the “Brother Tools” app and could allow you to organise the order of the scanned pages rather than having to delete then re-scan pages to achieve a particular page order for that PDF.

Print Quality and Useability

Like the Brother HL-L8350CDW colour laser printer I previously reviewed, the Brother MFC-L8850CDW multifunction implements the “drawer-style” of consumable loading. This is where you pull out the drum unit as if it is a drawer to change the toner cartridges. This also extends to access to the printer’s internals when you have to deal with paper jamming or similar situations.

The Brother colour laser multifunction has a 6-second delay till the first page comes out when it hasn’t been used for a while. This is something that has to be expected of laser printers because of the way the toner is “fixed” on to the paper using hot rollers.

It was able to competently turn out a large double-sided document properly and reliably, although there it does pause for a few seconds after 30 pages. It may be to receive more data bot also to keep the machine’s running temperature in check. Like the single-function HL-L8350CDW and its stablemates, this Brother printer can effectively “work” both sides of two sheets of paper during a duplex-printing job. This only works with jobs that you submit from the computer rather than any of the “walk-up” printing jobs.

I also had to run a batch of mailing labels on this printer and had a problem with the printer jamming. The large LCD screen showed clearly where to remove any jammed paper and this process didn’t involve groping around in dark places to remove that paper. Then I re-ran the job on some newer labels and had to make sure I was specifying labels rather than plain paper when doing this kind of run.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

The copy and scan functions could benefit from additional optimised-copy / optimised-scan modes to suit working with thin paper or with bound materials like books. As well, the “app” functionality could also benefit from functions to turn out “pre-ruled paper” like ruled notepaper, graph paper, check lists and music staves similar to what has been offered by HP and Canon for their inkjet and laser printers.’

A problem that can occur when printing a single double-sided document is where the printed document “curls up” in the output bay. This may happen when you use the printer earlier on in its service life. As well, I would also like to see the “quick duplex-printing” functionality where these Brother colour laser printers effectively work both sides of two pages improved to work with jobs you specify from the control panel or for continual printing of many pages.

As for scanning, the Brother multifunction printers could have the scan head able to scan “to the edge” of the glass when scanning documents from the glass platen rather than the automatic document feeder. This is because most of us would line up documents against the edge of the glass when scanning them to achieve a good-quality scan.

Another features that would be nice to have would be the display clock being synced to an NTP time server and supporting local time zone rules like what happens with computers or mobile devices. This can avoid the need to set the clock every time daylight-saving time changes for example as well as a desire to have an accurate clock for fax logs, etc. There could be a menu option to allow the USB port to work as a “plug-and-charge” USB port when the printer is in sleep or hibernate mode as well as supporting 1 amp or 2.1 amps power at that port, so as to allow us to charge smartphones, tablets and their accessories from the printer’s USB port at all times.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

If you are considering a heavy-duty desktop multifunction colour laser printer for that office where you expect to yield a lot of colour documents, I would give the Brother MFC-L885CDW some serious consideration. This is more so if you also expect to include the idea of scanning one or more large runs of documents to PDF and want to get both sides at once.

You could even consider teaming this printer along with one of the Brother A3 single-tray inkjet multifunction printers to set up an “all-inclusive” desktop printing / scanning setup for your small business, home office or non-profit organisation. Here, this unit could handle most regular A4-based printing jobs while you could run the inkjet unit on A3 jobs or those jobs that require special inkjet-compliant media.

Brother MFC-J4710DW – an example of a printer you would use as your main printer

Your existing printer or multifunction unit may be working satisfactorily for you at the moment but you may find that you or your household may benefit from a secondary printer that is connected to your home network.

Typically this may be brought about by you buying a printer with more functionality than the one you already own and you “pushing” down the existing printer to serve as a secondary machine like you would with the existing refrigerator or colour television set. In some cases, it is more attractive to do this with mid-tier consumer units or any of the business units where you spend more on the equipment rather than those units that cost as much as you paid for the machine to replace their ink or toner cartridges.

Of course, the idea of networking a printer would be to avoid the need to buy a printer for each computer at home but a different trend has risen. Increasingly, most printer manufacturers are implementing a “mobile-printing” strategy to allow you to print from a smartphone or tablet. This can be done through Apple AirPrint for iOS devices, Google CloudPrint for some Android devices or a manufacturer-provided app.

Similarly, most printer manufacturers are selling equipment on a “horses-for-courses” approach where different printers in their consumer and small-business product ranges suit different tasks.

