The Brother MFC-J497DW packs four core functions along with a number of good features into a compact unit. It supports walk-up operations, wireless printing, automatic duplexing, and cloud printing, among others. Yet, its usefulness is restricted by its limited paper handling.

It has an affordable upfront price, but its operational cost may be a deal breaker for some people. For those who have bought it, using the highest yield ink cartridge and print pages at lower quality are probably the only available solutions.

Features and Highlights

The Brother MFC-J497DW has a compact look that fits comfortably and elegantly on a desk. It weighs 8.3 kg, so moving it into place won’t take much effort. Its flip-up top cover can turn into a paper tray for the ADF to feed up to twenty sheets of paper, one by one, and can be closed down to hide the tray so you can use the top surface to put something temporarily, like the stack of sheets that you’re going to load into the bottom paper tray.

Paper capacity for printing is limited to 100 sheets only. The main input tray is positioned exactly below the output tray, which has a paper support to hold the printed documents in place until you take them. The extended paper support adds to the depth of the printer, but it is better that way than letting the prints falling to the floor.

The main tray can be removed from the printer to load sheets of paper required for printing. Printing can be done from the screen of your computer desktop or from your mobile device.

Aside from wireless printing that makes use of the Wi-Fi network, the printer also supports printing by taking advantage of peer to peer technology, which is facilitated by the Wi-Fi Direct functionality and Brother’s iPrint&Scan. Unfortunately, near-field communication (NFC) is not supported.

Above the output tray is the control panel that runs about half the width of the front body. It has a 4.5-cm LCD screen. To the right of it is a bunch of buttons that look a bit crowded, probably because they are placed together in one location next to each other. On the plus side, the panel can be tilted upward for a better view angle.

Brother MFC-J497DW Driver Free Download

AIO printers that are cheap to buy usually are expensive to run. Unfortunately, this also applies to the Brother MFC-J497DW. Its ink cost are too pricey for an entry-level printer, which is about six cents per monochrome page and 16.5 cents per color page if you use its highest yield ink cartridges. This means you will spend $650 to print ten thousand pages in black and white.

The ink cost wouldn’t probably too much of an issue, however, if it is used as a personal printer in a small office or home to print between fifty to two hundred pages a month. If you print more, keep in mind to stop printing the moment the printer hits the monthly duty cycle, which is one thousand pages. You can click the link below to download Brother MFC-J497DW Driver for Windows: