Brother Industries, Ltd Brother HL-3070CW Digital Color Wireless Laser Printer

"This is a great printer! Fast, quiet, and print quality is terrific. Also the toner costs are the most reasonable I've seen for any color printer sold at Staples.



My only complaint is setting it up for wireless use. It's easy if you're home network is configured as Brother expects, and that you're setting it up right next to your wireless access point. The setup expects that the user has a home office setup with a cable model (or other broadband source) going to a wireless access point that has an available ethernet port, and that you're setting up the printer close enough to the access point that your ethernet cable will reach it. It's a strange idea for a wireless capable printer. I use Apple Airport Express which is wireless only and does not have an ethernet port to connect the printer to, and my home network has the cable modem and wireless access point on different levels of my home, so the recommended set up was not an option for me. After spending quite a bit of time (and I'm no stranger to setting up devices on a network), I was finally able to get it working. I had to connect my computer to the printer with ethernet cable to access the printer's configuration directly (through it's web page setup). Then I had to set my wireless to be open (no security) and then join the printer to it. After the printer successfully connected to the wireless network, I was able to turn the wireless security back on, reconnect to the printer with ethernet cable, specify the security type and password, and save the configuration. It would have been nice if the printer was able to be setup with the security on (with the credentials provided) and connect to my wireless network without having to set it up with no security first.



But all in all, the printer is great. Well worth the setup hassle. And I would recommend it."

"This network printer (Wifi or Ethernet) is used as an inexpensive "pre-proofer". I'll design ads and layouts, and zip 'em out of this Brother printer before sending the final job to our Xerox laser for final check. Saves us money, as we are not burning up pages from the Xerox every time we print changes.



As far as speed, the same document actually prints faster on the Brother than on our big Xerox. Another plus.



We have it in Wifi mode, and haven't had any issues with it "dropping off" the network. It prints every time, whether it's wide awake or been in sleep mode overnight.



The colors printed are surprisingly accurate for an inexpensive printer. Not as rich as our Xerox, but this printer is not designed to compete with that!



Haven't had a need for the "walk up" USB print feature, so can't comment on that. (The concept is to plug in a flash drive, and be able to print from that.)



This would be a great printer for school."

"I really want to like this printer. Compared to our old Okidata, it is much smaller and should prove to be much less expensive to operate. Wireless setup was very easy, with both XP and Vista machines "connected" to it. Print quality is good, and print response time is good as well. It was dirt cheap, [...]. However, after my first experience with the manual tray and envelopes, [...]. First, when you can get it to take an envelope it creases the final product badly, even when using the rear exit to make a more straight-thru path. That is when it will take the envelope. Too much of the time it tells me that there is a paper jam, and wants all 4 of the drums removed. I soon learned to ignore the drum removal instructions and just open the top of the machine and immediately close it. I would understand the message if there was an actual jam to clear, but there isn't. It just doesn't seem to be able to feed the envelope properly. I haven't had problems feeding sheets of paper manually, only with envelopes. Any small laser printer is going to have issues regarding envelope creasing, but this the worst I've encountered. I really want to like this printer, but I would recommend only if envelopes are unimportant to you."

"I had a nice compact 600 dpi Okidata Laser for 10 years, then a Minolta Color Laser but it was absolutely huge for home placement and not wireless. I never liked inkjets, but I tried the HP K550dtwn because it was wireless and claimed to be cheaper per page than a laser. The first one broke out of the box, the second one only lasted a year, and it cost more per page when you consider that the liquid ink never worked right. This printer is L.E.D. instead of Laser so it's very compact for a Color 'laser' Printer, it's wireless so I can plug it in anywhere there is an outlet. It goes to sleep completely so you don't have to jump up and turn it on and off like the inkjet. It has reliable, crisp, run-proof prints. All for under $300 making it the cheapest printer yet as well. Wonderful job 'Brother'!"

"After giving this printer a good bashing for poor envelope printing, I downloaded the pdf user's guide and found that there are two gray levers on either side of the rear pass-thru door that need to be locked down before printing envelopes. What do you know! A perfectly smooth envelope on the first try. And it didn't even tell me there was a paper jam! I'm man enough to say I'm sorry, and I'll give you a recommendation this time, little printer. But I'm keeping my eye on you."

"Bought and returned 2 HP units after over 8 hours on the phone with Tech Support.



