Brother MFC-J6545DW INKvestmentTank Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer with Wireless, Duplex Printing, 11" x 17" Scan Glass and Upto 1-Year of Ink-in-Box, MFC-J6545dw, Amazon Dash Replenishment Ready

I replaced an Epson Workforce multifunction printer, also tabloid (11 inches by 17 inches) with this one. The Epson had never worked properly, but could scan both sides a sheet from the automatic feeder. This one cannot. Many reviewers have commented on problems getting this printer to connect to and stay on a wireless network. I have a wired network, with a switch about 5 feet from the printer, and I had problems connecting. I have two computers connected into the same switch as the printer. The Brother software installation found the printer instantly on one computer, which has Windows 10 Home. The software could not find the printer on the second computer, running Windows 10 Pro, no matter what I did. I could ping the printer, and a network scanner found it, but no way could the software find it. I tried entering the IP address manually, disabling my firewall and virus protection, but nothing worked. A half hour chatting online with Brother technical support was not helpful - she advised my to "contact my computer manufacturer", who is.....me (I build my own.) When I asked her if the printer could be connected via a USB port and still be on the network, she told me yes... but I had to ask. She did tell me to reset the printer's network card from the LCD panel and that worked until I rebooted, and the printer disappeared. I finally connected the printer directly via a USB cable, and that solved the problem, but it's apparent to me that there are problems either with the network card or the software. Two other complaints: (1) it's not obvious that when you insert paper into the manual feed, you have to press a small lever at the bottom of the feed. (2) unless you set the software for Vivid and High Quality print, your graphics are going to look washed-out. Otherwise, it's a solid well-built machine, and leaps above the Epson Workforce. Ink costs are likely to be moderate (for an inkjet).

Per the title of this review, I realized after I got this and set it up that this printer would be more than adequate in an regular office setting at work. It IS called the Business Smart Pro Series but I didn't notice that when I purchased it. I bought on features, brand, and price. This printer has all the features of a corporate office machine. I work from home and in my opinion a regular home office user could get away with less. That said, I really like having all the features and at this price it's a true bargain. Print speed is fantastic. I love the two sided printing, too. Wifi access for phones and all the family laptops is incredibly convenient. I'm old - I still fax. So I like that. Set-up was easy enough. I had to use the DVD, though. There is a way to do it via the online downloads but I tried a couple of times and failed. Touch screen is killer. And my favorite part is the INKvestment Tank for bulk ink purchases. Everyone hates buying ink and if this thing delivers the way it says it will I won't be buying ink too often - even with the kids printing school stuff. The only caveat is that it's a pretty big printer. Bigger than my prior one and probably bigger than your average home machine. The pictures on Amazon do it justice. Take a look to get a visual idea of the size. For me, this is not an issue at all - I am lucky enough to have a dedicated home office. But if you're putting it in the kitchen you need to look carefully at the size to make sure you're OK with it. I've owned a bunch of printers and have had the best experience with Brother. So far, more of the same with this one. Strongly recommended as long as you're OK with the dimensions.

Sorry, we were looking for a descent printer for our office of 3 employees that could print 11 x 17, this was not it. Environmentalists, consultants, we are not big print junkies, clarified, we don't use the printer that much, although we don't need an industrial strength printer, it would be nice to find one that can produce prints for us for the next 7 years? 5? Am I asking too much? From the beginning, it was a nightmare to get this printer to connect correctly and consistently to our network. We finally got a direct cord, bypassing some of the issue. We bought this March of 2020 BTW, so we have had this headache for over a year now. For the last 6 months we have had to run the maintenance (cleaning the printer heads) 3 to 4 times about once a week to get a decent print output, the maintenance takes about 5 mins to run, Waste of time and frustrating. Yes, I used the Brother overpriced ink. Knockoffs were not the issue. This week's issue is that the printer states an error that we do not have the ink cartridges installed. They are installed. Yes, I took them out and shook them, reinstalled tightly several time. Yes, I turned the machine on and of, yes, I tried to bypass and run the head cleaner again, not gonna happen if the machine doesn't think I have all the cartridges installed. I would get some recognized, then fiddle with the others and lose the whole batch. I reached out to the Brother customer service at 3:00 PST. Could only get virtual help that was not helpful. He literally asked me four times what the error message was, and was convinced it should say something else, I had to cut him off. An hour of self trouble shooting, then a half hour with an idoit chat, I was done. Besides its obvious, some board some where is fried, needs to be replaced, not worth it for this POS, Listen Brother, Xerox, HP or whoever. I want a solid printer, appropriately priced for low use that has the option to print 11 x 17. Not something with 10,000 plastic parts, Something solid, reliable. Having to replace a printer annually is BS. Willing to spend around $1k to $1.5K considering we really don't use it that much. The extra money will be worth headache relief. Whoever it is with that talent please reach out.

