Let's give Brother some credit up front: This printer packs a bunch of value and functionality into a small space.
The MFC-J497DW ($79.99) is a compact, low-volume inkjet all-in-one printer, along the lines of the 4-star/Excellent-rated HP OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One.
Like the HP model, the MFC-J497DW prints well, delivering smart-looking photos on premium-grade glossy or matte photo paper.
But, even for an entry-level printer, the MFC-J497DW's running costs are exceptionally high, especially when compared to the OfficeJet 3830 (and other HP models) paired with that company's Instant Ink subscription service.
The Brother MFC-J497DW does support two-sided printing, faxing, and a few other amenities that the HP OfficeJet 3830 does not, however, making it a good fit for many homes, home offices, and small workgroups with modest print and copy needs.
They Don't Get Much Smaller Than This
At 6.8 by 15.7 by 13.4 inches (HWD) and 18.1 pounds, the MFC-J497DW ($124.30 at Amazon) is indeed a tightly designed AIO, if not a whole lot smaller than most of its many competitors.
(Perhaps the smallest non-portable AIO available today, at 5.6 by 15.9 by 7 inches and 10.4 pounds, is the HP DeskJet 3755 All-in-One ($59.99 at HP) .) HP's OfficeJet 3830, for instance, is a little bigger in height and depth, and lighter by about 4 pounds.
I could cite entry- to moderate-level printers with similar dimensions for a while, but the point is that you can find a slew of desktop printers designed to sit comfortably on your desk beside you, and seldom is the overall footprint all that different from one to the other.
As for paper handling, the MFC-J497DW comes with one 100-sheet paper drawer.
In addition, unlike the HP OfficeJet 3830, the print engine is auto-duplexing, meaning that it can print two-sided pages automatically, which is not a given on an under-$100 printer.
Epson's similar Expression Home XP-5100 Small-in-One, on the other hand, does not support auto-duplexing, but the company's next model up, the Expression Premium XP-6000 Small-in-One, does.
Unusual on a less-than-$100 printer, though, is the MFC-J497DW's automatic document feeder (ADF) for sending multipage documents to the printer.
The MFC-J497DW comes with a 20-page ADF, as does the HP OfficeJet 3830 and the Brother MFC-J690DW.
(The latter, which is in the process of being reviewed, does not list for under $100; Brother's list price is $119.99.) In addition, the MFC-J497DW is rated for a 2,500-page maximum monthly duty cycle, with a recommended monthly print volume of up to 1,000 pages (the same as the MFC-J690DW).
The HP OfficeJet 3830's duty cycle, though, is a mere 1,000 pages.
Epson, meanwhile, doesn't publish duty-cycle ratings for its family and home-office printers, such as the Expression Home XP-5100 ($119.99 at Epson) and Premium XP-6000 .
You can configure the MFC-J497DW and perform walkup operations from its busy (and somewhat complicated-looking) control panel.
It comprises lots of buttons, a number pad, a set of navigation arrow keys, and an OK button for executing commands—as well as a non-touch-sensitive 1.8-inch color LCD.
Compared to some of Brother's (and others') highly slick control panels concentrated on a large touch screen, this panel isn't all that efficient-looking.
But Brother has relied on this old staple for a few years, and it works well.
Connectivity and Software
The MFC-J497DW's connectivity options are about right for an $79 AIO.
Standard interfaces consist of 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, Wi-Fi Direct, and connecting to a single PC via USB 2.0.
Wi-Fi Direct is a peer-to-peer protocol for connecting your printer to your mobile device without either of them being connected to an intermediary network or router.
Options for mobile connectivity, meanwhile, include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria (for Android printing), and Brother's iPrint&Scan.
Brother's iPrint&Scan and Web Connect Cloud Services connect you to popular cloud sites, such as Google Drive and OneDrive, as well as to several of Brother's own cloud apps.
These include Scan to Word, Scan to Excel, Scan to PowerPoint, Scan to Searchable PDF, and Easy Scan to E-mail.
Unfortunately, to scan directly to a flash-memory device, you'll have to step up to the Brother MFC-J895DW.
The MFC-J497DW can't do that.
Middle-of-the-Pack Speed
Most entry-level AIOs are rated at between 8 and 14 pages per minute (ppm), with many of those hovering around 12ppm.
The latter include Brother's MFC-J497DW and MFC-J690DW.
More important than any AIO's speed rating, though, is how many pages per minute does the AIO actually print?
I tested this one over USB on our standard Intel Core i5-based testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional.
When printing our 12-page Microsoft Word text document, the MFC-J497DW churned at 11ppm, or 1ppm slower than its black-text-printing rating, and 0.4ppm and 0.2ppm behind the MFC-J895DW and MFC-J690DW, respectively.