What applications may cause you to think of a secondary printer?

There are two main applications where a secondary printer on your home network may be handy

A machine more locally placed

HP Envy 120 designer all-in-one inkjet printer – suitable for use as a secondary printer

Most likely, you will have the printer kept in your home office or study where you do a lot of the computing. But, as you use AirPrint or similar features that enable printing from your tablet or smartphone, you may be wanting to order print jobs from other rooms in the house like the kitchen. Similarly, most of the recent crop of printers have a “print-from-Web” function to obtain hard copy from Web services like Dropbox or Facebook.

The idea behind this setup is that when your computer device asks you which printer to send the job to, you determine the machine that is local to you for that job. Here, you have the advantage of being ready to collect the job immediately rather than it piling up on the desk. You also have the assurance of hearing whether the machine has started to turn out your job or not so you are not worried about sending it to the wrong unit or mis-specifying that job.

This situation may be more real for those of you who live in a larger house or a multi-storey / split-level house and have the home office up the front or downstairs but have a significant activity area on the other side of the house or upstairs like the kitchen and family room that is located down the back of the house. Similarly, those of you who have a multi-building home network covering the garage,barn or bungalow alongside the main house may also find this situation applying to you. Here, you could keep a lesser-capable printer or multifunction in the bungalow while having another unit like a better model kept in the main house.

Another printer that can serve as a secondary unit

Here, you could keep a light-duty network-capable multifunction printer like the Brother DCP-J552DW, the Brother DCP-J562DW or HP Envy 120 in the kitchen or family room. This could allow you to do on-the-spot printing and copying in that area. A mid-tier consumer inkjet, low-tier business inkjet or a low-tier business laser / LED machine may work well for a study.

Some families may use this as a way to work towards providing their adolescent or adult child with a printer for when they “grow their wings and leave the family nest”. Here, the adolescent or adult child could be responsible for buying the consumables for that machine and then take it with them when they move onwards.

The ability to have complementary functionality

You could have the best of both printing types for your home office if you have both a laser and an inkjet printer. Here, you could benefit from the flexibility that this offers when it comes to choosing and using stationery for your printing requirements. An example of this could be to not worry about purchasing laser labels or inkjet labels for your envelopes because you can use the appropriate machine for the labels you have on hand.

Some users may benefit from a monochrome laser or LED unit for their routine document-printing needs while a colour inkjet can come in handy when occasional colour printing is required. Similarly, a photo-grade inkjet machine like a high-end HP Photosmart or OfficeJet or high-end Epson could serve your photographic or brochure-printing needs while a machine not so good with “presentation printing” or “photo-grade printing” can do the normal office printing work. This is more so as presentation-grade glossy or silk-look paper is more readily available at local office-supply stores for inkjet printers than it is for laser printers.

One of those mono laser printers you would see as a document-printing workhorse

Another example would be is having machines that handle different paper sizes such as A4 and A3. You could use an A3-capable printer or MFC for your large-sheet printing requirements while you maintain an A4-capable machine like most business lasers for most printing needs.

What must you consider?

A common issue associated with very-low-end printers when it comes to keeping them going is that the cost of purchasing replacement consumables is equivalent to that of purchasing a similar-standard printer. As well, a lot of these machines may not last for a long time nor would they be able to yield a significant number of pages.

I would also be careful of the two-cartridge colour inkjet printers because if one colour runs out, you would have to replace the colour cartridge. These can only work well for occasional work but I wouldn’t expect to run them hard for constant work.

On the other hand, I would pay attention to brands that use the same type of consumables across a large part of their product range. This is represented with Hewlett-Packard implementing the 564 series of ink cartridges across most of their Photosmart product range since 2009 and Brother using the LC-133 cartridges across all of their current-issue inkjet machines.

The latter example was underscored with the Brother DCP-J552DW multifunction printer which is a light-duty home machine and the Brother MFC-J6720DW A3 multifunction printer which is a heavy-duty SOHO unit using these cartridges – you don’t have to think of buying two different cartridge types for the different printers..

Conclusion

You can run one or more additional printers on your home network still as communal printers. But these can earn their keep either as a machine that is local to a point of activity and/or to provide functionality that is complementary to other printers that you own.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother MFC-6720DW A3 colour inkjet multifunction printer which is the latest in Brother’s A3-capable multifunction inkjet printers

The model I am reviewing is the second-tier model in Brother’s new A3 multifunction range with the Brother MFC-J6520DW economy model having only one paper tray and the top-shelf Brother MFC-J6920DW having single-pass duplex scanning and NFC / Wi-Fi Direct mobile connectivity

Prices

Printer

Brother MFC-J6520DW: AUD$279 (Single paper tray)

Brother MFC-J6720DW: AUD$299 (Two paper trays)

Brother MFC-J6920DW: AUD$429 (Two paper trays, single-pass duplex scan, NFC support)

Inks and Toners

It is also worth noting that the Brother LC-133 series ink cartridges, which are standard-capacity cartridges for these printers are compatible with most of Brother’s newly-released consumer and small-business inkjet printer range whether as standard cartridges for some models or high-capacity for others. This may allow you to buy and run different Brother inkjet printers from that range yet be able to buy the same lot of cartridges to replenish them which can be a bonus if your supplier does sell them in quantity at a cost-effective price.

The printer itself

Setup

Brother MFC-J6720DW loaded with documents

Like most of the recent Brother multifunction printers, the trend is to place the network and USB computer-connectivity sockets within the machine and have the machine open up in a clamshell manner to expose these sockets. But Brother also moved the telephony connections used for regular telephony-based faxing to this same area. This can confuse some users who are installing the printer for the first time or moving the printer to a newer location.

Other than that, this printer worked well when it came to setting it up. But Brother still needs to work on the computer software so it doesn’t time out and throw an error message if it can’t find the printer quickly enough or prefer to use the operating system to discover the hardware.

This printer, like the other Brother A3-capable inkjet multifunction printers uses a paper tray that extends to a large size for A3 or collapses for A4 and smaller paper. As well, you load the ink cartridges in a compartment that is at the front of the machine, moving away from the need to lift heavy lids to replace them. Personally, I would like the printer to identify if multiple new cartridges are being replaced at a time which can come in handy if you were doing a few large printing projects and you needed to replace a lot of cartridges.

Walk-up functions – can be started from printer’s control surface

I have done quite a few copying jobs such as some family trees for someone who lives with me and this has yielded high-quality copies although it doesn’t print to the absolute edge and can clip the original at the edge. As well, it “copies to memory” so that you can remove the original document before the copies are printed which can come in handy with multiple-copy copy jobs. Even the ID copy function worked properly with you having to keep the card in the same corner when you turn it over.

Like with most of the recent Brother printers, there could be an option for the printer to keep the same settings rather than timeout to default settings. This would make things easier if you were doing larger copy, scan or fax jobs where you have to spend some time organising the original documents to be worked with. Luckily there is the ability to “preset” common setups as shortcuts which can make this workflow quicker and easier.

For that matter, when you copy, fax or scan from the glass platen rather than the automatic document feeder, you have to position the original lengthways. This confused me initially due to using the Brother MFC-J4710DW which was the first to use landscape printing and required the original in “portrait” mode.

The fax functionality works both with the regular telephone, offering Super G3 with a best case of colour A3 or T.37 store-and-forward with monochrome A4 faxing. If the standard was extended, it could support JPEG colour faxing. The T.37 store-and-forward faxing function is available with a free firmware update from Brother’s Web site.

Like other recent Brother inkjet printers, these printers implement the Web Connect functionality which allows them to be used with a lot of hosted services like Dropbox and Facebook. This comes in to its own with the “download-to-print” functionality for photos or PDFs that these services can offer.

Computer functions

The software that Brother supplies with this printer and most of the other printers gives up too easily when it is searching for the device. It could use the host operating system’s hardware-discovery methods to find the printer.

As for printing, it can turn out most jobs quickly but you would have to set the print driver to the “best quality” if you want to turn out “presentation-grade” colour work.

The A3 functionality comes a long way for larger graphics work including most signage but use the “Booklet” printing with A3 and you turn out a double-sided four-page A4 booklet which could save you money or give you a desktop-publishing bonus.

For operation speed, it turns out most most business documents very quickly but takes a slightly longer time to turn out “best-quality” work. Even turning out the A4 booklet on A3 paper came out properly and quickly.

I have printed some test photos and noticed that this printer does work heavier on the yellow and turn out a darker image. There is still a bit of a redder flesh-tone in people’s faces and this may have an impact with turning out best-quality brochures. For a small-business inkjet printer, these don’t beat the previously-reviewed HP OfficeJet 8600a as a high-quality photo/brochure printer.

