5 Best Printers With Near Field Communication (NFC) Reviewed

Printers With NFC Compared

What is NFC Connectivity and its Importance?

To kick off this discussion, NFC is an acronym that stands for Near Field Communication. It is a wireless technology that can be used for short-range communication when compatible devices are used. For this to happen, one device should act as the transmitter and the other should play the role of the receiver.

With NFC, it is possible to make contactless payments by simply embedding the NFC chips on credit cards. Likewise, it has been used on mobile phones to share data and even make payments.

This is however very useful for printers since it can allow a user to print documents straight from their mobile devices easily and quickly.

NFC lets two electronic devices connect when they are brought into proximity. Since NFC is slow but easy to set up, it is sometimes used to complement other connections.

Related: How To Choose The Right Printer For Your Needs

List of The Best Printers with NFC

We have selected the following as the top products in this category. They are all unique in one thing or another.

1. Brother MFC-J895DW – A Budget Printer with an ADF Scanner

This is an All-in-one printer with entry-level specs. It is quite easy on the pockets while still managing to maintain a good overall output quality.

This inkjet printer is an okay performer, considering its price range. It has a good photo and text output quality despite being a little slower than models like the Canon Pixma TR8520.

Due to its size, the device comes with just one paper input tray that can carry 100 sheets of standard size paper. Nonetheless, you can switch out the standard paper with 20 sheets of photo paper.

The Brother MFC-J895DW also comes with an automatic document feeder that has a capacity of 20 sheets. As such, it is also great for micro offices that need batch scanning jobs.

Brother was generous with connectivity features when it came to this device. It supports WIFI, WIFI-Direct, NFC, Ethernet and USB alongside a host of cloud printing services such as AirPrint, Mopria, iPrint&Scan and Google Cloud Print.

It is also important to mention that this device supports faxing.

Although not being one of the fastest inkjet printers, this model can do about 12 ppm for monochrome pages and 10 ppm for color pages.

There are some drawbacks to this printer though. It is quite expensive to use and maintain. Printing costs per page stand at about 6 cents for monochromatic prints and 16.5 cents for colored prints. Furthermore, this device’s ADF doesn’t support auto-duplexing.

All in all, if you came here looking for one of the cheapest printers with NFC, then you are in luck with this.

2. Brother MFC-J995DW – Great Operating Costs and Output Quality

The MFC-J995DW is one of the best inkjet printers with NFC as it offers very competitive operating costs as compared to many other models.

This can be attributed to the new INKvestment Tank that makes it very convenient for small office use. INKvestment is Brother’s solution for ink savings during printing.

This is a printer with an ADF scanner and it has a capacity of 20 sheets but it does not support duplex scanning. This model is great for small offices and home use due to its admirable output quality, ink-saving capabilities as well as automatic double-sided printing.

Just like the Brother MFC-J895DW, this printer has a small input tray that can take 101 sheets total. This number is however split between a 1-sheet multipurpose tray and a 101-sheet cassette.

The machine comes with a recommended monthly duty cycle of 1500 pages but it can hit a maximum of 5000 pages. As such it only good for limited use and not suitable for heavy users.

With connectivity in question, this device supports USB, SD cards, Ethernet, WIFI, WIFI-Direct, USB thumb drive, and NFC which allows you to print from a mobile device by touching it to the specified place on the printer where the chip is. You can also use Brother Cloud Connect, AirPrint, Google Cloud Print and Mopria.

The printer has decent print speeds. It can do 12 ppm for monochromatic prints and 10 ppm for colored prints. Again, this is not the fastest, but it is quite average for inkjet printers.

This is an incredibly versatile printer with great features. However, it is held back slightly due to its sluggishness and low input and output capacities.

3. HP LaserJet Pro M254dw – Affordable Color Laser Printer

This affordable color laser printer offers great performance for a relatively small form factor. It also brings you the convenience of printing easily from your phone thus making it great for personal use.

This device has a larger paper tray capacity than the first two devices in this list. With its 150-sheet tray, the device sets itself aside as a convenient device for personal use although it may be a bit cumbersome for busy offices.