Epson's Expression Home XP-5100 and Expression Premium XP-6000 beat the MFC-J497DW by 2.8ppm and 4.8ppm, respectively, too, and the MFC-J497DW beat HP's OfficeJet 3830 by 2.5ppm.
When I combined the score from this text-document test with the results from printing our full-color Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF sample documents, the MFC-J497DW's print times plummeted to less than half, or 4.4ppm.
(So do most printers at this point in our testing.) That ties its MFC-J895DW sibling, beats the MFC-J690DW by 0.3ppm, and falls behind the XP-5100 (by 0.4ppm) and the XP-6000 (by 1.8ppm).
And it beats the HP OfficeJet 3830 by 1.7ppm.
I also tested how quickly the MFC-J497DW printed our two vibrantly colored and detailed 4-by-6-inch test snapshots.
Its average of 32 seconds was par for this class of printer, with only the HP OfficeJet 3830's score of 51 seconds falling significantly behind the lot discussed up to this point.
The Output's Good
Like most other Brother entry-level printers, the MFC-J497DW prints excellent-looking text with well-shaped and legible characters down to very small font sizes.
(The quality cutoff depends primarily on the font itself.) Everyday serif and sans-serif fonts looked good to about 4 to 5 points, and decorative fonts held their shape down to about 7 or 8 points.
The latter is okay, because you typically wouldn't use them for much other than headlines and callouts.
Business graphics look good, for the most part.
As with its slightly higher-end MFC-J895DW and MFC-J690DW siblings, the MFC-J497DW does show the occasional flaw in business-graphics output, such as slight banding and even a little streaking (uneven ink distribution) in dark backgrounds.
Overall, though, text printing and graphics output are usable for most small-business materials, home printouts, and student homework.
The MFC-J497DW also turned out decent photos, about what you'd expect from an entry-level office-centric inkjet AIO.
I noted balanced, accurate colors and admirable detail.
Granted, you can find many consumer-grade photo printers out there that churn out higher-quality images (if not many listed at $79).
But the MFC-J497DW's photo output is fine for most small-business, student, and family use.
Costly Consumables, Though
Almost as a rule: The smaller and cheaper an AIO is, the more its replacement ink costs.
The exceptions are few, and, unfortunately, the MFC-J497DW, like the recently released MFC-J895DW and MFC-J690DW, is not one.
Using the company's advertised prices for its highest-yield ink tanks, I calculated the MFC-J497DW's monochrome running costs at 6 cents per page.
Color pages, meanwhile, cost about 16.5 cents per page.
Compared to the Epson Expression Home XP-5100's and Premium XP-6000's lofty 6.4 cents for monochrome pages and 17.5 cents for color, the MFC-J497DW's cost per page (CPP) may seem incrementally better.
But the real issue here is that this is still a lot of money per page, and at these rates, it adds up fast.
(For example: Keep in mind that printing 10,000 pages at 6.5 cents each will cost $650; cutting the CPP in half will save you well over $300, several times the cost of this printer.)
There are ways around spending this much on ink, of course—among them, paying a little more for a higher-volume printer.
Then, too, there's HP's Instant Ink program available on the HP OfficeJet 3830 ($309.99 at Amazon) and many other HP inkjet printers.
With Instant Ink, you can print up to 300 pages monthly, including full-size (8.5-by-11-inch) photographs, for just $9.99 per month.
Then, too, you can consider Epson's and Canon's EcoTank- and MegaTank-brand machines, which use bulk-ink delivery.
The bottom line in minimizing your running costs nowadays is that you have to have a very good idea of how much you plan to print going in, then buy accordingly.
Stick Within the 100-200 Page-Per-Month Range
Brother makes very capable printers, and the MFC-J497DW is one of them.
But it's important that you keep in mind that this is a low-volume, low-end printer.
Despite its 1,000-page recommended monthly print volume, it really does its best work in the range of 100 to 200 pages per month.
That it comes with an ADF and automatic two-sided printing for just $79 is a good value, too.
The too-high running costs preclude it from receiving our Editors' Choice nod.
But if you don't print a whole lot, per-page ink costs don't matter as much.
And if you discount that factor, the MFC-J497DW works well as a small-office, home, or dorm-room printer for making a modest number of prints and copies.
Pros
Strong output quality overall.
20-sheet ADF.
Supports borderless printing.
Solid feature set for price.
View More
The Bottom Line
The Brother MFC-J497DW is an inexpensive home or small-office AIO that prints well in low volumes for those environments.
Like some recent siblings, though, its running costs need tweaking.
