The Brother MFC-J6540DW is the entry-level A3 model in Brother’s Business Smart Series, and an office printer  that can handle 11 inch by 7 inch paper, the price is pretty low, depending where you shop. Pitching itself as one of the best all-in-one printers for businesses, this is a four-in-one with a fast print speed, touchscreen interface, an ADF (automatic document feeder) and fax. The duty cycle is given as 2,500 pages per month, making it one of the best small business printers for everyday office use, and should satisfy most general needs.  

The suggested retail price including tax is around $280 with Brother USA, or £430 from Brother UK - or roughly $540. That’s a big difference. So, assuming you don’t buy direct from Brother UK, you will be getting a lot of printer for your money. 

It’s also one of Brother’s first EcoPro ready printers. EcoPro in Europe, or Refresh EZ Print as it is branded in the US, is a subscription service that provides discounted ink and full service for a monthly fee appropriate to your needs. It’s Brother’s answer to HP+ and you get four months of it free when you purchase this model. This is all good news, but never forget that this is a cartridge-based inkjet. And even with the best inkjet printers, running cartridge costs can be high, so you’re probably going to need that ink discount to keep your consumables cost competitive.  

Brother MFC-J6540DW: Design & build

Brother’s latest Business Smart Series resembles the previous generation of big desktop office inkjets, but in fact they have all been re-engineered from chip to print-head. The latest MAXIDRIVE inkjet technology is said to improve speed and quality. 

Outwardly, the Brother MFC-J6540DW looks a little top heavy with the tapering base being smaller than the overhanging scanner bed and ADF, but if that odd shape buys you a little more desk space, then that’s a good thing. It actually has the same footprint as the big banner-printing Brother MFC-J6959DW. Another nice design touch is the way your USB and Ethernet cables connect inside the printer rather than via ports at the rear where they might get pulled out by mistake.

This is the smallest multifunction model in the range with just one 250-sheet paper tray. The touchscreen display is also a little smaller at 6.8cm in diameter. The ink cartridge compartment is large enough to hold the XL carts that are twice the capacity of the bundled standard carts. Much of the bulk of this all-in-one belongs to the ADF which can handle an impressive 50 sheets of A3 or Ledger-size paper. The rear multipurpose tray is also A3 size, but you can only load one sheet at a time.

Brother MFC-J6540DW: Features & specifications

This is a well-specified four-in-one aimed at the small business user or home office worker who needs the best A3 printer without breaking the bank. As such, we were delighted to see this comes with all essential business features. That includes auto-duplex color printing, a decent ADF, wi-fi, a front USB port and a fax modem. It also has a decent colour touchscreen interface and a very fast print rate, for an inkjet. The speed is given at 29ipm (images per minute) in the US and 28ipm in the rest of the world. The only reason for that discrepancy is the slight difference in size between Letter and A4 paper. Both the print resolution and the scan resolution are respectable, which should make this unit a fine photocopier.  

As the entry-level multifunction model, however, a few features have been withheld to keep the price down. There’s no NFC module, for example, and no single pass dual scan feature. And it’s a pity the Brother MFC-J6540DW cannot take the really big INKvestment Tank cartridges that can yield up to 6,000 pages from a single black cartridge. The maximum capacity here is half that, which makes the ink cost per page higher.

Instead of oversized ink cartridges, Brother is offering customers discounted ink through its new subscription service called EcoPro, or Refresh EZ Print and including a free four month trial with this printer. Just like the HP+ sub, you estimate how many pages you’re going to print each month and choose the appropriate subscription fee. 

Your replacement cartridges should arrive just before you run out of ink, so long as your printer keeps communicating with Brother online, and the old cartridges can be returned for recycling. Your warranty will also be extended throughout your subscription period. 

Hopefully Brother’s service is easier to get out of than HP’s when you want to give it up. Personal experience puts me off signing up to such subscriptions unless I’m sure I’m going to print regularly with that printer. 

