Brother has left out some features with this printer but it is compatible with the company’s INKvestment cartridges.
As a general rule, the cheaper the printer, the more expensive it is to run. However, this entry-level business inkjet is compatible with Brother’s high capacity cartridges, which achieve the lowest per-page print costs of any cartridge-based inkjet. Brother refuses to join the refillable ink tank revolution, insisting that larger cartridges are more convenient than bottled ink and its somewhat awkwardly named INKvestment Tank system offers a cartridge-based alternative. This streamlined home office printer, known as the Brother DCP-J1200W in Europe and Brother MFC-J1205W in the US is the smallest INKvestment model and we should point out now that it is NOT compatible with the super high yield INKvestment cartridges that can give you up to 5,000 pages pert cartridge. By shedding all but the most essential features, Brother has kept the retail price down to around £100, or not much over US$100. There’s no LCD, no ADF (automatic document feeder) and no auto duplex mode, but it does promise high quality colour printing and scanning and comes with enough ink in the box for 720 black and white pages, or 480 colour pages. The Brother DCP-J1200W (or MFC-J1205W) is Brother’s smallest INKvestment Tank printer and it’s a very different design to the more expensive Brother DCP-J1100DW. It’s much sleeker without the ADF or tilting control panel. It is a little wider than most A4 all-in-one devices because the cartridge compartment is larger and it’s a little deeper too. You couldn’t call this a small-in-one, but it’s quite compact and compared to the rest of Brother’s product range, it’s not too ugly either. The uncluttered off-white casing helps it blend into the background more successfully. It looks very minimal because there is no LCD and at first glance, there are no sockets either. In fact the mains power port is at the side and your USB data cable, if you use one, snakes inside the casing and pugs into a recessed port where it cannot be accidentally unplugged. The unusually large cartridges are housed behind a front flap where the printer bulges slightly on the right hand side. Printed pages are ejected through the front slot and below this is the main (and only) paper tray, which is capable of holding 150 sheets of A4 paper. The Brother DCP-J1200W (MFC-J1205W) is a three-in-one multifunction device, which is to say it can print, scan and copy, but not fax. Being at the bottom of the range, it doesn’t have a lot of other features. Wi-Fi is built in of course with Wireless Connect, AirPrint, Mopria and Brother Mobile Connect all catered for. It can print on a range of blank media including envelopes, glossy photo paper and A4 paper up to 220g/ms in weight.
