More of more of our documents are moving to an electronic form. Yet there is still the need to print materials and that need isn’t going away anytime soon. Some of us print more than others, but we all have the need.

I don’t have the ability to test every single printer out there, so today I am just suggesting a printer that you might want to add to your short list should you need a new one. If this printer meets your needs, definitely give it a long look.

What I often see is users looking for the lowest cost printer possible while not considering how much it costs to print each page. They buy a cheap printer and pay dearly to actually use the printer. Typically you’ll get a better deal if you pay a bit more for the printer because the cost per page will be less.

Like many printers today, it actually does much more than just print. It also incorporates the ability to scan, copy and fax. Even if you have a dedicated scanner, having this type of multi-function device can be very handy if you have moved your “fax line” to the cloud. In our office, we use VOIP phone service and so our faxes come to us as a PDF file via e-mail and we upload scanned PDF files should we need to send a fax. Often we simply e-mail the PDF file to the desired recipient.

You can either connect to the printer via USB, Ethernet or WiFi. There is also the capability of printing from a wide variety of mobile devices. It is fast as it can print up to 27 ppm in color and 35 ppm in black and white. Keep in mind that real world print speeds are often slower, but that’s pretty fast for a home office printer. It can use a traditional fax line to send/receive or it has the ability to scan to PDF. For those who need to print tabloid sizes, it can print to 11″ x 17″ through the manual feed tray. Duplexing is possible on 8.5″ x 11″ pages.

Best of all, the Brother BusinessSmart MFC-J4610DW Wireless Color Photo Printer is currently selling for $179 at Amazon. If your printer needs are a bit more, look to the Brother BusinessSmart MFC-J4710DW Wireless Color Photo Printer which is currently selling for $197 at Amazon.