Thinking about buying a color laser printer.

**cwsmith** · 08-01-2022, 12:10 PM

Loring,

I bought that printer last summer and I've had really good service from it. I bought it at my local Staples, for a whopping $250 which was a great bargain as I was seeing prices on the internet exceeding $350 plus. This is my third laser printer, but I wanted a duplex for printing manuals and it does that job very well. The tray is quite large compared to my two Dell laser printers. Nice feature of the 3270 is that the updates are automatic and you have a lifetime of phone support should you have any questions.

The one drawback is the price of the toner cartridges, like most printer manufacturers, the OEM cartridges are quite expensive IMO. I went through the black toner within two months, but am still using the original CMY cartridges, although it is within a couple weeks of needing to change. 'Toner Kingdom' sells a five pack (BK/BK/C/M/K) for about the same price as just the one Brother-brand BK cartridge. https://www.tonerkingdom.com/product...printer-5-pack. https://www.tonerkingdom.com/product...printer-5-pack

Note that I waited until my warranty was up, before I installed the third-party cartridges just in case. However, all that was noted on the LCD scree was that it was "Non-Genuine supply" and I've had to problem (only the BK cartridge has been replaced so far and I've used two of those to date.

So far I've had no jams using 20 and 28 lb paper grades and the print quality is pretty good. My old Dell C1660W color laser prints better color photos, but the Brother isn't bad at all. I really enjoy having duplex capability and the 3270 well worth having.

Over the years I've had for differeent inkjets, both HP and Epson, and none of them were satisfactory. Too slow to boot up, constant nozzle cleaning that wasted most of the ink and of course cartridges that were a small fortune and had to be changed all too often; and of course, they're noisy. With the lasers, you simply turn them on when you need them, send the document and withing seconds its printing. You can leave it on while your in the office or turrn it on and off as you need it and there's no wasted toner or time. Toner cartridges are simple to change and they're recyclable, so no waste. I bought my first mono-laser almost ten years ago, a Dell B1160W for about $60 at Staples. I've gone through at least three carton of paper and a half-dozen or so toner cartridges and it has not failed me ever. About six months after I bought the '1160' Staples had a sale and I bought the Dell C1660W color laser for around $130. I use that only for color prints, mostly photos and graphics, and it perform very well for that purpose. I've only changed those cartridges twice, but have a complete set of Cartlee cartridges for when needed as the Dell cartridges are over $200.

You'll really enjoy having a laser!

Hope this is helpful,

CWS

**mpc** · 08-01-2022, 12:29 PM

I too have had good luck with my Brother printers. I bought the first one because Brother is one of the few reasonably priced printers these days that supports Postscript, or at least Brother's quite good clone of Postscript. I have a few programs I've written over the years to do certain engineering stuff and those programs depend on Postscript for the output. Using normal Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface... the part of older Winblows versions that user programs call to create output) was miserable as Winblows made very fat lines and took 20+ minutes to do what Postscript does in 15 seconds. Anyway, that BW printer with duplex is still going strong after 13 or so years, printing 3374 pages so far. Yeah, I don't print much per year.

I now have a Brother color printer, the L3770CDW, which is a small/home office style color printer with duplex capability and an automatic document feeder as part of the scanner. It's physically pretty big but otherwise has been a good printer. It's about 2.5 years old. I've printed 572 pages through it according to its own page counter. 97% life remaining on the 4 drums, 40% black toner left, 50% average toner left on the 3 colors. I have not purchased new toner cartridges for it yet so I don't know how expensive they've become in the last 2 covid-screwed years. When I bought the printer the toner price was reasonable. The scanner and doc feeder have worked quite well the few times I've used them; I've probably run maybe 200 pages through the scanner. No jams that I can remember. The color printing is pretty good but not the glossy "photo quality" of a quality inkjet or dye sublimation printer. For my engineering output the color quality is excellent. It's also quite good for manuals, documents with illustrations, coupons, etc. Just not actual photographs.

