The Brother MFC-J6955DW ($429.99) is Brother's next-generation replacement for the discontinued MFC-J6945DW, which earned an Editors' Choice award for inkjet all-in-one (AIO) printers that handle up to tabloid-size (11-by-17-inch) paper. The new model offers essentially the same capabilities at a similarly low running cost, and it hit a similar print speed on our tests, despite a faster rating. Even without any major feature upgrade compared with its predecessor, it still offers enough to replace it as our new top tabloid-size AIO pick for micro or small offices, or small workgroups.
Big and Heavy, But Easy to Set Up
The MFC-J6955DW is heavy enough—52.9 pounds after unpacking it, and 59.9 pounds while still in the box—that you'll probably want some help moving it into place. Like any AIO printer that handles larger than legal-size paper, it's also relatively big, at 14.8 by 22.7 by 18.8 inches (HWD). Setup is straightforward, however, consisting of removing some tape, loading paper, connecting cables, and sliding in the ink cartridges, which Brother uses instead of ink bottles for its INKvestment tank printers. At that point, you can take a break while the printer spends several minutes pumping the ink into its internal tanks, or you can start downloading the software.
The setup program worked without a hitch in my tests to install the print and fax drivers, plus a scan utility, on our standard printer testbed PC. Connection options include Ethernet, which I used, plus USB and Wi-Fi. You can also download an app to your Android or iOS phone or tablet for mobile printing and scanning, both of which worked as promised in my tests. If you want to connect using Wi-Fi Direct, however, you may need to call tech support to get the details, since Brother doesn't include instructions with the printer. (Brother says they're in the online manual only.) The 3.5-inch color touch-screen control panel adds options to print from or scan to a USB key, plus commands for faxing; copying; scanning to a PC; and both scanning to and printing from several cloud services, including Box, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Evernote.
(Credit: Brother)Paper handling is designed for heavy-duty use by small-office standards. The 600-sheet capacity is divided into two 250-sheet drawers and a 100-sheet rear multi-purpose tray. All can hold up to tabloid- or A3-size paper, which means you can have three different paper sizes or types loaded at all times, or have all three loaded with the same paper most of the time, and easily swap out the paper in the rear tray when you need to. If you print mostly simplex (one-sided) pages, the maximum recommended duty cycle of 3,500 pages per month would translate to reloading paper roughly once every three to four working days (assuming five working days per week). If you print mostly in duplex (two-sided printing), that drops to less than once a week.
For scanning, the printer offers an automatic document feeder (ADF) that can hold 50 sheets of up to tabloid- or A3-size paper. Even better, it offers single-pass duplex scanning, meaning it can scan both sides of each page at once, for faster copying, scanning, and faxing. For originals that are either too delicate or too thick to fit through the ADF, the printer offers a flatbed that measures a touch larger than 11 by 17 inches.
(Credit: Brother)As expected for any tank printer, the MFC-J6955DW scores well on running cost, at 1 cent per page for a standard letter-size monochrome black page and 4.9 cents for a color page. However, keep in mind that each tabloid-size page is equivalent to two letter-size pages, and each duplex page counts as two pages. As always, the key number when comparing printers is the total cost of ownership—the initial price plus the running cost—rather than running cost alone, as we discuss in our guide to how to save money on your next printer.
Testing the Brother MFC-J9655DW: Solid Speed
For our performance tests, I compared the MFC-J9655DW to the Brother MFC-J5855DW and the Epson WorkForce EC-C7000, which are both a step down in price, and to the Epson EcoTank Pro ET-16650, which is a step up in price and our current top recommendation for AIOs that print at up to supertabloid size (13 by 19 inches). All were tested using an Ethernet connection and our standard printer testbed PC.
The two Brother models were essentially tied on our 12-page Word text file, differing for first-page-out (FPO) time by 1 second, and tying for pages 2 through 12. The ET-16650 matched them for FPO time, but was a touch slower for the rest of the file, while the EC-C7000 was significantly slower than the others for both FPO time and the following pages. That said, the slowest printer took only about 8 seconds longer than the fastest, which isn't enough to matter in a shared printer that's not sitting on your desk. On the other hand, if you regularly print text documents that are 50 pages or much longer, the Brother printers will have a noticeable speed advantage over the Epson models.
For our full business applications suite, which adds several short files that include graphics and photos, the EC-C7000's slow FPO time for each file added up to give it a significantly slower print speed overall than any of the other printers, while the ET-16650 earned first place, primarily because it gave the best performance for both our PowerPoint and PDF files. Between the two Brother printers, the only difference on our tests was for the Excel graphics file, which the MFC-J5855DW printed faster, putting it in second place and the MFC-J6955DW in third.
Very much on the plus side, I did not see any hint of the paper handling issues that I mentioned in the review of the MFC-J5855DW.
(Credit: M. David Stone)Text, graphics, and photo output quality in our tests are all best described as good enough for most purposes, but well short of impressive. For text, every font in our test suite that you're likely use in a business document was easily readable at 5 points, and some were easily readable at 4 points, but a close look showed they lacked crisp edges even at 12 points, and the issue became more obvious at each step down in size. For the two heavily stylized fonts in our tests with thick strokes, the issue was even more obvious, though both were easily readable at 12 points, and one was easily readable at 8 points. A quick look with a loupe showed ragged edges at all sizes.
(Credit: M. David Stone)Graphics on plain paper delivered vibrant color and smoothly shaded gradients, and the printer maintained a one-pixel-wide line against a black background. I saw banding on some full-page graphics, but not all of them, and it was reasonably subtle. I didn't see any banding in photos on Brother's BP71G glossy photo paper, however, and the photos were at the low end of drugstore quality overall.
In our ink smudge tests on plain paper, color inks resisted smudging, but showed water stains after drying. Black text smudged easily, but only slightly, from both water and a highlighter.
Verdict: Satisfactory Output, Superb Paper Handing
The MFC-J6955DW offers a solid combination of print speed and paper handling for both printing and scanning at up to tabloid size, plus good-enough output quality for most business needs. However, be sure to consider the other printers mentioned here as well. If you need to print at tabloid size without needing to scan anything larger than legal size, for example, the physically smaller MFC-J5855DW is cheaper, and its smaller size may be a better fit for a small office. On the other hand, it also has a lower paper capacity.
Alternatively, if you need to print on supertabloid (13-by-19-inch) paper, take a look at the two Epson models, which offer roughly the same paper capacity as the MFC-J6955DW does. Between them, the EC-C7000 was significantly slower for text documents on our tests than any of the other models mentioned here, while the ET-16650 was slightly slower for text than either Brother model and costs significantly more.
If you need the ability to scan at tabloid size, however, and you don't need to print at supertabloid size, the MFC-J6955DW is the exactly right fit, making it an Editors' Choice-winning inkjet AIO for printing, scanning, copying, and faxing in a micro or small office.