The key feature of the Brother MFC-J6540DW is its ability to print, copy and fax any size of paper up to A3 or Ledger. It can hold 250 sheets in the main tray and another 50 in the ADF. It can flip a sheet of A3 in auto duplex print mode, but it can’t automatically duplicate a double-sided document. It does have two-sided copy mode, but you have to turn the paper over yourself. Another limitation is the single paper tray. Pay more for the step-up MFC-J6940DW and you get two drawers that can be filled with both A3 and A4 paper.

Brother MFC-J6540DW: Setup & operation

The Brother MFC-J6540DW comes with a very clear 13-step quick start manual, but you probably won’t need it. It’s a simple case of turning it on, loading your paper and following the prompts that appear on the touchscreen display. My advice is shake the ink cartridges before you load them and then print out both of the test pages suggested by the setup procedure. The print head test shows you if the nozzles are firing, while the alignment test page can be scanned to automatically detect any alignment issues.  

The four bundled LC422 cartridges are the standard size with a claimed yield of 550 color pages and 550 monochrome. However, with this being the first installation, some of that ink is needed to prime the delivery tubes and so you will only get around 358 pages of CMY and 358 of BK.

You can download Brother’s Mobile Connect app onto your Apple or Android device and use that to get your new printer onto your wi-fi network without having to type in any passwords. The same companion app also makes it very easy to print and scan from and to the cloud. When you’re operating the Brother MFC-J6540DW remotely, or at the printer, the sensitive touchscreen ensures this is a painless process either way.

Brother MFC-J6540DW: Performance

The Brother MFC-J6540DW passed all of our tests without any misprints or paper jams and it achieved its promised print speed with ease. Brother’s latest Business Smart inkjets are blessed with print rates that rival and even overtake laser printers, which usually dominate the business sector. In this case, the FPOT (first print out time) of 4.4 seconds is the fastest in class and our twenty page Word document was churned out quickly and quite quietly at around 5dB.

The quoted print speed is for simplex printing, but it doesn’t slow down much for duplex printing. That figure is 21ipm. And duplexing with A3 paper was equally impressive. Printing in draft mode is the fastest and it’s more economical on ink too, but be warned; I found text documents were so pale in draft mode that they were quite hard to read in low light. Switch to standard quality and your black text looks suitably dark and well defined, even at very small point sizes. The best laser printers still generally make a better job of text documents thanks to their clinical application of black toner, but this inkjet with its pigment black ink comes very close.  

Inkjets always win when it comes to the best photo printers, though, and the Brother MFC-J6540DW does a great job, considering that this is an office AOI (all-in-one) and not a dedicated photo printer. The advantage here is that it can print on almost any size photo paper from 4x6 inch up to borderless A3. While the black ink is pigment based, the coloured inks are dye based and this results in bright and detailed photos. However, a printer using all dye inks, which bond especially well with coated photo paper, would deliver a more natural and vivid finish. Suffice to say, this is a business printer that does a good job with text and mixed colour documents, while also turning out a reasonable photograph.  

The Brother MFC-J6540DW makes a fine photocopier too, thanks to its large Ledger-sized scanner glass and its competence with large format paper. I found it easy to blow up and reduce my duplications by any percentage. When you select 2-sided copy, the printer holds the first page in its 256MB memory and prompts you to turn the page over. It’s the next best thing to single pass dual-scanning.

Brother MFC-J6540DW: Final verdict

If you need a fast office all-in-one that can print, copy and fax A3 or Ledger-sized paper, the Brother MFC-J6540DW is a great place to start. It might not be the very best large-format printer out there, but the very reasonable price includes essential features, such as automatic two-sided colour printing, wi-fi and a 50-sheet ADF (automatic document feed) plus a few extras. There’s a convenient touchscreen interface and a front USB Host port, for example, and this printer boasts the fastest first page out time in its class. Print performance is strong with text and colour documents, while photos look pretty good too. 