Looking around, this printer is available for $500 to $700 but Brother has frequent sale prices/promos. So a bit more than the model you mentioned. I got mine on sale from Office Max for $320 as a price match.

One thing Brother does is to limit the number of pages a toner cartridge can print... on the idea that the printer will complain about an empty cartridge long before it really gets low on toner. This way you should never see a thin/poor quality print. My older printer uses a LED and photosensor to look through the toner cartridge; when the sensor detects the LED it thinks the toner is empty and sets the appropriate status codes. A bit of tape over either toner cartridge window tricks it into working again. Mine's been blocked for at least a year, if not two, so far...

mpc

**atgcpaul** · 08-01-2022, 04:43 PM

We've had the 3290 (with flatbed scanner) for 2 years and previously another Brother black and white for countless years before.

I am due for a toner replacement and I know it's going to cost me.

Black and white prints are good, I wish there was a way to sheet feed scans, and color prints are good with prints on photo paper just acceptable. The print speed is a lot slower than the small HP color laser we use at work.

Overall I am happy with the printer, though, as it is reliable.

**leehljp** · 08-01-2022, 06:34 PM

I bought the 3170CDW just bout 10 years ago and still have it. I always used a backup inkjet printer that cost more to operate because of the ink - but I used it because my 3170CDW would not print post cards. Postcards are the specific reason I bought the inkjet, but for all other, I used the Brother 3170, and I did LOTS of printing with that. I too bought it as much for its duplex as for its color.

One note: It sure (at least mine) printed far better colored photo shots and in-letter colors with the Brother OEM cartridges than with the Amazon sold replacement cartridges, which are considerably cheaper. That said, the Amazon sold replacement cartridge's color are not noticeably "off" when printing letters, and colors for letters unless you compare a photo or colored letterhead printed with OEM to one printed with cheaper cartridges. Letterhead colors are OK with the substitute cartridges, but compare it to an Epson photo inkjet, the laser will look a little washed out, and more so with the non-OEM cartridges.

Stay with the OEMs at the higher price - and color prints and letterheads will stay vivid. I see that yours will use the 227 toner cartridges. Mine uses the 221.

Last month, I bought an Epson 4850 EcoTank for my office because I got tired of $75 inkjet cartridges 3 times a year just to print mostly post cards. I liked it so well that I bought an Epson 3850 Eco Tank for home and ditched an Epson with $100 inkjet cartridge expense every nine months.
. . . Once I did this, I bought my Brother 3170CDW home and have it next to the Epson 3850. LOML likes my older Brother Laser better than the new inkjet. I keep our printers at work set up on the network there, and do the same at home.

I often print things at the office for smaller churches when they have special meetings, and I started doing this at home too several years ago. It sure helps to have good printing equipment.

When we were in Japan, I did lots of printing for missionaries - I did not advertise it, the requests just came, and I seem to have brought work that home from Japan with me.

I don't think you will go wrong with the Brother 3270CDW.

**cwsmith** · 08-01-2022, 07:29 PM

Regarding scanners, I prefer a separate unit over having an all-in-one. Not sure how much savings you might get with the latter, but with a separate scanner unit I think you better choices and certainly the versatility of placing it right where it's the most convenient.

My first experience with scanners goes back to the early 90's when I purchase a flatbed for our publications office. A few thousand dollars and it didn't have the capabilities we have today. My first scanner was a Visioneer "parallel port" flatbed. I liked software but it was a bit slow. I currently use an Epson V550 flatbed for graphics, photography, etc. As I recall it was around $150 or so back in 2013 or 14 when I purchased it from the local Staples. I've used it pretty heavy over these years to scan in more than 5,000 35 mm slides, negatives, prints, etc. and it is flawless in that respect. It captures every detail and is easily adjustable to meet the graphic and photo demands. I've even put solid objects on it (protecting the glass of course) so that I can capture details. There a newer model, the V600, but it wasn't worth the upgrade. The V550 is still going strong and I keep it permanently hooked to my computer. (Unfortunately it's not wireless.)

