Intended for personal use or for use in a micro office with light-duty print needs, the Brother MFC-J885DW multifunction printer (MFP) ($249.99) delivers adequate print speed, output quality, and paper capacity for its target audience. However, it earns lots of points for other features, ranging from a built-in duplexer to an automatic document feeder (ADF) to connection choices that include Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and NFC.

Unfortunately for the MFC-J885DW ($299.00 at Amazon) , it's outshone by Brother's own MFC-J870DW, our Editors' Choice for moderately priced MFPs for office use. The two printers offer most of the same features, but the Brother MFC-J870DW turned in faster speed and higher quality text on our tests.

Note, however, that there are some differences in features between the MFC-J885DW and the Brother MFC-J870DW. The older model offers the ability to print on optical discs, and the new model offers a one-page rear feed tray, as well as Mopria compatibility, which can make it easier to establish a connection to a mobile device for printing and scanning over Wi-Fi.

Basics and Beyond

The MFC-J885DW measures 6.8 by 15.7 by 13.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 16 pounds 13 ounces, making it small and light enough for one person to move into place easily. Basic MFP features include the ability to print and fax from a PC, scan to a PC, and work as a standalone copier and fax machine. Additional office-centric features include the automatic duplexer and the 20-sheet ADF that supplements the letter-size flatbed to let you scan at up to legal size. Other features include the ability to print directly from PictBridge cameras, print from or scan to memory cards and USB memory keys. The front-panel, 2.7-inch LCD lets you view photos before printing, and also offers a touch-screen menu for giving commands.

The printer supports mobile printing and Web-related features. If you use Ethernet or Wi-Fi to connect it to your network, you can print through the cloud—assuming your network is connected to the Internet—as well as connect to the printer through an access point on your network to print from or scan to a phone or tablet. You can also use commands on the touch-screen menus to print from and scan to a selection of websites (including Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, OneDrive, and OneNote).

As with most of Brother's recent models, the Apps option on the MFC-J885DW's menu offers a number of features through Brother's servers in the cloud. You can, for example, scan to a variety of file formats—including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and searchable PDF. Brother's servers do the conversion and then send the file to a cloud site or as an email attachment, all without you needing to even turn on your PC.

If you connect the printer via USB cable to a single PC, you'll lose the ability to print through the cloud or use the Web-connected features, but you can still take advantage of the printer's Wi-Fi Direct support to connect to it from a mobile device to print and scan. If your phone or tablet supports NFC, you can even use it to make the connection simply by tapping the device to the appropriate spot on the printer.

One key limitation is the low paper capacity, at only 100 sheets for the main tray. That should be enough for most personal use, but it is a little low for sharing the printer on a network, unless your office has extremely light-duty print needs. Partly making up for that are a 20-sheet tray for 4-by-6-inch photo paper and the one-sheet rear tray.

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The photo tray lets you switch between plain paper and photos without having to swap out the paper in the main tray. Similarly, the rear tray will let you print short documents using a different paper stock. It can also handle heavier-weight paper than the main tray, at up to 79-pound weight.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality

For my tests, I connected the MFC-J885DW to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a system running Windows Vista. Setup is typical for the breed.

The printer's speed is acceptable, but well short of impressive. I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at 3.9 pages per minute (ppm). That makes it significantly slower than the Brother MFC-J870DW, which came in at 4.7ppm, but a touch faster than the Epson WorkForce WF-2660 ($231.88 at Amazon) , which I clocked at 3.7ppm.

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Output quality is below par overall, primarily because of the text, which is near the low end of the range for inkjet MFPs. If you rarely or never use fonts smaller than 8 points, however, you shouldn't have a problem with it.

Graphics output is within a narrow range that includes the vast majority of inkjet MFPs, but at the low end of the range. That makes it good enough for any internal business use. Some colors on plain paper look a little washed out, however, and I saw obvious banding on some full-page graphics in our tests. Photo quality on photo paper using the Photo print setting is roughly a match for typical drugstore prints.

Conclusion

With its duplexer and ADF, as ell as its wireless options, the Brother MFC-J885DW offers enough to make it a good fit for most personal or micro-office use. Be sure to also take a look at the Brother MFC-J870DW, which has faster speed, better text quality, and adds the ability to print on optical discs. Another option is the Epson WF-2660, which is only a little slower and offers better quality across the board—for text, graphics, and photos.

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