By M. David Stone As the high-end printer (for now, at least) in Brother's Business Smart series, the Brother MFC-J4710DW offers everything you'll find in the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J4610DW and more. That translates to starting with the same 400-sheet capacity for letter-size paper and a manual feed for up to tabloid size (11 by 17 inches), among other features, and then adding a larger touch screen, duplex scanning, and the ability to load up to 250 sheets of tabloid-size paper in one of its trays. The combination makes it an easy pick as Editors' Choice for micro and small offices.
What all of the models in the Business Smart multifunction printer (MFP) series have in common is that they can print on tabloid-size paper fed through a manual-feed slot. For most of the models, the manual feed is the only choice for larger than letter-size size printing, limiting how much you can print at tabloid size (or legal size, for that matter) without it turning into an annoying chore.
The ability to put tabloid-size paper in one of the MFC-J4710DW's two drawers eliminates that issue. It also turns the printer into a true tabloid-size MFP, in much the same class as the Brother MFC-J6510DW and the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J6710DW. Compared with those printers, however, it also has the advantage of being a lot smaller. Set the drawer for tabloid-size paper, and it sticks out from the printer, adding 14.9 inches to its depth. Collapse the drawer for letter-size paper, however, and the printer is just 10.0 by 18.9 by 11.4 inches (HWD).
Basics
If you ignore the large-size tray, the MFC-J4710DW is virtually identical to the Brother MFC-J4610DW in most other ways. It can print and fax from, as well as scan to, a computer, including over a network; it can work as a standalone copier and fax machine; it can print directly from a PictBridge camera; and it can print from and scan to a memory card or USB memory key. It will also let you preview files on a memory card or USB key before printing, using a 3.7-inch color touch screen rather the 1.8-inch screen on its less expensive near twin.
The two printers also share the same mobile printing features, including printing through the cloud, printing from a smartphone or tablet over a Wi-Fi connection, and offering Wi-Fi Direct, so you can connect to a mobile device even if the printer isn't on a network with an access point. Web-connected features let you print from and scan to an assortment of online services, including Evernote, Dropbox, and Facebook.
To say that the paper handling for printing is a strong point, is an understatement. In addition to the 400-sheet capacity, with a 150-sheet drawer for letter-size paper, and a 250-sheet drawer for paper up to tabloid size, it includes a built-in duplexer (for printing on both sides of a page) and the manual feed slot in the back that I've already mentioned.
The paper drawers go into the printer with the long side of letter-size paper parallel to the front, so it comes out with the long side first. Given that design, it's not much of a leap to also let you feed tabloid-size paper through the manual feed slot with the 11-inch side as the leading edge, or to extend the one paper drawer, making it big enough to hold tabloid size paper, with the 11-inch side as the leading edge going into the printer.
For scanning, the MFC-J4710DW offers both a letter-size flatbed and a 20-page automatic document feeder (ADF). As with most office-oriented MFPs, the ADF lets you scan up to legal-size pages. More important, however, is that unlike the scanners on most inexpensive MFPs, the MFC-J4710DW scanner can scan in duplex, which means scanning both sides of a page simultaneously.
If you deal with duplex documents very often, the duplex scanning is a key feature. Most inexpensive MFPs that can scan duplex pages use duplexing ADFs, not duplexing scanners. The difference is that a duplexing ADF has to scan one side, turn the page over, and scan the other, which takes a lot longer than scanning both sides at once. That's faster than doing it manually, but it's no match for actually scanning in duplex.
As you would expect, the combination of being able to both scan and print in duplex also lets you copy both single- and double-sided originals to your choice of single- or double-sided copies. You can also scan in either simplex (one side only) or duplex for faxing and copying.
Setup, Speed and Output Quality
Setting up the MFC-J4710DW is standard. I connected it to a wired network for my tests, and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.
Print speed is a strong point. On our business applications suite, I timed it (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 5.7 pages per minute (ppm). That counts as a tie with the Brother MFC-J4610DW, at 5.6 ppm, and is significantly faster than the other Business Smart printers we've tested. It's also faster than the MFC-J6510DW and MFC-J6710DW, which both came in at 4.1 ppm. Photo speed is also fast, at 57 seconds for a 4 by 6.
Output quality for the MFC-J4710DW is a little uneven, with relatively better text than either graphics or photos compared with other inkjet MFPs. Text quality was near the high end of the range for inkjet MFPs, making it easily good enough for most business use. Graphics were a touch below par, making them good enough for any internal business need. Whether you'll consider them good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like will depend on how much of a perfectionist you are. Photos were roughly a match for the low end of what you would expect from drugstore prints.
One issue I ran into that demands mention is that the printer repeatedly jammed with the Brother BP71 photo paper that Brother recommends using. It didn't jam with the lighter weight Brother BP61 photo paper, however, which is the paper Brother provided for testing with the other printers in the Business Smart series.
Given that printing photos on photo paper is not an important application for a printer meant for office use, this doesn't count as a serious problem. However, if you want to print on photo paper, be aware that the recommended paper may not feed reliably, although Brother said it was unable to replicate the jamming that I saw. The problem is unfortunate, because the BP71 paper offers better color quality for photos than the BP61 paper, raising the quality from the low end of what you'd expect from drugstore prints to at least the mid-range of that category.
The MFC-J4710DW delivers a lot to like otherwise. It stands out in particular for its duplexing scanner and 400-sheet capacity, including the drawer for up to tabloid-size paper. It also gets lots of points for its speed, high-quality text, and its long list of MFP functions. If you're looking for an MFP with lots of office-oriented features plus tabloid-size printing, and particularly if you need to scan, copy, or fax duplex documents on regular basis, the Brother MFC-J4710DW will be hard to beat at anything like the price. That's more than enough to make it Editors' Choice.
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