In April 2020 I bought a document scanner, the Epson ES-400. That, I ordered from Amazon for a total price of $270, tax included. The flatbed V550 just isn't designed to handle any volume of documentation and I needed to start scanning all kinds of old files. The ES-400 is not wireless and now I wish I had purchased the better, wireless model; but still, even attached to my laptop, it does a great job and will scan a decent stack of documents rapidly with the auto-feeder, review screen, and filiing needs. My wife is a 'keeper of documents' and I had boxes of files to scan and then trash. The ES-400 was fantastic and I filled about six of those kraft-paper lawn debris bags with shredded documents. I keep the document scanner attached to my older laptop along with a 2 TB Western Digital backup drive. So everything is achived in at least four places.

CWS

**leehljp** · 08-01-2022, 08:49 PM

I had problems with clogging in Cannon printer (2 different ones over the past 11 years) and in one Epson inkjet when I tried off brand cartridges. Staying with Epson cartridges were expensive but I never had problems with theirs clogging. I could go two months or so without printing and not have a clogging problem when I decided to use it.

The Epson inkjet printers I used in Japan were top notch and I did some fine printing with them. They seemed to be light years ahead of other brands. I cannot go into specifics what I printed but I was given credentials that were to be used every other day by me and another person who alternated with me. We lived 30 miles apart and it was a pain to travel each day to give the credential to the other, or go and get it back. So, with the right scanner and right printer, we had duplicate credentials that passed scanners. This was back 15 - 20 years ago and printers only, and the ones we used were close to $1000 back then.

My scanner - forget the brand, was a 2400 by 3600 dpi and was sharp. I enjoyed taking a 5 dollar bill and reading the fine print that most people do not know is there and is almost invisible to see with the naked eye.

Scanner as OCR
I use Abbyy Fine Reader Pro which is head and shoulders above any other OCR software I have used over the years. I have heard similar comments from others about the Abbyy OCR.

**LCHIEN** · 08-01-2022, 08:59 PM

If I need photos printed I just send them to the Walgreens down the street. Ready in 30 minutes, professional photo quality for 16 cents for 4x6 and $4 for an 8x10. Far less money and far faster than photo quality on photo quality paper with an inkjet printer and a lot less hassle getting it to work right.

**atgcpaul** · 08-01-2022, 09:48 PM

Originally posted by cwsmith

Regarding scanners, I prefer a separate unit over having an all-in-one. Not sure how much savings you might get with the latter, but with a separate scanner unit I think you better choices and certainly the versatility of placing it right where it's the most convenient.

I had a really nice Fujitsu sheetfeed scanner that was FAST, scanned duplex, and could take stacks of paper. But it didn't work past Windows 7.

The Brother all-in-one is good enough. However, now unless I need a high quality scan, I use my Microsoft Office app on my phone. It takes a picture, finds the edges automatically, takes nearly any size sheet, corrects for perspective, and saves to PDF directly to OneDrive. I really like it.

**Condoman44** · 08-02-2022, 07:46 AM

I gave up on ink jet printers long ago because of the clogging with low use. I switched to Canon and have 2 of them. They turned out to be even better when Canon said that using 3rd party cartridges does not cripple the printer.

My rule of thumb is to check that 3rd party supplies are available before buying a printer.

**twistsol** · 08-02-2022, 09:56 AM

Brother products are usually solid. When my girls went to college, I bought them all Brother laser printers and all three of the printers are still going strong a decade or more later. I've been looking at and trying to decide between the Brother HLL8360CDW and the HLL8360CDWT. The T has an extra 500 sheet paper feed but is otherwise the same printer. I need a smaller printer for when I finish my office remodel.

I have an old (2004 i think) Samsung color laser all in one machine. The scanner doesn't work with anything beyond windows 8, the fax is useless because we no longer have a phone line and the copier function is rarely used. It prints fine but the print queue on the computer always shows a paper jam, though the printer never does. The thing is huge, weighs a ton, and has to be hard wired to the network. It will get moved to the basement and can be used from the shop computer without me running upstairs every time I need to print.