A new Update: after 4 years of consistent use, I still give it 5 stars. Just now replacing the ink, and the machine still operates as new. Access via wi-fi is seamless. Updates are nearly automatic. Would without hesitation buy this again over my usual and troublesome HP printer. Update: After 1 year, still 5 stars, especially compared to my previous HP printer. I need 11 x 17, and it works great. Running an office, and still on the original ink cartridges. I would have gone through several expensive HP cartridges by now. The scanner works, the WiFi works. Updates work. I would buy this again, with no hesitation. This has turned out to be far better than expected. After going through two HP large-format, and running out of very expensive ink every 2 months, this Brother printer has performed beyond expectations. 4 months in, I still have months of ink. Every print is perfect. The scanner is excellent, and the desktop app is easy and clear. I used to have to "help" the HP feed the paper into the rollers (ugh) but the Brother operates at near-professional level. I would buy one of these for my office with no hesitation, so for my now in-home business this has been a very very good purchase.

I've now had this machine a little over two weeks. It's been great for us. We haven't had any of the WiFi drops that others have noticed (running on an older Apple Airport Extreme/Time Capsule network with several extenders). I'd go to 4 1/2 stars if I could. I haven't printed photos on photo paper, but printing on plain paper gives a decent result (though without any "pop", as printing photos on plain paper never really pops) . Text is crisp and clear, though I wish the black were a little darker--the ink is very dark gray rather than deep black (my previous printer had a special black ink for text which was extremely black). Machine is speedy, even when printing in duplex. Not too loud, and it has a half-speed mode that prints quieter if you really need it quiet. Prints easily from computer, phone, and USB thumb drive. Haven't tried large format printing yet, but soon. The software suite it comes with is adequate, though nothing fancy. It will help you scan, print, and copy. If you need to scan two-sided you will need a third-party piece of software to reassemble the scans of each side into a single document. I had one hiccup during set-up in that the software couldn't locate the printer on my network until I restarted the printer. 30 seconds later and everything was set up automatically so that's a very minor issue, and everyone's set-up experience will be different anyhow. It's not perfect, but is a pretty good machine for the money. I'm quite sure it'll pay for itself in ink pretty quickly, too, as the ink that came in the box will print more than my last printer through two cartridge refills. So we're happy with the purchase and think we made the right choice.

I have had this printer for a year now, and am fin ally fed up with this. I thought it was going to be just what I wanted, especially bring able to print 11 x 17 paper. However, it will only print on specific sizes, and will not accept a size that does not match one that is programmed in. I need to print checks that are 3-up. So a full page will print, but once I remove one check, the page is no longer letter size, so the printer will not allow me to print on a 2-up or 1-up page. It will not accept envelops of different sizes. The main paper tray had a cover that simply sets on top of it, so it is not secured and constantly moves around - very poor design. This printer jams constantly, and it is difficult to clear the jammed paper because of the poor access to the paper path. The worst thing though, is that this printer constantly goes into an error state, or goes offline, and this requires shutting it down, restarting, and restarting the computer as well, and then going into the device manager to check the printer spooling settings and restarting them as well. Several times, I have had to uninstall drivers and reinstall them. Brother support is absolutely of no use. Although they devote many pages on their support website explaining how to correct this problem, they have no idea how to prevent it. So you basically have to figure it out on your own. Good luck. Overall this printer does not live up to its promises of being excellent. If I could, I would return it. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt, and kept it hoping it would work properly, which it never has. DO NOT BUY.

This is my first Brother printer. It replaces an Epson that died very prematurely despite light use. It is also my first ink-tank printer. Thus far I am impressed. Setup was easy. Printing from my MacBook Pro, my iPad, my iPhone and my Windows 7 pc is simple. Print quality is better than what my Epson ever produced. Even printing a photo on regular copier paper produced a picture good enough to pass around to family. (I have yet to try printing on premium photo paper.) I gave this printer five stars because thus far everything has worked better than expected. Yes, it is more expensive than most but that is, in part, because Brother won't be making obscene amounts of profit selling grossly over-priced ink cartridges. Instead, they sell the printer at its real cost. Most printer manufacturers practically give away the printer because they know they have you captive to their ink cartridges. Now, having said all that, the final acid test for me is how long does a printer hold up. My Epson was disappointing. Should this Brother printer not hold up, I will update this review. Hopefully, I won't ever have to do that.

The printer overall functions ok, with 3 big exceptions. 1. If you don't print anything for a number of days, your first print job invariably looks terrible, with blotchy areas that don't have any ink, lines, blank spots, etc. The cure is to run the clean the print heads maintenance function, and how extensive a cleaning you need to do depends on how crappy your printed documents look. I have had lots of ink jet printers from a number of brands over the years, and this one is by far the worst one with respect to this issue. Fundamentally, I think the print heads clog too easily on this model. 2. It has an annoying habit of dropping from the network, and you have to turn it off and on again (easiest way) to get it reconnected. 3. It has a strange way of handling what paper is in the feed. Other printers I have had have let you manage telling the printer what paper you have loaded at your computer; this one requires you to configure the paper loaded AT THE PRINTER as well. This means if you change paper, you have to tell the printer what paper is in it, and if the paper that IS in it does not match, it sticks with what it has been configured to have, no letting you print on that paper until you do. On the plus side, the ink does last a long time - I still have way more than half after like a year of using the printer. I would not buy another Brother, instead I'd go for one of the other brands.