The Brother MFC-J6545DW INKvestment Tank Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer ($279.99) is a light- to medium-duty wide-format AIO intended for small-office use. It not only prints tabloid-size (11-by-17-inch) pages, but it also scans, copies, and faxes them. And it does so relatively fast, with excellent output quality and highly competitive running costs. The MFC-J6545DW lists for $70 less than the higher-end Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J6945DW, but you give up a lot for that price drop, including automatic two-sided scanning and copying and reduced paper input capacity. If your office doesn't require these features, though, the MFC-J6545DW is a sensible alternative.
Make Room for This AIO
An AIO that prints, scans, copies, and faxes tabloid-size pages must, of course, be big enough to accommodate and process oversize sheets of paper. Everything—the paper trays, the scanner, the automatic document feeder (ADF), and the paper path itself—must be wide-format, which is about twice the width and depth of standard letter-size media.
With that said, the MFC-J6545DW measures 12.2 by 22.6 by 18.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 44.3 pounds, meaning it's going to need a dedicated space. However, that size is in line with other wide-format printers we've recently reviewed, including the MFC-J6945DW, the Epson WorkForce WF-7710, the HP OfficeJet Pro 7720, and the HP OfficeJet Pro 7740
Similar Products
Epson WorkForce WF-7710 Wide-Format All-in-One Printer
Brother MFC-J6945DW INKvestment Tank Color Inkjet All-In-One Printer
HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 Wide Format All-in-One Printer
Epson WorkForce ET-16500 EcoTank Wide-Format All-in-One Supertank Printer
Epson WorkForce WF-7720 Wide-Format All-in-One Printer
HP OfficeJet Pro 7740
Like its higher-end sibling, the MFC-J6945DW, the MFC-J6545DW comes with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF). However, unlike its more expensive counterpart, it can't scan or copy two-sided multipage documents without your having to turn the originals over manually to capture the other sides. Both the HP 7720 and Epson WF-7710 have ADFs, too, but they hold only 35 sheets, and only the Epson model supports auto-duplexing. Furthermore, the OfficeJet cannot scan and copy wide-format pages.
As with most business-oriented AIOs, the MFC-J6545DW provides two methods for monitoring, configuring, and executing walk-up tasks, such as making copies and connecting to cloud and social media sites. You get Brother's standard Business Smart Pro Series control panel consisting of a handful of buttons and a number pad anchored by a 3.7-inch color touch screen, shown below.
Or you can use the MFC-J6545DW's embedded web server, displayed in the screenshot below. While Brother's control panel is well-laid-out and easy-to-use, some tasks, such as checking consumable levels and generating reports, are much easier (and therefore more efficient) than performing them from your web browser.
As mentioned, the MFC-J6545DW comes with one 250-sheet paper cassette, and it also has a 100-sheet multipurpose tray that pulls up from the rear of the chassis. The MFC-J6945DW, on the other hand, holds 600 sheets from three input sources; and the WF-7710 comes with a 250-sheet cassette with a one-sheet override tray. The OfficeJet Pro 7720 has only a 250-sheet main cassette.
The MFC-J6545DW's maximum monthly duty cycle is 30,000 pages, with a recommended monthly volume of 2,000 pages.
Connectivity Galore
You can connect the MFC-J6545DW to your network via Ethernet or wirelessly through 802.11 b/g/n, or directly to a single PC with USB 2.0. The peer-to-peer wireless networking protocol, Wi-Fi Direct, connects your mobile devices to the printer without either them or it being part of a network, though you don't get the touch-to-print protocol, near-field communication, that comes with the MFC-J6945DW.
Other third-party mobile features include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria, and Brother iPrint&Scan for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows. Through iPrint&Scan you can connect to the business and consumer versions of the following cloud sites: Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and OneDrive. And, in addition to iPrint&Scan, you can download the following Brother Cloud apps: Cloud Secure Print, Easy Scan to E-mail, Office Print, and Scan to Office.
Where Fast and Entry-Level Meet
Brother rates the MFC-J6545DW at 22 pages per minute (ppm) for monochrome pages and 20ppm per color pages, which is middle-of-the-road for the wide-format inkjet printers discussed here so far. Using our standard Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional, I timed our 12-page Microsoft Word test document (via an Ethernet connection) at 20ppm, or 2ppm slower than Brother's rating, and 1.7ppm behind its MFC-J6945DW sibling. The MFC-J6545DW beat the Epson WF-7710 by a significant 5.3ppm, and fell behind the HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 by 3.4ppm.
For the next portion of our test regimen, I timed the MFC-J6545DW as it printed our extensive suite of complex color Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint documents. Then, I combined those results with the score from the previous 12-page monochrome text document test; I came up with a score of 12.2ppm, which is identical to the results I got from the MFC-J6945DW. These results trounced the WF-7710 by 5ppm and pulled ahead of the HP 7720 by 2.5ppm.
Finally, while the MFC-J6545DW isn't a photo printer, as you'll see in the next section, it prints images well enough to warrant my timing and recording how long it took—9 seconds—to churn out our highly detailed 4-by-6-inch test snapshots in Best mode.
Laser-Quality Text
AIOs in Brother's Business Smart line, including the MFC-J6545DW, consistently produce well-shaped and legible, laser-quality text. In this case, I had trouble distinguishing the difference between this inkjet's text quality from that of a good laser printer. The full-page Excel charts and PowerPoint business graphics I printed came out with solid fills and evenly flowing gradients, nearly devoid of streaking and banding, to the extent that I had to look carefully to find specific flaws.
As mentioned, the MFC-J6545DW's photo output is, while not quite up to what you'd expect from a five- or six-ink photo-centric Canon Pixma or Epson Expression Premium printer, better than acceptable for embedding in most business documents. And its ability to print borderless photos allows you to put a finishing touch on your images and marketing documents unavailable from laser printers and some other business-oriented inkjets.
INKvestment Tank Value
Like the recently reviewed MFC-J5945DW, the MFC-J6545DW is one of Brother's INKvestment Tank brand AIOs. This is a system that blends standard cartridges with onboard reservoirs that, between them, hold a lot of ink. According to Brother (based on a formula of 300 prints per month, 60 percent monochrome pages and 40 percent color pages), the cartridges that come with the printer hold up to a year's worth of ink.
At 300 pages per month, though, the MFC-J5945DW hardly breaks a sweat. When the time comes to buy replacement cartridges, this and the company's other INKvestment Tank models churn out letter-size monochrome pages for less than 1 cent each and color pages for slightly less than 5 cents. These numbers are considerably less than the Epson WF-7710 (3.2 cents black and 11.4 cents color) and HP OfficeJet Pro 7720 (2.1 cents black and 8.1 cents color) wide-format models can manage.
The only wide-format small-office-oriented AIO I know of with lower running costs is Epson's WorkForce ET-16500, an EcoTank model. While it delivers per-page costs of less than 1 cent for both monochrome and color pages, it lists for $1,000, and its much slower and not nearly as robust in terms of features, capacity, and volume.
Terrific Value for the Right Office
When deciding to save the $70 by going with the MFC-J6545DW over its Editors' Choice sibling, the MFC-J6945DW, only two things give us pause: its manual-duplexing ADF and its 250-sheet fewer paper input capacity. Otherwise, this is an excellent small-office appliance. It prints fast and well, with highly competitive running costs. If that $70 savings matters more than what you'll lose by going with the less expensive model, you shouldn't be disappointed.
The Brother MFC-J6545DW is a tabloid-size color inkjet all-in-one printer that churns out good-looking output at a fast clip, making it a great value for small offices.
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