Downsides? There’s no NFC module and no single pass dual scan function, but the bigger problem is the cost of replacement inkjet cartridges. This model is not compatible with the extra large INKvestment Tank cartridges and its XL cartridges can only manage 3,000 prints maximum. But the best Brother printers now support its new subscription service, which does make up for this shortcoming by offering discounted ink and giving away a four month free trial with this purchase. If you are prepared to commit to the monthly payments, this affordable A3 printer could also be economical to run. 

Samsung T5 Evo: One-minute review

The Samsung T5 Evo 8TB portable SSD is the first of its kind, a storage device that has been designed from ground up to support this capacity - and potentially more in the future. It is very well designed - a clever mix of metal and rubber - especially with the integrated carry handle (Samsung calls it a ring) that makes it instantly likable.

It feels modern compared to its direct competition, eschewing the flat Kit-Kat shape design adopted by other players like Vectotech, Oyen Digital or Glyph, a legacy from the days of 2.5-inch SSDs. I like its long Type-C cable, the Samsung’s Magician SSD management software (with hardware encryption) and its three-year warranty but that’s where the good bit ends. This is a slow portable SSD and is especially poor value at the lower capacities (2TB and 4TB) with Samsung’s own T series, SanDisk and many others delivering far, far better value for money.

And speaking of price, its suggested retail price is shocking to say the least but Samsung has cleverly positioned the 8TB as an external HDD replacement. The marketing literature reads “T5 Evo is an optimal product to replace external HDDs in all aspects, including performance, durability, compatibility, compact design and high capacity”. So, with the 8TB model at least, the T5 Evo delivers just enough value for money in order for the target audience, creative professionals. 

Bear in mind as well that it doesn’t carry any IP or MIL-STD ratings; so make sure it doesn't get wet, it is not a water resistant device. While it may not act as the best rugged hard drive, it still feels reasonably solid but be aware of this limitation. It is difficult to recommend the T5 Evo at this price, just under $650, about twice that of the 8TB Samsung 870 QVO (albeit internal) and there are other cheaper alternatives that will perform just as well. As such, the drive won’t enter our best portable SSD buying guide without a significant drop in price. 

Samsung T5 Evo: Pricing and availability

• How much does it cost? $650
• When is it available? Now
• Where can you get it? In the US, UK, Australia and other territories

Ultra large capacity SSDs are far and few between because they tend to be far more expensive and the market for such drives is very small compared to smaller capacities (2TB or 4TB). 

Samsung T5 Evo: Design

The components inside the T5 Evo are housed in a metal enclosure (unibody aluminum) and wrapped in a rubber sleeve. There’s a blue LED indicator and a Type-C port. The portable SSD itself is heavier than expected at 102 grams (0.23 pounds) and far larger as well. At 17mm (0.67 inches) thick and 95mm (3.74 inches) long, I’d find it a bit more difficult to slip in my jeans’ pockets. The package includes a 46cm Type-C to Type-C cable and there’s no adaptors should you want to use it with a traditional Type-A connector.

A tear down carried out by our sister publication, Anandtech, showed that the drive looks like a repackaged 870 QVO, which costs about half the price and uses cheaper QLC NAND chips (as opposed to more expensive but more resilient TLC). Check out the review carried out by another of our peers, Tomshardware. 

Samsung T5 Evo: Benchmark

The T5 Evo is one of the slowest portable SSD we’ve tested in recent times. It is something Samsung is very open about unlike some of its competitors.  

Samsung T5 Evo: Specs

Should I buy the Samsung Portable SSD T5 Evo?

Samsung Portable SSD T5 Evo alternatives

There are at least three other 8TB SSD, widely available on the market - the Oyen Digital U32, Vectotech, and Titanium One - all being cheaper than Samsung’s T5 Evo. The Titanium One is the one we’d go for since it comes with an IP rating. If you need a faster SSD, you can either build one yourself (using a compatible NVMe enclosure and an off-the-shelf SSD) or go for a PCIe-based model that will cost you nearer to $1,000. 

