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

Read the other reviews for details about this printer.

My problem is that I printed a few hundred pages and then the printer reported IT WAS OUT OF TONER. WTF? The "starter" toner was supposed to be at least a few thousand pages.

I made the mistake of buying a new black toner cartridge. Then after it printed a few pages, it said the magenta cartridge was out of toner! I was trying to print black! This printer has a serious problem of not knowing when or if the toner cartidges is either out of, or completely full of toner.

After I found this trick, I got another 1,000 pages out of that "empty" toner cartridge.

Here's how to fix the problem (quoted from someone else but it really works... you can Google this problem and it will say to put electical tape on the sensor, but that does NOT NOT NOT work with this printer. Only this will work):

1)' Turn the printer off and then on again.
2) Open cover.
3)...Read more

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...Read more

Very easy to configure, at least with my Mac, and using the plug-in Ethernet connection. Great color, and very crisp printouts, nearly laser quality output (it's actually an LED printer, which uses a less-costly print technology than laser, but has the same basic laser-type toner cartridges). Even from an inch away the fonts look very crisp.

Toner cartridges are about $60 each. The starter cartridges are supposed to last 1000 pages but I've only had it a month so we'll see how that goes. You get (essentially) laser quality output but for $350, color, USB, Ethernet and wireless interfaces built in - so it's hard to beat. No problems at all to date, but as I say it's still new.

Colors are very good, but if you're looking to print photos it's not going to look as good as a photo printer. Great for color images and charts/graphs in documents, though, and better color quality than my $99 Epson ink jet (non photo printer).

Setup on the USB and...Read more