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Product: Brother HL-4070cdw Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
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I purchased the ‘4070′ when I was getting tired of paying for the ink cartridges in my HP DeskJet 6840, especially for ‘everyday’ home printing (online order confirmations, homework, drawings, etc.) I was also looking for a printer to operate on a Mac network. This one is great! The wireless feature allows you to ‘plop’ this thing down wherever there’s a power cord and setup is fairly easy. It’s a single-pass unit (e.g. color and B&W printing are the same print speed) and has duplexing built in. Does a ‘realistic’ job with color photos (not overly saturated). I don’t think it’s too noisy as previous reviews have stated, but it’s certainly not as quiet as an inkjet. The cartridges are neatly laid out in a removable ‘drum’ tray, making changeout that much easier. I particularly like the LCD display with 3 backdrop colors (green for ‘everythings okeydokey’, amber for ‘I’m in maintenance mode, so don’t bother me’ and red for ‘Help!’. This screen tilts out so you can read it more easily as you walk by it. There are some notes for those Mac (maybe windoze too???)folks that I’d like to bring up:
1) get the latest firmware update – especially for PDF files, the first version of firmware caused all sorts of problems where files didn’t print at all. It may not be an issue, but as I got one of the first ones out I got the original firmware version.
2) memory – get more! Especially if you use the BR3 (Brother’s PostScript3 emulator) you’ll need at least another 64 MB just to make it work. There may be some confusion as to which memory it takes, but the notch in the connector indicates that it’s an SDRAM. I pulled memory out of an old laptop I was parting out and works fine.
If you’re looking for a cheaper, water-resistant printout, especially if you need duplex, this is your printer!
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UPDATE – almost 2 years later and still running strong. I’d recommend locating the ‘TN-115′ series of cartridges as the ‘TN-110’s don’t last nearly as long. Unfortunately, many traditional brick-and-mortar stores only carry the 110’s
I own a small business and I needed a printer to high volume jobs, including eye catching color, and a clean presentation. After a week of solid research on the internet (there aren’t many reliable resources), I was down to the decision between the HP and Brother.
After speaking with a very informed salesperson at Office Max, I decided to go with the Brother. Well rated, quick output, and the consumables cost was also low. However, upon getting the unit home, I quickly noticed something annoying. (This ended up being a deal breaker for me; however, it may not bother some people.)
The final paper product comes out of the printer with curled edges. Literally, the top and bottom edge of the paper stock comes out curled. If I set the paper on a desk top, the curl is pretty significant – just under thumb height. I waited over four days on one batch of paper and it remained curled. I tried 20, 24, 28 and even 32 pound laser and color laser paper. No change. Now the paper path on the Brother machine is pretty acute, and combine that with the extreme heat and you have the result I discovered.
I went back to the store where I purchased the machine and found the same issue with the store display – I just didn’t notice how extreme it was until I was handling the documents.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention another small glitch with this printer: the noise. If you plan on sitting this anywhere near a person (especially the right side of the printer), the fans are pretty loud, shattering typical office ambience.
Besides these two issues, the printer networked easily. The setup CD was quick, painless, and easy to install on both my Mac and PC. Quality is high, with a solid build and unremarkable colors (i.e., fits right in). Again, the curling paper doesn’t work for me; you may find it otherwise.
I was looking for a cheap color laser printer with a built-in duplexer. The Brother 4070CDW delivers that, with good text quality. The color quality is a little weak, but overall it still seems like extremely good value.
First the good:
* Black-and-white text quality is excellent: crisp and clear.
* Setup was very straightforward, with clear and simple instructions.
* It is silent when in sleep mode, and wakes up in around 15 seconds.
Minor weaknesses:
* Colors tend to be somewhat subdued. (For the price and the media, this is what I was expecting.) As is common with color laser printers, it seems fine for printing out web pages or powerpoint but not for any application requiring very bold or very accurate colors.
* Pages tend to get slightly curled.
* Double sided printing is significantly slower than single-sided. The documentation says around 20 sides per minute for single-sided, but only 7 sides per minute double-sided.
Overall, the 4070CDW more than meets my expectations. For $500 (less now!) I’m very happy with both the functionality and the print quality, especially for text.
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