How I tested the Samsung Portable SSD T5 Evo

After having formatted the T5 Evo to exFAT, I test it the same way I test other storage components (external HDD, microSD cards etc) using my trusty Honor Magicbook 14 2022. I use the latest versions of CrystalDiskMark, Atto, AS SSD and AJA benchmarks, noting the best scores achieved in each. They are all free and can be downloaded by anyone. I then transfer a folder of files, roughly 10GB in size, to get a rough idea of real life performance. 

Paris Rhone SP005: 30-second review

The Paris Rhône SP005 True 4K Projector appears to be a promising offering, combining professional styling and potent projection capabilities at a reasonable price. Initial impressions are favourable, with decent build quality that, although plastic, is well-finished and designed.

The initial setup is straightforward, offering configurations for table, ceiling, rear ceiling, or rear projection, all manageable via an easy-to-use interface. Upon startup, the auto-focus and keystone correction engage, adapting to the projection area. While the focus is precise, with manual adjustment available, keystone correction often needs slight manual tweaking. Using a dedicated projection screen improves accuracy, but this projector ideally requires a central placement without any off-centre correction.

The Android TV integration initially seems well-conceived, and the quality of the projection, even at 600 ANSI Lumens, is adequate for a darkened room. However, issues arise with installed apps like iPlayer, Disney+, and Netflix. The integration becomes less user-friendly due to awkward cursor-style navigation and general instability.

Incorporating an HDMI Fire Stick or a similar device can alleviate these issues, transforming the projector experience. The projection quality is commendable, albeit slightly less intense than expected for a device of its size. While fan noise is noticeable, the powerful speakers effectively mask it.

We've tested out the best 4K projectors and the best business projectors, and overall, this model offers decent 4K resolution and sound, but it's advisable to consider an alternative to the built-in Android TV.

Paris Rhone SP005: Price and availability

• How much does it cost? Starting from $699
• When is it out? Available now
• Where can you get it? You can get it directly from  Paris Rhone. Amazon.com, and other online resellers

The Paris Rhone SP005 True 4K Projector has just gone on sale and can be purchased directly from the Paris Rhone website or Amazon.com for the early bird price of $699. Considering that this is a 4K projector, that price isn't at all bad and well below what you would usually expect to pay for a projector of this type. 

• Value: 4 / 5

Paris Rhone SP005: Specifications

At the budget end of the market, the projector lacks cutting-edge technology, chips, or processors to boast about. However, offering 4K resolution at this price point is impressive. Its 600 ANSI Lumens fall short of many standard 4K projectors, and with Android TV 9.0 instead of the more up-to-date 11, it's clear that compromises were made to meet a budget.

Taking these limitations into account, along with the inclusion of two very respectable 25W built-in speakers, the price and features begin to seem more balanced. However, this does represent a compromise.

Paris Rhone SP005: Design

• Premium Stylish Appearance
• Practical Robust Build
• Fabric-Covered Front Design

The Magnesium Alloy casing of the SP005 gives the projector an instantly premium feel. Its size and weight are reassuring, and if there were any doubts about the projector's prestige, the fabric-covered front around the large projection lens stylishly dispels them.

However, the Paris Rhône SP005 is at the budget end of the market. While the design and features impress upon unboxing, the specifications start to justify the low price tag.

That said, with a native 3840x2160 resolution, this projector firmly falls into the 4K category. There are few projectors currently available with this feature set that can match what's on offer. The 4K projection is further enhanced by HDR 10+ support and 600 ANSI lumens of brightness, making it more suitable for evening or curtain-closed environments for optimal viewing.

Even with 600 lumens of brightness, it's sufficient to project a 200" diagonal display comfortably. The integrated innovative blue light reduction technology ensures the projected images are clear and crisp.

One of the standout features, alongside the 4K resolution, is the dual 12W speakers. Paris Rhône emphasizes these and the audio quality of the projector, contributing to an immersive cinematic experience.

