Hardware

Review: The Brother MFC-J5920DW Offers Ink-Efficient Printing

Businesses looking to cut printing costs but preserve paper processes should try Brother’s efficient all-in-one machine.

David Strom

David Strom is the author of two books on computer networking, along with thousands of articles on various IT topics. Follow him on Twitter: @dstrom

In the digital age, printers get a bad rap as outdated and inefficient. But some new all-in-one devices still bring value and convenience to today’s offices. Brother’s multifunction MFC-J5920DW printer offers a full complement of features typical of a modern printer/scanner/fax machine. But unlike many inkjet all-in-one models, it doesn’t cost a small fortune to operate.

Brother’s specialized INKvestment cartridges provide larger print volumes at a budget-friendly price. The ink costs less than a penny for black and white pages and less than a nickel for color pages. This proves attractive for SMBs who often toss printers instead of replacing expensive cartridges.

Plus, the printer’s color ink cartridges measure less than half an inch wide and are easily replaced by opening one of the front panels. There’s no need to root about the printer’s innards to find them.

Plug and Print

The printer connects wirelessly or via a standard USB or Ethernet cable. Printer setup also proves very straightforward: If using a DHCP server, just plug the printer into the network.

Like many multifunction printers, the various functions are accessible by using either the front-panel touch screen or a series of software commands via the installed drivers. If users prefer the touch screen, the printer quickly installs from Windows 10 or Mac OS X without any additional software — a nice plus.

Maximum resolution for printing is 6000x1200 dots per inch; for copying, 1200x1200 dpi; and for scanning, 2400x1200 dpi. Similar to many MFPs, the printer has a series of raisable covers, including one for the document glass (which can copy or scan an 8.5-by-12-inch document) and one for attachments such as network, phone and USB cables.

Cloud Connected

The Brother MFC-J5920DW supports a variety of portable media, either as a printing source or as an output device for scans, including Memory Stick Duos, MultiMediaCards and USB flash drives.

Finally, businesses that need to adjust printer features — to scan documents into popular MS Office file formats, for instance, or make use of popular cloud-based file services — can do so with a variety of downloadable apps.

Scan Solution

The Brother MFC-J5920DW printer scans documents to a variety of destinations. Business users can scan and send a file to a USB thumb drive, a network or FTP share. The scan can also sends via email to a cloud-based service or to an attached PC with the printer’s scanner extensions driver software installed.

If needed, these settings can be bookmarked on the printer’s front panel, making it easier to reuse them. Scanned documents can be saved as a PDF file or a graphics image or by optical character recognition (OCR). To set up the various network settings, use either the scanner software or the web interface.