Brother HL-3040CN Compact Digital Color Printer with Networking

I have owned color lasers from HP, Xerox, and Lexmark previously. All of them had issues that gave me fits. All had installation and driver issues which cost me many hours of time to resolve.

No such problems here. Plug it in, answer a few questions, and it's printing. I have Windows 7 64 bit, and I was cringing because I expected problems, but I didn't have any. I used the network setup with an Ethernet cable plugged in, and now all the computers in my house can see it and use it. I never did get networking to work right on the Xerox, though I fiddled with settings for the better part of a couple of days.

The print quality of this printer is only fair, but for business use it's more than adequate. I've printed a set of training manuals, which have quite a bit of graphics in them, and not noticed the problems noted by another reviewer. Now it's true that this is not a photo printer, and the quality of the printing is not as good as the Xerox 8560 I had, or...Read more

For the second time now, this thing said it was out of ALL THREE color toner cartridges at the same exact time! The first time this happened, it seemed very suspicious. Wish I held on to the toner carts. Now that the printer has bugged me for the second time that it needs new color toner, I dug up a page that has the reset instructions for the cartridges. Apparently, the printer keeps track of the number of pages, regardless of how much toner is actually used. Pretty darn lame. Anyway, here's the trick that just made me very happy:

1. Open the front cover that gives you access to the toners.
2. Press and hold "Secure Print" and "Cancel" at the same time. You will see "K-TNR-STD" display on the screen.
3. Using the "+" and "-" buttons select the toner you want to reset.
4. Press the "Ok" button.
5. It will display "Ok?" and hit the "Ok" button again to reset the toner.
6. Close the lid.

Also, FYI, I called Brother and the support...Read more

I have had this printer about two weeks, and so far it is great. Install was easy on my network,with networking built-in. The print quality on both black & white, and color is very good. The toner cartridges that come with the printer are "starter" cartridges, and yield only about 1000 copies. So far, Brother direct, or Staples seem to be the only ones that have replacement cartridges, and they are expensive ($65+) for 2500 page yield cartridges, and there are four of them total? Have been able to print both labels and card stock from the regular print tray, with minimal curling. There is a straight-thru manual feel slot. Price was right, sub$200 with discounts... and a free label printer thrown in...