All things considered; this device offers robust mobile connectivity features that let you print from devices such as USB Flash Drive. You can also connect with your devices through WIFI, Ethernet and USB cable. Cloud printing is also available through HP Web apps and NFC is supported with compatible devices.

The printing speed for this device is its main strength. It can do 19 ppm for both monochrome and colored prints and is rated at about 30,000 pages monthly duty cycle. This is a fairly decent duty cycle that can allow you to use it for small offices.

Printing costs, on the other hand, are 3.2 cents for monochromatic prints 16.3 cents color prints. Although the printing costs are towards the expensive side of the spectrum, its cheaper upfront cost makes it up for this drawback.

The HP LaserJet Pro M254dw is also capable of producing good quality prints. Colors are well done and text is easy to read.

In the end, affordability and connectivity wise, we find this to be one of the best NFC printers as far as color laser printers go.

It is a great choice for a personal home-use printer due to its good printing speeds and output quality, but it staggers when we take its low capacity paper tray into consideration.

4. Brother HL-L8360CDW – Laser Printer with Cheap Operating Cost

Coming from the first three devices we have discussed; this one lies a bit on the heavier side of the spectrum. At 48.1 pounds, the Brother HL-L8360CDW is not a printer that was built for portability. Its size has several advantages though.

The printer comes with an expandable paper capacity that leverages its size.

Out of the box, it has a 300-sheet tray split between a 50-sheet multipurpose tray and a 250-sheet cassette. Three more 250-sheet trays can be added to push the capacity to 1,050 sheets.

The printer also comes with a whopping 60,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle although the recommended number is about 4,000 pages.

Thus you can already tell the purpose of this printer. Basically, this is a printer for offices with a fair amount of printing needs.

This printer supports connecting with NFC as well as other means including Ethernet, WIFI, USB, WIFI-Direct, USB Thumb drives and the Office Print Cloud app from Brother.

NFC makes it easy to print by touching your NFC-enabled mobile device to an NFC hotspot on the printer.

This printer also has a variety of security settings that allow you to lock certain functions and restrict some of its features.

The printer has very fast printing speeds, rated at 33 ppm for monochromatic prints and the same goes for color prints.

The device has the cheapest operating cost in this list for a color laser printer with 1.9 cents for monochromatic and 10 cents for colored prints . The main drawback is the slightly below-average photo quality it produces.

Overall, if you budget allows, we highly recommend this as one of the best printers with NFC due to its cheap operating cost, large monthly volume and quality of prints.

Related: How To Improve The Quality Of Your Prints

5. Samsung ProXpress C3060FW – Great Graphics Quality

The ProXpress C3060FW is the most expensive printer on this list. For a color laser AIO, this feature-rich printer has great graphics quality that matches its size and price.

The printer has a 300-sheet total input capacity that is shared between a 250-sheet tray and a 50-sheet multipurpose tray.

It can also carry out automatic duplex printing and features a 50-sheet Reversing ADF. The input capacity is expandable through adding two optional 550-sheet trays that push the total capacity up to 1400 sheets.

The printer has a large maximum monthly duty cycle of 60,000 pages which is great for large office environments.

Connectivity is accomplished through USB, Ethernet and WIFI alongside cloud technologies like AirPrint, Google Cloud Print and Samsung Mobile Print. NFC is also supported for capable mobile devices.

The printer has both PCL and PostScript Drivers. Both PCL and (Printer Control Language) and PostScript (PS) are Page Definition Languages (PDLs).

PCL was developed by Hewlett Packard while PS was developed by Adobe. These PDLs are used to translate computer languages into a form that printers can understand. The main thing to note is that PCL produces fast prints whereas PS is much better at producing high-quality prints.

Printing speed and cost are good too. The machine can do 31 ppm for both monochrome and color prints and costs are about 2.4 and 13.5 cents for monochrome and color prints respectively.

Conclusion

Here we checked out some of the best printers with NFC connectivity. NFC is a great way to connect your mobile devices with the printer for printing directly.

There aren’t a whole lot of printers with NFC in the market. However, if you look deep enough, you can definitely come across some great gems.

Here we looked at printers from various price ranges as well as for different use cases. Some were great for personal use, others were convenient for small offices.

In the end, NFC can greatly enhance your printing productivity by allowing you print via a simple touch with the device.