The Brother MFC-J497DW is a simple and decent budget printer meant for everyday household use. It comes with a scanner that's equipped with an automatic document feeder, it has decent connectivity options, and it works with Brother's superb mobile companion app, so you can perform most tasks directly on your smartphone. Even though its ink cartridges yield few pages and require frequent replacement, the ink cartridges are relatively cheap, making it fairly cost-effective in the long run. Unfortunately, it has a rather mediocre printing speed, a small input tray, and its color accuracy is just okay. Photos look pretty decent, though they take a while to print. Lastly, this is an older model that has been discontinued; however, it can still be found at certain retailers.
Our Verdict
The Brother MFC-J497DW is a decent family printer. It has a flatbed scanner for digitizing your photos and its automatic document feeder is great for making copies quickly. It's inexpensive to print in black and color due to the low cost of the ink cartridges. Color accuracy is okay and shouldn't be an issue for most. It's pretty decent at printing photos, but it takes a while to print them out. Unfortunately, it doesn't support any external storage devices, such as USB thumb drives or SD cards.
- Decent photo printing quality.
- Good cost-per-print.
- Can print on glossy photo paper.
- Low black and color page yield.
- Doesn't support external storage devices.
The Brother MFC-J497DW is a poor printer for small or home offices. Its black and color cartridges yield very few pages, which means that you'll have to replace them regularly if you print a lot. It has mediocre printing speed, it lacks an ethernet port, and even though the scanner is equipped with an automatic document feeder, it can't perform duplex scanning.
- Good cost-per-print.
- Automatic document feeder.
- Low black and color page yield.
- Mediocre printing speed.
- No ethernet port.
- No duplex scanning.
The Brother MFC-J497DW is a decent printer for students. It isn't the fastest printer out there, so you may want to avoid leaving it till the last minute to start a big print job. However, if you only have a single page to print, it's able to get it out fairly quickly. The ink cartridges are relatively inexpensive, which is great for students who are on a tight budget. You can easily connect to the printer via your existing Wi-Fi network, and you can perform most tasks from your smartphone with Brother's mobile app.
- Good cost-per-print.
- Outstanding mobile app.
- Low black and color page yield.
- Mediocre printing speed.
- Doesn't support external storage devices.
The Brother MFC-J497DW is a mediocre printer for printing black and white documents. The black ink cartridge runs out quickly, so it needs to be replaced often. However, the ink cartridges are relatively cheap, making it cost-effective in the long run. It's pretty fast at getting the first page of a document out, but it slows down for subsequent pages.
- Good cost-per-print.
- Low black and color page yield.
- Mediocre printing speed.
The Brother MFC-J497DW is a decent printer for printing photos. It's able to print photos that have a good amount of details and the colors look vibrant, but there's some banding. It can print on glossy photo paper and most photo sizes are supported, except for 2" x 3". It's fairly cost-effective to print in color as the ink cartridges are relatively cheap.
- Decent photo printing quality.
- Good cost-per-print.
- Can print on glossy photo paper.
- Low black and color page yield.
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Popular Printer Comparisons
The Brother MFC-J497DW is a decent budget printer for home use, and when compared to a similarly-priced printer like the Epson WorkForce WF-2830, it actually performs quite well. The Brother can yield more black and color pages, and its ink cartridges are cheaper, which leads to a lower cost-per-print overall. Unfortunately, the MFC-J497DW is a discontinued model, but it's still available for purchase at certain retailers and you can likely find it at a reduced price. For other options, you can also check out our recommendations for the best all-in-one printers, the best home printers, and the best printers under $100.
The Brother MFC-J895DW is a somewhat better small or home office all-in-one color inkjet printer than the Brother MFC-J497DW. The J895DW has a slightly better black page yield and black-only document cost-per-print, better overall printing speed, and better photo printing quality. It also has an Ethernet port and a better display. On the other hand, the J497DW has a better color page yield and color document cost-per-print and marginally better color accuracy.
The Brother MFC-J805DW INKvestment Tank and the Brother MFC-J497DW are both all-in-one color inkjet printers, but the MFC-J805DW uses a proprietary hybrid cartridge–tank system for far superior page yields and a much better cost-per-print. On the other hand, the MFC-J497DW produces much more accurate colors. Otherwise, both printers print at similar speeds, produce similar-quality photos, and have the same scanning and connectivity features.
Overall, the Brother MFC-J497DW performs better than the Epson WorkForce WF-2830. The Brother has a better build quality, it can yield more pages per cartridge, and its ink cartridges are cheaper. The Brother also has better color accuracy, but the Epson prints faster, especially for black and white documents.
The Canon PIXMA TR7520 is a much better printer than the Brother MFC-J497DW. The Canon has more connectivity options, it prints higher-quality photos, and it can yield a lot more color pages, making its overall cost-per-print much lower. Also, the Canon prints faster overall, especially when it comes to printing photos.
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