Brother MFC-J497DW Review

Brother MFC-J497DW All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

Wirelessly capable, the MFC-J497DW is an All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer from Brother that is ready to meet the needs of your small office and business. This unit offers printing, scanning, copying, and sending faxes up to 8.5 x 14″ in size and uses a 100-sheet main input tray and 20-sheet ADF for batch work.

The core printing features include 6000 x 1200 which is a high dpi resolution for Windows users and 3600 x 1200 dpi for those using Macs, automatic duplexing, and speeds of 6 ppm in color and 12 ppm in black. This printer, combined with built-in Wi-Fi and support for Google Cloud Print, AirPrint, Mopria, and Brother iPrint & Scan, allows easy operation and the ability to send jobs directly from a mobile device.

For other functions, a large flatbed scanner can scan, copy, and fax your documents. The optical scanning resolution is 1200 x 2400 dpi with a flatbed, while the ADF offers 1200 x 600 dpi. In addition, there is a 1.8″ color screen for easy viewing along with a USB 2.0 port for cable connectivity. Here are detailed reviews of our trial results from various angles about this Brother product.

Dimensions

The Brother MFC-J497DW is quite compact, but additional permission is still needed above to open the scanner lid.

• Height: 6.8″ (17.2 cm)
• Width: 15.9″ (40.3 cm)
• Depth: 13.5″ (34.2 cm)
• Weight: 16.8 lbs (7.6 kg)

Build & Design Quality

This Brother MFC-J497DW has a great design. The printer feels sturdy and overall sturdy even though it is made entirely of plastic. It is easy to access the ink cartridges from the front, and the printer does not need to be turned on when replacing cartridges. Paper jams can be easily accessed from the back of the printer by simply lifting the panel.

Unfortunately, there are some disadvantages to the design. The power cord cannot be removed, so it is more difficult to replace if damaged. The output tray is in the input tray, which means that if you must load paper during a print job, you must first remove the print from the output tray to access it.

Additionally, if you choose to use a wired USB connection, the port is located below the scanning base and towards the center of the printer. This requires multiple USB cable routing and effectively shortening it to about one foot.

Display Screen

MFC-J497DW has a decent screen display. It’s quite small, but it’s easy to see whether you are sitting or standing, and the entire front panel can be tilted up if needed. This is not a touch screen, so navigation is done with only the buttons on the right. The buttons provide feedback that can be heard when pressed and can be deactivated if it bothers you.

Cartridge

MFC-J497DW has a bad cartridge system. This produces very little black or color pages, which leads to more frequent ink cartridge replacement. Additionally, the printer stops printing if one of the cartridges runs out, even if certain colors are not needed for the print job. Fortunately, there are high yield cartridges available if you want to improve results.

This printer also accepts third-party ink cartridges, but the printer cannot read the ink level, making it more difficult to know when you need to replace it. Keep in mind, using a third-party ink cartridge can cancel your warranty.

Scanner

In addition to having a powerful scanning feature, the MFC-J497DW also has an automatic document feeder for scanning long, multi-page documents, but this cannot do duplex scanning, so you have to scan both sides of a two-sided document manually. The lid can expand slightly if you need to scan thicker documents. Note that when using the automatic document feeder, the scan resolution drops to 600 DPI.

Printing Speed

MFC-J497DW has a mediocre printing speed. It can print the first page of a black document fairly quickly, but it actually slows down for the next page. Printing color documents and photos is also very slow.

Photo Printing Quality

Brother MFC-J497DW has a pretty good photo print quality. There are quite a lot of details and bright colors. However, there are a few transverse lines, which can be seen on the face, in the blue sky, and areas that are darker than our test image, such as a calculator in the upper right corner. Although this printer is claimed to be capable of printing borderless, there is still a thin border around the photo.

Color Accuracy

For true color accuracy, it’s okay. It should not be troublesome if just a splash of color here and there, but this is not recommended for tasks that require accuracy.

Printing Size

The printer has a front input tray that can hold up to 100 sheets of paper. This is also the same tray used for photo paper, so you must erase plain paper before loading photo paper, and vice versa. The automatic document feeder can also function as an input tray and can hold about 20 sheets of paper.

Cost Per Print

MFC-J497DW has good printing costs. Black and color ink cartridges need to be replaced often because of poor results. However, ink cartridges are relatively inexpensive, so it doesn’t become too expensive in the long run even if you print a lot. That said, the cost of color printing rises significantly faster than the cost of black printing alone.

Remember that even if you only print in black, most inkjet printers continue to use color cartridges for service tasks, so you might still need to replace them eventually.

Connectivity

MFC-J497DW has decent connectivity options. For cable connections, there is only a USB port located under the scanning base for a direct connection between the printer and your PC, and there is also a telephone line to send faxes. There are more choices in terms of wireless connections, including printing directly from a mobile device using AirPrint or Mopria.

Mobile Print App

MFC-J497DW is compatible with the exceptional Brother iPrint & Scan mobile app. This is available for Android and iOS devices, it allows you to print, scan, and copy. You can also check the remaining ink levels of the printer and perform maintenance tasks.