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New Brother Work Smart Inkjets for Home/Small Office Users Start at $79.99

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Brother International Corporation today launched new A4 color inkjet printers and All-in-Ones for small and home-office environments. The new Brother Work Smart Series starts at just $79.99 (approximate street price).

Features include wireless and mobile connectivity, with quick setup for wireless printing from PC desktops and mobile devices. Some models also feature color touchscreen displays, as well as cloud connectivity to print from and scan to popular cloud-based document-sharing and storage Web sites. Select Work Smart models also provide Near Field Communication (NFC) touch-to-connect printing and scanning from with NFC-enabled mobile devices without being connected to a network.

Eric Dahl, director of B2C product marketing at Brother, commented: “This lineup of inkjet all-in-ones was designed specifically with home users in mind – easy setup, multiple connection options, compact size – all at a low cost.”

The new models consist of four new models: the MFC-J491DW ($79.99), MFC-J497DW ($79.99), MFC-J690DW ($119.99), and MFC-J895DW ($129.99). Standard- and high-yield replacement ink cartridges (200/400 ISO pages per standard/high-yield C/Y/M/K cartridge) are available. All new Work Smart models feature automatic ink-cartridge fulfillment via Brother Refresh and Amazon Dash Replenishment, with replacement ink cartridges automatically shipped to the customer before ink runs out. All models also feature free “Brother At Your Side” customer support for the life of the product.

The new series is available online and at select retailers. For more information and complete specifications, visit Brother here. 

Our Take

While these are very nice and well-equipped printers for home and small-office use, they clearly employ the old “razor and blades” marketing scheme. Consider the cost per page:

  • Cost per ISO page for standard yield cartridges: Black: 7.0¢; Color (CYMK): 20.5¢.
  • Cost per ISO page for high-yield cartridges: Black: 6¢; Color (CYMK): 16.5¢.

Not only is the cost per page comparatively high, the total cost of ownership will be as well. We recommend that: 1)  customers consider other popular and inexpensive printers from vendors who also provide ship-to doorstep ink resupply programs whose ink costs can be half of much; 2) use these models at very low print volumes (less than 50 pages per month), and print in black or grayscale modes whenever possible; or 3) if you are a Brother afficianado, save up your money for the more-expensive Brother printers that use high-yield, lower cost-per-page INKvestment cartridges.

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