Limitations And Points Of Improvement

One area I would like to see improvement take place is with the software where the onus for discovering the printer is placed on Windows rather than the printer’s software.

These Brother printers like the MFC-J6720Dw could implement a straight-through paper path for their automatic document feeders, especially with machines that have the single-pass duplex scanner. This makes them easier to trust with documents that are on fragile paper. Similarly, they could benefit from increased flash memory or a dedicated SDXC card slot for “fax vault” functionality, caching of print queues and similar functionality.

Also a midrange Brother A3 multifunction printer could still implement A4 duplex scanning with A3 one-side scanning as has been achieved with the prior generation of Brother A3 multifunction printers such as tbe Brother MFC-J6910DW that I previously reviewed. This is while a premium model could still support the full-duplex operation for all paper sizes.

Similarly Brother could work on these printers and the rest of their business inkjet printer range to make them answer HP’s OfficeJet Pro 8600 multifunction printer when it comes to printing brochures, flyers and similar marketing collateral. They could achieve this by making the colours more vibrant in most printing modes especially with coated or gloss / matt paper and being able to handle multiple sheets of special-media paper whether in the manual-bypass tray or the paper drawer.

This is due to inkjet printing being material-flexible due to the absence of heat in the printing process. It would be highly relevant with the Brother A3 inkjet printer range because of that paper size appealing to noticeboard or shop-window use or to creation of A4 booklets when the printer is set up to print in “Booklet” mode on A3 paper.

Another way that Brother could “cut in” with their A3 printers woudl be to provide an A3 single-function printer that can answer a lot of the “wide-carriage” A3 inkjet printers offered by Canon and HP or a DCP-series A3 multifunction printer without fax abilities to come in to its own as a cost-effective A3 multifunction when A3 faxing is not on the agenda.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

Any of us who handle large documents regularly would find this latest range of Brother’s A3-capable multifunction printers earning their keep. For most of use, the Brother MFC-J6720DW would come in handy especially if we are also using it as the main printer. The MFC-J6520DW costs $20 cheaper but I would consider it a false economy due to having to switch paper when you want to print on a different paper size. The MFC-J6920DW, which costs significantly more, is for those of us who copy or scan a lot of double-sided documents or want the ability to work with Android-based mobile devices in a standalone manner.

You could easily partner one of these printers with Brother’s HL-4150CDN or HL-4570CDW colour laser printers or the cheaper HL-3150CDN or HL-3170CDW for a high-performance colour desktop-publishing setup for your small business or other organisation. This is where you can use the laser printer with laser-capable media for high print runs while you use these inkjet printers for smaller print runs, large A3 documents, double-sided single-sheet A5 flyers or A4 multi-page booklets on A3 paper and similar work.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother DCP-J552DW multifunction inkjet printer which is part of Brother’s newer budget-focused series of home / SOHO-positioned multifunction printers and “fax-machine replacements”

Most of the printers in this series have auto-duplex printing and Wi-Fi wireless connectivity . The top-most models in this series offer an automatic-document feeder and, in some cases, Ethernet connectivity while the flagship fax-equipped model can support NFC-based printing for your Android-based mobile devices.

Prices

Printer

The machine’s standard price AUD$129

Inks and Toners

Officeworks does sell a pack which has each of the colours as a high-capacity cartridge for AUD$78.31.along with a pack that has all of the cartridges plus a supply of “snapshot” paper for AUD$126.

The printer itself

Initial setup and functionality notes

Like most of the Brother inkjet printers, the DCP-J552DW is easy to set up. You may find this confusing at first when you receive a brand-new machine that your starter supply of ink cartridges are taped in a bag above the paper tray and effectively in the printerrather than strewn in the box.

Ink cartridges loaded in the front

These inks are able to be installed quickly through the use of a front-loading compartment. But it takes five to ten minutes for the Brother printer to effectively get itself ready when have just installed the ink cartridges and is due to the nature of the piezoelectric inkjet system.

Like the Brother DCP-J925DW, this printer uses an A4 paper tray which also has a mezzanine tray for loading a small supply of “snapshot-size” inkjet paper for printing out copies of your digital photos.

As for integration with the network, you are able to use the printer’s touchscreen to enter your network’s parameters or start a WPS setup routine. Like an incresing number of network-capable consumer multifunction printers, the Brother DCP-J552DW uses Wi-Fi wireless connectivity only.