Let's give Brother some credit up front: This printer packs a bunch of value and functionality into a small space.
The MFC-J497DW ($79.99) is a compact, low-volume inkjet all-in-one printer, along the lines of the 4-star/Excellent-rated HP OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One.
Like the HP model, the MFC-J497DW prints well, delivering smart-looking photos on premium-grade glossy or matte photo paper.
But, even for an entry-level printer, the MFC-J497DW's running costs are exceptionally high, especially when compared to the OfficeJet 3830 (and other HP models) paired with that company's Instant Ink subscription service.
The Brother MFC-J497DW does support two-sided printing, faxing, and a few other amenities that the HP OfficeJet 3830 does not, however, making it a good fit for many homes, home offices, and small workgroups with modest print and copy needs.
They Don't Get Much Smaller Than This
At 6.8 by 15.7 by 13.4 inches (HWD) and 18.1 pounds, the MFC-J497DW ($124.30 at Amazon) is indeed a tightly designed AIO, if not a whole lot smaller than most of its many competitors.
(Perhaps the smallest non-portable AIO available today, at 5.6 by 15.9 by 7 inches and 10.4 pounds, is the HP DeskJet 3755 All-in-One ($59.99 at HP) .) HP's OfficeJet 3830, for instance, is a little bigger in height and depth, and lighter by about 4 pounds.
I could cite entry- to moderate-level printers with similar dimensions for a while, but the point is that you can find a slew of desktop printers designed to sit comfortably on your desk beside you, and seldom is the overall footprint all that different from one to the other.
As for paper handling, the MFC-J497DW comes with one 100-sheet paper drawer.
In addition, unlike the HP OfficeJet 3830, the print engine is auto-duplexing, meaning that it can print two-sided pages automatically, which is not a given on an under-$100 printer.
Epson's similar Expression Home XP-5100 Small-in-One, on the other hand, does not support auto-duplexing, but the company's next model up, the Expression Premium XP-6000 Small-in-One, does.
Unusual on a less-than-$100 printer, though, is the MFC-J497DW's automatic document feeder (ADF) for sending multipage documents to the printer.
The MFC-J497DW comes with a 20-page ADF, as does the HP OfficeJet 3830 and the Brother MFC-J690DW.
(The latter, which is in the process of being reviewed, does not list for under $100; Brother's list price is $119.99.) In addition, the MFC-J497DW is rated for a 2,500-page maximum monthly duty cycle, with a recommended monthly print volume of up to 1,000 pages (the same as the MFC-J690DW).
The HP OfficeJet 3830's duty cycle, though, is a mere 1,000 pages.
Epson, meanwhile, doesn't publish duty-cycle ratings for its family and home-office printers, such as the Expression Home XP-5100 ($119.99 at Epson) and Premium XP-6000 .
You can configure the MFC-J497DW and perform walkup operations from its busy (and somewhat complicated-looking) control panel.
It comprises lots of buttons, a number pad, a set of navigation arrow keys, and an OK button for executing commands—as well as a non-touch-sensitive 1.8-inch color LCD.
Compared to some of Brother's (and others') highly slick control panels concentrated on a large touch screen, this panel isn't all that efficient-looking.
But Brother has relied on this old staple for a few years, and it works well.
Connectivity and Software
The MFC-J497DW's connectivity options are about right for an $79 AIO.
Standard interfaces consist of 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, Wi-Fi Direct, and connecting to a single PC via USB 2.0.
Wi-Fi Direct is a peer-to-peer protocol for connecting your printer to your mobile device without either of them being connected to an intermediary network or router.
Options for mobile connectivity, meanwhile, include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria (for Android printing), and Brother's iPrint&Scan.
Brother's iPrint&Scan and Web Connect Cloud Services connect you to popular cloud sites, such as Google Drive and OneDrive, as well as to several of Brother's own cloud apps.
These include Scan to Word, Scan to Excel, Scan to PowerPoint, Scan to Searchable PDF, and Easy Scan to E-mail.
Unfortunately, to scan directly to a flash-memory device, you'll have to step up to the Brother MFC-J895DW.
The MFC-J497DW can't do that.
Middle-of-the-Pack Speed
Most entry-level AIOs are rated at between 8 and 14 pages per minute (ppm), with many of those hovering around 12ppm.
The latter include Brother's MFC-J497DW and MFC-J690DW.
More important than any AIO's speed rating, though, is how many pages per minute does the AIO actually print?
I tested this one over USB on our standard Intel Core i5-based testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional.
When printing our 12-page Microsoft Word text document, the MFC-J497DW churned at 11ppm, or 1ppm slower than its black-text-printing rating, and 0.4ppm and 0.2ppm behind the MFC-J895DW and MFC-J690DW, respectively.