I exchanged it for this one and I never looked back. Setup was easy. I had only one hiccup and a question about color correction.



After a 24 minute call to Brother support, all my computers were printing flawlessly, color output was fine-tuned. The Tech was a top professional.



Add to the fact that adding to the printer memory is easier since you don't need dedicated modules like HP. Most electronic stores have them in-stock and they're affordable.



Buy this printer! The color, speed, price, service and options are right on."

"For print quality, speed, and quiet operation, this printer gets an A+ rating. It is not inclined to jam, even when doing double sided printing or using media such as card stock. However, it does not do auto two-sided printing, nor is it a good choice for envelopes, as they must be loaded and printed one at a time using the manual paper feeder. There is a cancel button to terminate any print job immediately, which is a great feature. Economy is only "fair" for a laser printer at $79 for a cartridge good for 2200 pages (black). A User Manual is not included and the on-screen PDF version is cumbersome, so we ended up using our initial ink cartridge to print all 190 pages. The ONLY negative that would cause us to think twice about recommending this printer is the lack of an "override" for when the printer determines a cartridge is empty. Being able to override a false "empty" allows the printer to be used even if the sensors "think" a full cartridge is empty. We would feel better if the printer had this feature.

We were unable to set up this printer wirelessly, even when we used an ethernet cable to start. Setting it up as a cabled network printer however was a breeze, which is what we ended up doing. It has a larger footprint than our previous laser printer, but this is not a big deal.

Being as this printer is still new to us, we can't vouch for its durability, but it appears to be reasonably well made. For basic printing, it is a HUGE improvement over our ink jet printer."

"Wireless setup was a snap; I had the printer up and running in under 15 minutes. Although not up to the standard of a photo inkjet printer, color prints have vivid, saturated colors and are more than adequate for business graphics and for proofing documents that include photographs. We've fed various paper stocks through it without incident. (If you're going to use the manual feed slot, be sure to read the .pdf manual first for important instructions.) The printer starts up quickly, and uses very little power in stand-by mode. All in all, this was a very satisfying puchase."

"This is my third and final review of a printer that I really wanted to like. I bought it because of price ([$] on special), and wireless capability. On those two counts I can't complain. Print quality has also been good, and it is very fast in putting out copies. HOWEVER, after a year of ownership I'm looking for a replacement. Little annoyances continue, like the way it jams too often when using the manual feed, and the awkward way that envelopes have to be fed to keep from wrinkling them. But the last straw is the way this printer manages toner. I had to replace all four of the toner cartridges after the first seven months of use. That may not sound that bad, but our office is only open two days a week, and printing when open is very limited. Plus, most printing is done in black. Now, seven months after the first replacement, it is telling me that all of the colors will need to be replaced again. It seems very odd to me that they would all run out at the same time, twice. Too coincidental, indeed. I've read a lot of comments in other reviews and forums about toner use, or maybe I should say misuse by Brother products. In fact, there was a class action lawsuit filed against the company stating the following: "Printers and Cartridges that Brother manufactures and sells are designed to force the Plaintiff and Class Members to prematurely replace all three of the color Cartridges at once when there is represented life and toner remaining in the Cartridges." Granted, this particular printer is not named in the suit, but I'm tired of being had by practices like this, by all printer manufacturers. I haven't heard the outcome of the suit, and innocent until proven guilty applies, but I won't put another penny in Brother's pocket for toner unless I can't find an alternative before the machine locks up. And, that search may be a difficult one since I don't really trust any manufacturer at this point."

"Excellent laser printer. Quality is superb, speed is excellent as well. Wireless setup with a Mac and Apple Extreme router is a cakewalk and only took 10 minutes. Windows however from and XP Machine is much to be desired. Not Brother's issue at all, its a Windows issue. I print everything wireless and have the printer sitting behind me. Only cable is the power cord. From when you click print to when the document feeds out from SLEEP mode is roughly 20 seconds. When it kicks on the lights do dim for a second, but that is it. On a power meter when it fires up it uses 8.23 Watts, but then goes down to the normal range. Must use all that to warm up the Toner Belt. I can live with that. My printer is on 24x7 only using .10 watts of electricity in the Sleep mode (less than a toaster plugged in all the time). Anywhere, anytime you print from anywhere in the house it prints within 20 seconds from sleep mode. It is excellent and I highly recommend this printer for Personal or Small Business needs. Great job Brother."