Brother INKvestmentTank Inkjet Printer, MFC-J995DW XL, Extended Print, Color All-in-One Printer, Mobile Printing Duplex Printing, Upto 2-Years Ink-in-Box

I bought this printer EXACTLY six years ago today. Today was the first time i’ve swapped out the black ink cartridge, i changed the colored ones a couple years ago. This is BY FAR the best printer i’ve ever owned. I even bought the updated model for my parents when they were needing a new printer. Yes this printer is a little pricier than other brands but trust me when i say it’s 100% worth it. I never have problems with it not connecting and can print from multiple devices. So easy to set up and use. My kids print a TON and i even used this when i homeschooled them during the pandemic and we printed so many things then. I’m honestly in disbelief that the ink has lasted this long. If you’re looking for a new printer and not sure if you should splurge on this one, take my advice and go for it, you’ll not be disappointed!

Ok, so I've owned this printer with two year ink supply now for over two and a half years. I finally ran out of yellow ink a few days ago. This printer has never jammed, never malfunctioned, never broke any hinges, paper trays etc. I have owned printers from Canon, HP and Lexmark and this printer beats them all for reliability. Two and a half years and I never had to refill ink, I still have a some cyan, magenta and black ink, probably will run out in the next few weeks. The ink reinstall process is the easiest I've ever seen. This brother printer updates flawlessly, I've never had an issue with an update. I don't know what else to say, it's probably not the best printer for photos, but I don't use it for photos, so no biggie, I don't think they advertise it as a photo printer anyway. The ink head cleaning process has also worked flawlessly if I don't use the printer for awhile, the scanner feeds perfectly, it's relatively quiet and pretty fast on most documents. The print is clean, so this printer for me anyway has been stellar, I have no complaints.

Ok, so where do I start. First off, I do like the printer. It was easy to setup , and I like the size of the ink cartridges. They should last awhile for me. Lets talk about what I don’t like. Also why it won’t rate it five stars.First issue is the print quality. Most reviewers complain about this issue. Should have listened. This is a big issue to me. I guess Brothers is trying to save your ink so it prints as lightly as possible. For me that is not acceptable. I want the print darker where I can see it. I am still tring to figure that out since the steps to do that don’t seem to make much difference. Plus you end up wasting a lot of ink and paper continuing to run test pages to see if the print gets darker. In my case, I’ve not had a lot of success figuring that out. The printouts are clear. No smuging like other have experienced. Just not very dark. Work in progress.Won’t print pictures. Are you kidding me. Guess what. It turns out that if you have VPN you need to turn it off or you wont be able to print pictures. That right. When I tried to print a pictures I kept getting “Error Printing on Brothers MFC-J995DW Printer”. After thinking about issues I’ve had with websites I thought I’d try turning the VPN off . As soon as I turn the VPN off it started printing the pictures. So even on your own private network, you have to turn the VPN off to print pictures. Did not have any problem printing text files with VPN on.Other’s have complained about the noise. It’s is noiser then other printers. However, for us that is not a problem since it’s a way to tell the printer is working. I am not using it in a business environment so being noisy is not a problem.Don’t use the Fax or Scannner feature. Since I do genealogical research I have a separate full feature Epson scanner for that purpose.So my bottom line is, I cannot recommend this printer. Reasons, print quality is poor along with having to turn off my VPN to print pictures. The Canon printer I am replacing is no longer in production. Otherwise, I would have purchase a replacement. Since I need a printer that works the question now is do I return it in the hopes of finding an acceptable printer.12/9/2020 UpdateAll printing stop working unless I disable my network security system. Brother has no idea how to solve the problem. Stay away from this printer until Brother can come up with a solution for the network issue. Also not happy about having to pay for return shipping.

So far, knock on wood, this printer is a gem. It behaves like it knows what it's doing. I have not used all the features on it, but have printed photos, etc. The ink supply seems unlimited.. you forget how awful it was to have to buy those expensive, little tanks and change them way too often. On this one, it seems I have changed the black once per year. I've yet to change the color tanks! This is the second Brother printer I've owned and I'm very impressed with the quality and performance of both.