For ease of use, the projector includes automatic focus, keystone correction, and intelligent obstacle avoidance, allowing quick adaptation to the environment. Manual adjustments are also easily accessible for those who prefer them.

Preinstalled with Android TV 9.0, the projector offers access to a vast selection of apps, from Netflix to Amazon Prime. Ultra-fast WiFi-6 and Bluetooth 5.0 support for controller and Bluetooth connections, along with an array of ports including HDMI 2.1 and USB-C, expand its usability.

The design of the SP005 is stylish and looks the same. The features, though somewhat limited in bulb brightness, are acceptable for the price, especially for nighttime viewing.

• Design: 4 / 5

Paris Rhone SP005: Performance

• Effective Auto-Focus
• Mixed Keystone Accuracy
• Subpar Android Integration

Compared to the slick and stylish exterior, the actual use of the projector offers a contrast. The initial setup is straightforward, with an easy Wi-Fi network connection and quick overall navigation.

The bulb's brightness, compared to more expensive projectors, is instantly apparent, necessitating drawn curtains for a decent picture. Once light levels are sufficient, the quality of the 4K projection is good, despite some noticeable softening towards the edges of the projection area. It's important to position the projector squarely on the wall rather than at an angle.

Upon switching on, the auto-focus and keystone correction kick in. Generally, the focus is accurate, providing sharp images quickly, though with noticeable whirring sounds. Keystone correction was hit-and-miss, with manual adjustment of the four corner points often yielding the best results.

The object avoidance feature also had mixed success, leading to a preference for manual adjustment. A surprising aspect was the need to repeat the focus and projection setup each time the projector was turned on, though this could be turned off in the settings.

Installing apps is easy, but the implementation of Android 9.0 TV limits direct interaction with apps like Netflix to cursor navigation only, inhibiting browsing capability. Using an external device like a Firestick offers a more user-friendly experience.

HDMI connection simplifies usage significantly. Connecting an iPhone via USB-C works well for visuals but omits audio, which can be connected via Bluetooth 5.0 or, more effectively, through a traditional AUX 3.5mm cable. The Apple Multi Connector offers a better option for delivering both visuals and audio.

Overall, the performance of the SP005 doesn't fully meet expectations. The professional appearance isn't matched by usability, although the audio and projection quality are good. Noise levels are higher compared to other projectors like Sony, Epson, and XGIMI, but once a movie starts, it becomes less noticeable.

Considering its price as a straightforward 4K projector with numerous connection options, it offers great value. The attempt to enhance it with Android TV falls short, needing a firmware fix for improvement. However, using an external TV device via HDMI works well, and the 25W speakers are impressive, though a high-quality speaker set, ideally from our list of the best Dolby Atmos Speakers, is recommended.

• Performance: 2.5 / 5

Paris Rhone SP005: Verdict

Throughout the test period, this projector's price fluctuated from the full $699 to a more reasonable $499. The features and specifications seem to justify the higher price tag. However, the execution of Android TV is subpar, and numerous issues with Bluetooth connectivity and software glitches in the apps don't quite support the full smart projector price.

However, if you overlook the Android TV and other smart features, what remains is a very competent 4K projector with an excellent set of speakers. Connect your preferred media source, and you have a budget-friendly, well-built 4K projector.

If you're in the market for a smart 4K projector, investing a bit more for a more up-to-date and powerful model is advisable. But for occasional use with external media sources and a limited budget, this projector is an excellent choice.

Should you buy a Paris Rhone SP005?

Buy it if...

Don't buy it if...

How did I test

When it comes to projectors, at least five variables come into play to determine the viewing experience out of the box:

I employ a professional projection screen in lecture theatres and studios for photo and video workshops. At home, I utilize a wall painted specifically for evening viewing.

For my video viewing experience, I delved into a backlog of Edgar Wright movies and the excellent series "Lockwood & Co.", mixing action with special effects, challenging the projector's lamp and electronics. I also showcased the 2020 LG OLED video, a robust test of the projector's handling of black areas. The testing environments included: