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The defining feature of the Brother MFC-J985DW XL ($299.99), an inkjet multifunction printer (MFP) for use at home or in a micro-, small, or home office, is its low running cost. As one of the two latest color inkjets in Brother’s INKvestment line of color inkjets, along with the Brother MFC-J985DW ($592.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , its high-capacity ink cartridges can be had for a pittance. The only difference between these models is that for $100 extra, you get three sets of ink cartridges with the MFC-J985DW XL ($700.00 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) , while the Editors’ Choice Brother MFC-J985DW only comes with a single set.
Although you save money in the long run with the extra ink—you’re essentially getting $138 worth of ink for $100—the boost in price pits the Brother MFC-J985DW XL against higher-end inkjets, many of which have a more robust feature set and/or higher speed. None of them can quite match its minuscule running costs, however.
Design and Features
The MFC-J985DW XL is physically identical to the Brother MFC-J985DW. I provide an in-depth discussion of features in the review of that product, so I’ll present an overview here. The MFC-J985DW XL measures 6.8 by 16.5 by 13.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 18.3 pounds. Its tray holds 100 sheets of letter-size paper or 20 sheets of 4-by-6 photo paper. A single-sheet multipurpose feeder can handle paper, card stock, or an envelope. There’s an auto-duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. For scanning, it has both a letter-size flatbed and a 20-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) that can scan paper up to legal size. A 2.7-inch touch screen is built into the front panel. To the left of the panel are a port for a USB thumb drive and a memory card slot.
MFP features include printing and faxing from, as well as scanning to, a PC, even over a network, and working as a standalone copier and fax machine. It can scan to email using the email program on your PC.
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The MFC-J985DW can connect to a PC via USB, or to a network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and can make a direct peer-to-peer connection with a compatible device using either Wi-Fi Direct or Near Field Communication (NFC). You can send scans directly from the printer to websites and cloud storage services such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Google Drive, Evernote, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, and OneNote.
Running Costs
The MFC-J985DW XL’s black cartridges deliver approximately 2,400 pages, and sell for $23.99. Each color cartridge is good for about 1,200 pages, and is priced at $14.99. The three sets of cartridges that come with the printer should provide somewhere around two years of ink with average micro-office use. Running costs are a penny per monochrome page and 4.7 cents per color page.
Other printer companies are addressing ink costs in various ways. HP’s Instant Ink program lets you pay a fixed base rate for printing up to a certain number of pages, plus a charge if you print additional pages, rather than buying individual cartridges. Epson EcoTank printers use ink bottles; you pour the ink from the bottles into tanks built into the printer, or for the highest-capacity models, fasten the ink packages in place in a bay designed for them.
Both Epson and HP have also started to provide high-capacity standard ink cartridges with their laser-class inkjets as well as other higher-priced models. But they still have higher running costs than the MFC-J985DW XL. For example, both the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-5620 ($299.99 at Epson)(Opens in a new window) and the HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One ( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) have running costs of 1.6 cents per monochrome page and 7.2 cents per color page.
Printing Speed
As the Brother MFC-J985DW and MFC-J985DW XL are identical printers—the only difference being the number of ink cartridges supplied with each—I only tested one unit, the MFC-J985DW, but our timings and discussion of output quality should apply equally to both. We timed the MFC-J985DW at 4.6 pages per minute (ppm) on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic(Opens in a new window)‘s hardware and software), a little slow for an inkjet MFP at its price. The Epson WF-5620, a true laser-class inkjet, zipped through our tests at 10.3ppm, while the HP Officejet Pro 8620 tested at 5.5ppm.
See How We Test Printers
Output Quality
Overall output quality for the MFC-J985DW in our testing was average for an inkjet, with slightly below-par text and graphics, and above-par photos. Still, text should be good enough for any business purpose except for those requiring small fonts.
Graphics are good enough for most internal business use and perhaps for PowerPoint handouts, but not for formal reports. It did well in differentiating between zones of similar shades. Very thin, colored lines were barely visible, and many backgrounds appeared slightly faded. Most of our test prints, including a monochrome image, turned out well. The one issue of note was that there was a loss of detail in a few bright areas.
Conclusion
The Brother MFC-J985DW XL is priced higher than the physically identical MFC-J985DW, but provides three times as much ink as that model. Even when the ink finally runs out, the cost of replacing it is very low. But it’s no great bargain compared with comparably priced inkjet MFPs, some of which have running costs that are only slightly higher. The MFC-J985DW XL lacks the paper capacity of the HP Officejet Pro 8620 and Epson WF-5620, as well as the latter’s blazing speed and duplexing ADF. For a household, home office, or small business on a shoestring, though, those features may be less critical than its minuscule running costs. For a bit more money, the MFC-J985DW XL gives you all that the Editors’ Choice Brother MFC-J985DW offers, plus a sizable reserve of ink.
4.0
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The Brother MFC-J985DW XL is a micro-office inkjet MFP that has very low running costs, and comes with a huge supply of ink.
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