Fast, high-quality photo printing in testing. Slow performance for business applications and low-quality text in our tests. The key advantages for the Brother printer, and what keeps it firmly in place as our top pick, is that it offers better text quality than the 4650 and much faster speed for business applications. However, the 4650 offers some advantages as well, including Wi-Fi Direct, which the Brother printer lacks. Basics The 4650 can print and fax from, as well as scan to, a computer, and it can also work as a standalone copier and fax machine. The 100-sheet capacity for the single input tray is one of the key factors that makes it suitable only for light-duty office use. As with almost any inkjet, you can use it in the dual role of home and home-office printer, but note that with only one paper tray, if you want to switch between printing on plain paper and photo paper, you'll have to swap the paper every time you hp office jet 6954. Paper handling for scanning is a little more flexible. You can print on legal-size paper as well, which means you can copy legal-size originals at full size, and menu options on the 2. The printer doesn't include Ethernet as a connection choice. However, the printer's Wi-Fi Direct will still let you connect directly from a mobile device. You can also print assorted templates stored in the printer itself, including a weekly or monthly calendar template and a fax cover sheet. Setup The 4650 is light and small enough for one person to move into place easily, at 14 pounds 7 ounces and 7. However, the site didn't work with the 4650 in my tests. If it doesn't work however, or you don't have an Internet connection, you can install the drivers and other software from the distribution disc that comes with the printer, which is what I did for my tests. Speed and Quality The 4650's speed is not a strong point. On our business applications suite, I timed the printer using hardware and software for timingat a decidedly sluggish 1. It's even slower than the and thewhich turned in 2. Photo speed is much better relative to the competition, averaging 1 minute 5 seconds for a 4-by-6-inch print in our tests. As with its speed, output quality for the 4650 is uneven. hp office jet 6954 Text quality is good enough for most business use, as long as you rarely use fonts smaller than 8 points. Graphics output falls at the high end of average. Most people would consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts and the like. It lets you print some number of pages per month for a fixed fee, charges extra for hp office jet 6954 pages, and limits the number of pages you can roll over if you don't use them. However, that assumes that you print exactly the number hp office jet 6954 pages you pay for. Unlike most cell-phone plans, you have the option to go off a plan and back on, or switch plans, at any time, which is a welcome touch if you're taking a vacation, for example. But if you forget to opt out when you don't expect to print much, you'll still be paying the full monthly plan fee. Complicating matters further is the fact that pages under the Instant Ink program are defined differently than pages that companies quote as cartridge yields. Printing a single period on the page counts as a page. So does covering it edge to edge in ink, with two-sided pages counting as two. All this makes it hard to compare running costs with the Instant Ink plan to running costs without it. Keep that in mind, and consider the cost carefully before you sign on. In theory, the new cartridges should arrive before you need them. But if your print needs fluctuate, so you go some time without printing and then print a lot over a day or two, you can easily run out of ink in one heavy-duty print day and still wind up out of ink. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a top company in the gaming industry. David is also an expert in imaging technologies including printers, moni.