Walk-up functions – can be started from printer’s control surface

There is the usual collection of “walk-up” functions available on this printer and, for that matter, this printer does them the right way. Herem the user interface is through a touchscreen which offers a highly-flexible level of functionality. There is even the ability to set up “preset tasks” for common scanning and copying scenarios such as double-sided copy or ID copy.

For copying, there is a lid that you can pull up by its sides in order to improve the quality of copies made from bound materials. Very often, this is a job that is often performed to make recipes, music pieces and similar work available in a portable manner or to avoid losing or damaging the cookbook or music book when you are using it.

Businesses also appreciate the ability to use ID copy which works well without needing to reposition the card in another location on the glass platen. It could work best if you had the card in a vertical position on the glass rather than the horizontal position.

Printing from Web services

Like the previously reviewed Brother MFC-J410DW landscape-printing multifunction printer, this unit supports the ability to print from Web services. Here, you use the Brother Web Connect page to link your printer with Dropbox, Facebook and co to print resources on these sites. This is actually the formation of Brother establishing a Web app platform with scan-to-email and outline copy / scan functionality.

In my opinion, who knows whether Brother will link all of their device classes i.e. these printers, the label printers and their craft equipment especially the high-end embroidery machines with this app platform.

Computer functions

The driver’s setup routine for the Brother DCP-J552DW leaves a lot to be desired because it doesn’t automatically detect the printer quickly. Here it required me to enter in the printer’s IP address or Node name, these details which I was able to find on the printer’s control panel display under Settings – Wi-Fi. Other than that, the driver and other software worked properly when I had it in place.

The supplied software does appear easy to use in a similar vein to what is typically offiered with this class of printer. There is even a “pop-up” help function so you can seek further help with the printer. Of course, this software doesn’t place unneccessary visual or performance load on the computer by running unnecessary print monitors.

Print quality

The Brother DCP-J552DW printer turned out the print jobs pretty slowly and dwelled for a few seconds after slightly retracting the paper when printing both sides of a document in a similar vein to previous Canon printers that I have reviewed.

I have run a test concerning the printer’s auto-duplex abilities and there is no unwanted shift going on with the paper when it is printing on both sides. This makes it work well for turning out luggage tags and other documents that implement odd page sizes. As well, it covered the whole sheet of paper when printing a document on both sides.

For document printing, the Brother DCP-J552DW works well, yielding sharp text but doesn’t yield the strong sharp colours. But phtot printing tends to come up with reduced contrast and definition along with less of the colour saturation compared to some of the other consumer multifunctions that I have tested. It is more like a lower-tier office multifunction printer.

I have done a few scanning jobs using the Brother DCP-J552DW and have noticed these observations. Firstly, if you are scanning a document, the on-device user interface allows for multi-page PDF scans by asking the user if they want to scan another page after the printer has scanned the current page. If they touch “Yes” on the screen, the printer will prompt them to load the next page and start scanning. For accuracy, the printer performed as expected for an average multifunction device for both the photos and the business documents.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

For connectivity, I would like to see Brother implement HomePlug AV2 in their SOHO printers as an alternative network technology, or resist the temptation to eschew the Ethernet socket on these printers because Wi-Fi wireless networking doesn’t always work out due to the nature of the radio technology. Similarly, Brother could move towards support for 5GHz Wi-Fi technology as this band opens up as an uncluttered home-network Wi-Fi band.

Like with most of the multifunction printers, I would like to see these printers have increased onboard memory to cache print jobs to avoid waiting on host computers or networks for the data. This can allow for quicker printing and support heavy print runs more easily.

To improve on useability, the Brother DCP-J552DW and its peers could benefit from contrasted page marking on the edge of the scanning platen, especially the “reference corner” of the platen. This is so you can easily know where to position documents for scanning.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

I am finding that the Brother DCP-J552DW and the MFC-J470DW fax-capable peer fit in well as a budget or entry-level printer that could fit in well in the home as a cost-effective solution for a common printer for that household. This is although I am seeing this machines trying to snap at the heels of HP’s Photosmart series of multifunction printers like the Photosmart 5520 with the 4-cartridge print mechanisms.

Here, it would perform well as a regular document machine rather than a photo-printing machine and, due to the use of individual ink cartridges for each colour, could be the cost-effective printer that you can still afford to run.

.It would be better value to run this printer primarily on the Brother LC-133 series of high-capacity cartridges to gain better value out of it. Even buying a multi-pack may also come across as being worth it so you keep an extra cartridge on hand for each colour to avoid problems that can easily happen with piezoelectric inkjet printing mechanisms.