Brother MFC-J5340DW Review - PCMag

At $249.99, the Brother MFC-J5340DW is the lowest-price all-in-one printer we've yet seen that tin people connected tabloid-size (11-by-17-inch) paper. Part of the aforesaid caller procreation of printers arsenic the MFC-J5855DW, it shares galore of the aforesaid cardinal features arsenic that model, including bully output quality, enactment for printing from and scanning to a mobile device, and accelerated speed. It's a tad slower and has much constricted insubstantial handing, however. Still, its debased terms and tiny size for a tabloid-capable printer tin marque it conscionable close for a small-office oregon idiosyncratic printer if you perfectly indispensable people astatine tabloid size but power betwixt antithetic insubstantial sizes lone occasionally.

Versatile Printing and Scanning, One Size astatine a Time

At 37.5 pounds and 12 by 20.9 by 15.7 inches (HWD), the MFC-J5340DW is tiny for a tabloid-size printer, making it unusually casual to find country for successful a tiny office. Physical setup is routine, consisting of small much than loading paper, connecting cables, and inserting the ink cartridges. Unlike the MFC-J5855DW, it's not 1 of Brother's Inkvestment vessel printers, truthful there's nary ink vessel to fill, but setup inactive requires a fewer minutes to load ink into the printer.

Installing the software, which includes scan and fax utilities arsenic good arsenic people and fax drivers, requires downloading them from Brother's website. The process is casual enough, but there's a batch to download and install, including a acceptable of updates to the archetypal acceptable of files, truthful the process takes longer than with galore printers.

(Credit: Brother)

Brother besides offers apps for Android and iOS mobile devices to fto you people from and scan to phones and tablets. In my tests, the Android mentation worked without problems via a Wi-Fi Direct connection. You tin besides usage paper commands connected the 2.7-inch touch-screen power sheet to fax, copy, and scan to a PC; people from oregon scan to a USB drive; and some scan to and people from unreality services, including Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive.

For printing, there's a 250-sheet insubstantial drawer and a one-sheet bypass tray. Both tin clasp up to tabloid-size paper, and some let automatic duplexing (two-sided printing). However, the car duplexing works lone for insubstantial up to ineligible size.

All told, the printer is suitable for light-to-medium-duty printing by small- and home-office standards, and it's champion reserved for situations wherever you seldom request to power betwixt insubstantial types oregon sizes. The bypass tray lets you usage a antithetic insubstantial than is successful the drawer if you request to, but for each but the shortest people jobs, you'll request to swap retired the insubstantial successful the drawer. Brother's recommended maximum monthly work rhythm is up to 2,500 pages. If you don't privation to reload the tray much than erstwhile a week connected average, the much realistic maximum is 1,000 pages a month.

(Credit: Brother)

For scanning, the MFC-J5340DW offers a 50-page ADF that tin grip up to legal-size insubstantial and is supplemented by an 8.75-by-11.7-inch flatbed, which means there's nary mode to scan oregon transcript tabloid-size originals. The ADF is besides constricted to single-sided scanning, with nary enactment to manually flip the stack of originals and person the unusual and adjacent pages automatically interfiled successful the close order. The lone mode to scan successful duplex is to spot each leafage connected the flatbed and scan 1 broadside astatine a time.

The printer scores reasonably good for moving cost. Using its high-capacity cartridges, the ink outgo is 1.8 cents for a modular monochrome leafage and 8.9 cents for a colour page. (Double these numbers for tabloid-size output.)  As always, you'll privation to absorption connected the full outgo of ownership—meaning the archetypal terms positive the moving cost—when comparing it to different printers you're considering, arsenic discussed successful our usher to however to prevention money connected your adjacent printer purchase.

Testing the MFC-J5340DW: Solid Performance

For our show tests, I connected some the MFC-J5340DW and our testbed PC to the aforesaid network, utilizing Ethernet for both. On our 12-page Word substance file, not including the archetypal page, the printer fundamentally deed its rated 28ppm speed, astatine 28.7ppm (23 seconds). That's a interaction slower than the MFC-J5855DW's 31.4ppm (21 seconds), and a interaction faster than the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7840 and Epson WorkForce Pro WF-7820, which some came successful astatine astir 27ppm (24 seconds).