Epson's Expression Home XP-5100 and Expression Premium XP-6000 beat the MFC-J497DW by 2.8ppm and 4.8ppm, respectively, too, and the MFC-J497DW beat HP's OfficeJet 3830 by 2.5ppm.
When I combined the score from this text-document test with the results from printing our full-color Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF sample documents, the MFC-J497DW's print times plummeted to less than half, or 4.4ppm.
(So do most printers at this point in our testing.) That ties its MFC-J895DW sibling, beats the MFC-J690DW by 0.3ppm, and falls behind the XP-5100 (by 0.4ppm) and the XP-6000 (by 1.8ppm).
And it beats the HP OfficeJet 3830 by 1.7ppm.
I also tested how quickly the MFC-J497DW printed our two vibrantly colored and detailed 4-by-6-inch test snapshots.
Its average of 32 seconds was par for this class of printer, with only the HP OfficeJet 3830's score of 51 seconds falling significantly behind the lot discussed up to this point.
The Output's Good
Like most other Brother entry-level printers, the MFC-J497DW prints excellent-looking text with well-shaped and legible characters down to very small font sizes.
(The quality cutoff depends primarily on the font itself.) Everyday serif and sans-serif fonts looked good to about 4 to 5 points, and decorative fonts held their shape down to about 7 or 8 points.
The latter is okay, because you typically wouldn't use them for much other than headlines and callouts.
Business graphics look good, for the most part.
As with its slightly higher-end MFC-J895DW and MFC-J690DW siblings, the MFC-J497DW does show the occasional flaw in business-graphics output, such as slight banding and even a little streaking (uneven ink distribution) in dark backgrounds.
Overall, though, text printing and graphics output are usable for most small-business materials, home printouts, and student homework.
The MFC-J497DW also turned out decent photos, about what you'd expect from an entry-level office-centric inkjet AIO.
I noted balanced, accurate colors and admirable detail.
Granted, you can find many consumer-grade photo printers out there that churn out higher-quality images (if not many listed at $79).
But the MFC-J497DW's photo output is fine for most small-business, student, and family use.
Costly Consumables, Though
Almost as a rule: The smaller and cheaper an AIO is, the more its replacement ink costs.
The exceptions are few, and, unfortunately, the MFC-J497DW, like the recently released MFC-J895DW and MFC-J690DW, is not one.
Using the company's advertised prices for its highest-yield ink tanks, I calculated the MFC-J497DW's monochrome running costs at 6 cents per page.
Color pages, meanwhile, cost about 16.5 cents per page.
Compared to the Epson Expression Home XP-5100's and Premium XP-6000's lofty 6.4 cents for monochrome pages and 17.5 cents for color, the MFC-J497DW's cost per page (CPP) may seem incrementally better.
But the real issue here is that this is still a lot of money per page, and at these rates, it adds up fast.
(For example: Keep in mind that printing 10,000 pages at 6.5 cents each will cost $650; cutting the CPP in half will save you well over $300, several times the cost of this printer.)
There are ways around spending this much on ink, of course—among them, paying a little more for a higher-volume printer.
Then, too, there's HP's Instant Ink program available on the HP OfficeJet 3830 ($309.99 at Amazon) and many other HP inkjet printers.
With Instant Ink, you can print up to 300 pages monthly, including full-size (8.5-by-11-inch) photographs, for just $9.99 per month.
Then, too, you can consider Epson's and Canon's EcoTank- and MegaTank-brand machines, which use bulk-ink delivery.
The bottom line in minimizing your running costs nowadays is that you have to have a very good idea of how much you plan to print going in, then buy accordingly.
Stick Within the 100-200 Page-Per-Month Range
Brother makes very capable printers, and the MFC-J497DW is one of them.
But it's important that you keep in mind that this is a low-volume, low-end printer.
Despite its 1,000-page recommended monthly print volume, it really does its best work in the range of 100 to 200 pages per month.
That it comes with an ADF and automatic two-sided printing for just $79 is a good value, too.
The too-high running costs preclude it from receiving our Editors' Choice nod.
But if you don't print a whole lot, per-page ink costs don't matter as much.
And if you discount that factor, the MFC-J497DW works well as a small-office, home, or dorm-room printer for making a modest number of prints and copies.
Pros
Strong output quality overall.
20-sheet ADF.
Supports borderless printing.
Solid feature set for price.
View More
The Bottom Line
The Brother MFC-J497DW is an inexpensive home or small-office AIO that prints well in low volumes for those environments.
Like some recent siblings, though, its running costs need tweaking.
