Brother HL-3070CW Compact Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking

4 comments

1. 

   Morganna Wolf on December 18, 2009 at 7:07 pm

   Brother HL-3070CW Compact Digital Color Printer is a great small office printer. As a color printer it is better print quality and has been more reliable than an older color HP I have at work.

   For my small home business it provides excellent print quality both in black & white and color.
   
   As typically with laser printers it takes a while to warm up before printing. So while it prints up to 17 ppm please note that the printer may have to warm up first.

   I was disappointed that it did not have duplex printing unlike the much more expensive Brother HL-4070CDW Color Laser Printer with Built-In Duplex Printing and Wireless Interface

   I am also a bit put off by the cost of the toners. However for my home office needs the printing is better than inkjets and the toners are rated for apx. 2,200 pages for the black toner.

   This was easy to install on my home network for the machines running a 32-bit Vista system. The 64-bit system took a little bit more work but overall was fairly smooth.

2. 

   Pamela V on December 18, 2009 at 9:01 pm

   I am far from a computer geek, and in fact, can’t stand dealing with anything too technical. Something simple, like losing my internet connection, can throw me into a tizzy.

   The Brother HL-3070CW Compact Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking, is made for people like me. It’s so simple to install and use, anyone can do it! The instructions offer step-by-step set-up, and in a matter of minutes, you are printing out professional quality color prints!

   The unit itself is what I consider to be pretty large for a home office, but smaller than many professional printers I have used. Plus, the unit holds 4 top-loaded toners, 3 color and one black; and up to 250 pages of paper, either in legal or regular size. So it has to be a fairly large unit.

   Installing the top-loading printer cartridges couldn’t be easier. Actually I was a bit nervous about installation, but it was a snap!

   This printer, like other printers from Brother, did not come with a USB cable, so make sure you have one on hand before installation. As I was upgrading from another Brother model, I just switched them out and went on with installation.

   With the ability to print at up to 17 pages per minute, this printer is fast! Each color toner cartridge is expected to print about 1400 pages, and the black toner cartridge is supposed to print 2200 pages. Checking online, the toner is readily available at many websites, including Amazon. The color cartridges run about $55 each, while the black one is a bit less.

   The maximum print volume for this printer, as indicated by Brother, is 300 to 1500 pages per month, so for optimal performance, try to stay within that range, or buy something more industrial.

   Other technical stuff: This printer comes with a one year manufacturers warranty. You can use Wireless 802.11b/g, 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet, or Hi-Speed USB 2.0 as your interface. The printer driver is compatible with Windows, Mac or Linux. The starter toners that come with the printer are supposed to be good for 1000 pages each, so you’re good to go for a while, right out of the box! Oh, and when you are finished with your empty toner, you can print off a prepaid label at Brother/USA.com and send the empty cartridge to them, and they use it in their recycling program. That’s a good thing too.

   Overall, an excellent color printer for the price. Simple set up for we non-computer-geek types, and vibrant brochure-quality color prints!

3. 

   donny on December 18, 2009 at 11:08 pm

   I was very excited to print with this Brother Wireless printer. I got it set up and printed a demo sheet and the quality was fantastic. However, wireless setup not so fantastic with my iMac and Airport Express. I have yet to get it working wirelessly. I will try again or call tech support. I have to be doing something wrong, but I should not have to call support to get a printer setup. Wired setup is a piece of cake and it works fantastic.

4. 

   Dave760 on December 19, 2009 at 12:04 am

   In this day of laptops, netbooks, and sophisticated phones, a network printer can simplify things greatly. With a wireless network already running in the house, we could add a wireless printer and put it where it most convenient for us rather than where there was a network connection. Enter the Brother HL-3070CW.

   First a bit about printing technologies: Inkjets are cheaper to purchase, but the cost of ink cartridges is staggering over time. The HL-3070CW comes with a set of “starter” toner cartridges, rated for 1,000 pages each. Compare that to an inkjet, where ratings of 150 – 200 pages from a full set of carts are common. (Our Epson CX5800F is lucky to get 75 pages out of a set of cartridges, given the amount of ink we waste on clogged print heads.) The Brother toner cartridges cost more to replace, but you’ll be replacing them much less often. The replacement black toner cartridge is rated for 2,200 pages, and the replacement color cartridges are rated at 1,400 pages each. The printer’s drum units are also user-replaceable, and are rated for 15,000 sheets. By my calculations, assuming that we get half of the rated pages from the toner cartridges, we’ll have made up the cost difference between these technologies in less than a year. The Brother will be significantly cheaper to run over time, without the frustration of clogged printheads.

   I bought the Brother HL-3070CW shortly after it was released. This was a bit of a leap of faith, given that there were no reviews available at the time. It took about 20 minutes to unbox the printer, set it up, and connect it to our (WPA-PSK secured) wireless network. It was a painless process from start to finish. The toner cartridges slot into the top of the printer easily, and the paper tray (250 sheets) slides in the bottom.

   The LCD screen on the printer is very basic, but it’s easy to read, it includes a back light, and it does its job well. The menu system is very simple (one item at a time, scroll with the up and down keys), but the choices are easy to understand and the menu works exactly as expected. I’ve never had to read the operating manual that came with the printer. (Installation documentation is supplied on paper, but the operating manual is a pdf file on the included disc.)

   Print quality has been excellent from the start. Characters are well-formed and easy to read, and graphic quality is very high with solid, vivid colors. Although not true photo quality, images are perfectly suitable for business purposes (brochures, presentations, etc.).

   I’ve used paper from 20 to 32 pounds without incident with this printer. I have not had any paper jams, and the printer always picks up just one sheet of paper. The output tray on the top is rated to hold 100 sheets, and it looks like it could do that easily. The printer will handle legal sized sheets, although so far all of my printing has been on letter sized paper. There’s a manual feed slot for thicker media and envelopes, but I’ve not had a reason to try it yet.

   The printer uses 10 watts while asleep, and wakes from sleep very quickly. It takes less than 20 seconds for the first page to print if the printer’s asleep when the document is sent. I’ve set my printer to go to sleep quickly, and have experienced no problems at all with it waking when documents are sent to it. The printer has also recovered gracefully from a power outage, including reconnecting to our wireless network automatically. It makes some noise when it feeds paper, but the noise level isn’t objectionable.

   One other interesting feature: The printer includes a USB port that can be used with PictBridge cameras, or that can be used to print some document types (e.g., pdf, jpeg) directly from a thumb drive.

   The Brother HL-3070CW is easy to set up, it uses little energy in standby mode, it feeds paper reliably, its consumable costs are reasonable, and it produces excellent quality output. I’m not sure what else one could ask for from a printer. I’m very happy with this unit, and have recommended it to others who have also had good experiences with it.