For abbreviated documents, some Brother printers person the further vantage implicit the Epson models of a shorter archetypal leafage retired (FPO) time, astatine 6 to 7 seconds, compared with 12 seconds for some Epson printers. Including the archetypal leafage successful the results for the Word record puts the MFC-J5855DW successful archetypal place, astatine 26.7ppm (27 seconds), the MFC-J5340DW successful a adjacent 2nd place, astatine 24ppm (30 seconds), and the 2 Epson printers statistically tied for a convincing 3rd place, astatine astir 19.8ppm (36 seconds).

(Credit: PCMag)

Both Brother models besides bested the Epson printers successful our concern applications suite, which adds respective files of 4 oregon less pages on with graphics and colour output. Here again the MFC-J5855DW was fastest, astatine 1 infinitesimal 34 seconds (16ppm), the MFC-J5340DW fundamentally tied, astatine 1:36 (15.6ppm), and some Epson models efficaciously tied with each other, astatine astir 2:05 (12.1ppm). For 4-by-6-inch photos, the MFC-J5340DW averaged 53 seconds per photo.

In the MFC-J5855DW review, I pointed retired that Brother recommended changing settings to debar a occupation I saw erstwhile printing full-page graphics connected 20-pound value paper. The precocious ink saturation successful those cases occasionally caused the insubstantial to curl and artifact aboriginal pages from emerging into the output tray. Using a higher-quality mode gave the ink much clip to dry, truthful the insubstantial stayed flat. I did not spot the aforesaid contented erstwhile investigating the MFC-J5340DW, apt owed to immoderate operation of my investigating it connected a less-humid time and the information that it's a spot slower, giving the ink much clip to dry.

Text, graphics, and photograph output prime successful our tests were acceptable for astir concern purposes, but abbreviated of boardroom-level quality. For example, each font successful our substance suite that you'd apt usage successful a concern papers was easy readable astatine 6 points, and astir were easy readable astatine 5 points, but edges weren't arsenic crisp arsenic with laser output. Viewing idiosyncratic characters done a loupe revealed ragged edges astatine some sizes. Similarly, 2 heavy stylized fonts with heavy strokes successful our suite were some readable astatine 10 points, but some filled successful loops astatine that size, and 1 wholly filled successful the abstraction betwixt immoderate characters adjacent astatine 12 points.

(Credit: Brother)

Graphics connected plain insubstantial offered nicely saturated colour and evenly shaded gradients. They besides maintained a one-pixel-wide enactment connected a achromatic inheritance nicely. I saw immoderate banding successful coagulated fills that appeared to beryllium from sweeps of the printhead, chiefly successful coagulated acheronian fills connected full-page graphics, but adjacent wherever banding showed, it was subtle. Photos connected Brother's recommended BP71G glossy photograph insubstantial mislaid immoderate of the subtle gradations that springiness a consciousness of three-dimensionality, but they were solidly successful the scope of drugstore quality.

On our ink smudge tests connected plain paper, colour inks resisted smudging, but pages showed h2o marks aft drying. Black substance smudged easy erstwhile bedewed from drops of h2o but resisted smudging with a highlighter.

Verdict: Smaller, Less Expensive, and Maybe All You Need?

Each of the Epson options and the MFC-J5855DW mentioned supra is simply a perchance bully choice, and each has wide advantages implicit the others and the MFC-J5340DW. The WF-7840 offers the highest insubstantial capableness of the four, a duplexing ADF that tin scan up to tabloid-size paper, and the quality to people connected up to supertabloid-size (13-by-19-inch) paper. If you don't request its precocious capacity, but privation the remainder of the features, the less-expensive WF-7820 is fundamentally identical, but that it has 2 trays alternatively of three.

The MFC-J5855DW has the aforesaid limitations for scanning arsenic the MFC-J5340DW does, truthful it can't scan successful duplex oregon scan astatine tabloid size, but it's faster capable than the Epson models to notice. It besides has fundamentally the aforesaid insubstantial capableness for printing arsenic the WF-7820, truthful you tin load 2 kinds of insubstantial astatine once, and it has the lowest moving outgo of the four.

That leaves the advantages for the MFC-J5340DW: its tiny size for a tabloid-capable model, its debased price, and a adjacent second-place decorativeness connected some velocity and outgo per page. Its operation of terms and moving outgo warrant that its full outgo of ownership volition beryllium little than for either Epson model. It whitethorn oregon whitethorn not beryllium little than MFC-J5885DW's full cost, depending connected however overmuch you print. If you ne'er request to people connected supertabloid-size insubstantial oregon scan astatine tabloid size, and lone occasionally request to power among tabloid-, legal-, and letter-size papers, the MFC-J5340DW precise good could beryllium the close fit.