B
rother’s X-Series is a trio of A3
inkjet printers with high paper
capacity and print speeds fast
enough to make you think twice
about buying a laser printer.
Positioned at the top of this range,
the MFC-J6947DW, appears to have
it all. Unlike many A3 printers, it can
also scan, fax and duplex print with
this size paper, and with three trays
to fill you can load up to 750 sheets
of varying media. It claims a print
speed of 22 ipm (mono) and the
fastest FPOT (first page out time) in
its class at under six seconds.
The MFC-J6947DW is aimed at
the small to medium business
looking for a compact four-in-one
that can handle lots of paper and
deal with tasks ranging from
sending a fax to copying tabloid-
sized colour pages. The bundled
inkjet cartridges can’t compete
with an equivalent laser printer
for capacity or per-page cost,
but Brother’s high-yield carts
certainly can.Design and build
The Brother MFC-J6947DW might
look a little ungainly, but given its
ability to handle A3 paper it’s
actually quite compact. In fact, by
overhanging a few inches at the
front to accommodate its tabloid-
sized scanner bed, the footprint is
more like that of an A4 printer. You
can load A3 sheets in any or all of
the three drawers, but they won’t
push all the way back in when
loaded, so it’s never going to look
very neat on your desk. Brother
supports the X-Series printers with
an optional wheeled cabinet, with
somewhere to keep consumables,
for around £364.
The central control panel tilts
conveniently and features a large
9.3cm colour touchscreen
alongside a numerical keypad
which make this printer very easy
to access. There’s a front USB port
for printing from a flash drive, while
the rear USB, along with the
Ethernet port, is located under thescanner bed with cables guided out
of the back of the machine. This
means nobody can accidentally
unplug it.
The ink cartridge compartment
projects forward from the front
panel a little because it has to
accommodate Brother’s large
Innobella ink cartridges. The
supplied standard carts are quite a
handful without actually containing
much ink. We recommend
switching to high-yield cartridges.
The transparent design means you
can see how much ink is left.
In addition to the three 250-sheet
paper trays, there’s a 50-sheet ADF
(automatic document feed) on top
and a multimedia input tray at the
back. This is where you load heavy
A3 paper (up to 230gsm) that
requires a flatter paper path.Features
As you might expect from a
top-of-the-line all-in-one, the
Brother MFC-J6947DW has a longBrother MFC-J6947DW
£635 | $818 http://www.brother.com
Business inkjet with true A3 ability
Images: Techradar.com64 |^ |^ May 2020