The Brother printer I had in college can be seen at the link below. It was the Brother HR-10, also sold relabeled as a Comrex CR-10 and Juki 6100. I was a tech for the company that serviced these, and they rarely came in for service of any kind.

**cwsmith** · 08-02-2022, 12:05 PM

Regarding color photos from the drug store, I've had some lousey experiences. My first vacation back in 1965 I went to the Carolina shoals. I didn't have much of a camera back then, just a Kodak Instamatic, that took 126 cartridges. I took a half dozen cartridges on that trip of family and sites, including Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, the Lighthouse, etc. When I returned I took them to the local store and a week later I got back my prints of the Kitty Hawk monument and somebodies wedding and that was all. I returned the wedding pictures. The monument pictures came out great, which only made my loss all the more sad. Since then, I've had pictures come back poorly printed, blurred, etc. Fortunately with the negatives, I could correct those. That hasn't happened often, but just the chance was annoying.

A couple of years ago I bought a Canon Selpy, portable printer. (https://shop.usa.canon.com/shop/en/c...-photo-printer). The Selpy, as you can see from the link, is very small and compact, wireless and can be run on an optional battery. A 4 x 6 print and ink package is around $35 at my local Staples and that will make 108 prints, about 30 to 35 cents a print. At family get-to-gethers, I put the printer on a table and everyone can make prints from their cell phones if they like, which can be fun.

The prints are dye-sub and archival and for the kids, they love watching the print go back and forth with the dye process adding colors to the image. The Selphy is great for family picnics when you just make prints of the kids playing.

CWS

**leehljp** · 08-02-2022, 07:37 PM

Originally posted by cwsmith

Regarding color photos from the drug store, I've had some lousey experiences. My first vacation back in 1965 I went to the Carolina shoals. I didn't have much of a camera back then, just a Kodak Instamatic, that took 126 cartridges. I took a half dozen cartridges on that trip of family and sites, including Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, the Lighthouse, etc. When I returned I took them to the local store and a week later I got back my prints of the Kitty Hawk monument and somebodies wedding and that was all. I returned the wedding pictures. The monument pictures came out great, which only made my loss all the more sad. Since then, I've had pictures come back poorly printed, blurred, etc. Fortunately with the negatives, I could correct those. That hasn't happened often, but just the chance was annoying.
CWS

I started using Photoshop back in the early '90's under version 2 and taught two of my daughters to use it along with my learning curve. My youngest was 9 and middle daughter was 15. They took to it quickly along with me. There were things I could do that they had a little difficulty figuring out and they could do some things easy and had to show me. My forte seemed to be in the printing department even though "quality printing" printers were not readily affordable until the '97 - '98 for us. By the time I purchased a good Epson photo printer, my girls and I were all proficient with photoshop and in printing prints and photos that rivaled any consumer photos even the Selfies, of which we had one. The Selfie printer was more convenient because it was one size fits all, but I could print higher quality photos on the Epson.

I quit using Photoshop (upgrading) back around 2013 or 14. Adobe just did not go in the direction I wanted to go as a customer, so I dropped them. I can still make quality photos with some less powerful software. It just takes a little time. Color Printers sure are good today!

**dbhost** · 08-02-2022, 08:16 PM

I need to do this. We have 2 Photosmart inkjet printers. Long story, but the cartridges leaked down and ruined the print heads. I just need a single color laser all in one that can do photo if need be. They exist, and not super stupid expensive, so why not?

**LCHIEN** · 08-02-2022, 11:48 PM

Wireless duplex color laser (LED) from Brother runs about $300. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...A5EHAKQ0&psc=1
Wireless Duplex color laser (LED) with scanner/document feeder (all in one w/o fax) runs $600+.

My wired B&W laser with scanner/feeder is still OK. I think I'll keep it and just get the color printer even though its two pieces. I have a backup. I hate having too many eggs in one basket and having to toss the whole thing when one part breaks.

Thinking about buying a color laser printer.

Thinking about buying a color laser printer.

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