Brother HL-3070CW Compact Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking
- Prints up to 17ppm in color and black
- Built-in wireless 802.11b/g and Ethernet network interfaces
- High-quality output at up to 600 x 2400 dpi resolution using Brother¿s Digital LED technology
- Adjustable 250-sheet capacity paper tray for letter or legal size paper
- USB Direct Interface
Product Description
The HL-3070CW is a digital color printer with wireless networking that is ideal for small offices or small workgroups. It produces brilliant, high-quality output at up to 600 x 2400 dpi resolution with a fast print speed of up to 17ppm in color or black. It offers flexible paper handling with a 250-sheet capacity paper tray and a manual feed slot for envelopes. Conveniently place your printer and share it with others on your network via its built-in wireless 8… More >>
Brother HL-3070CW Compact Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking
UPDATE: See the pictures I uploaded.
REVIEW
My fiance, who is a computer whiz and has a degree in it, helped me with the review, so the problems I experienced are probably not due to my own fault.
I set up this printer on my Windows XP desktop and laptop. The setup process was troublesome and I’m not impressed with the print quality. My experience is described below.
**Setup**
Unpacking and cartridge installation is well documented and relatively straightforward, but unless you follow the instructions and have some manual dexterity, you will get toner on your hands and possibly elsewhere – the protective plastic films that must be removed from the cartridges have toner on them. (Arrange the foil bag you took the cartridge from so that you can put the protective film into it while holding the cartridge in your other hand).
The procedure to connect the printer via USB or wired-ethernet is straightforward too, although annoyingly Brother encourages you to run their own driver installation program (supplied on CD) rather than adhering to the standard Microsoft Windows printer driver installation scheme. As supplied CDs are often out of date, I went to download the latest version from the Brother website, but alarmingly, the installation program supplied on the CD is not available there. (There is a driver there, but it is nothing like the program described in the manual supplied with the printer).
Setting up the printer for wireless networking is where things started to get troublesome. If your wireless router is quite new and supports SES/WPS/AOSS (where you press a button on your router which tells it to allow the printer to connect and get the wireless password and settings, similar to bluetooth pairing), you’re in luck. Otherwise, to complete the setup, Brother’s oxymoronic recommendation is to hook up the printer to your access point with an ethernet cable (note that you need to go through an access point – you can’t just hook a laptop directly to the printer without a crossed cable), which completely defeats the purpose of the wireless feature, that is to allow the printer to be located where it’s not practical to run an ethernet cable. If it was a light inkjet printer, temporarily carrying it to your access point would be tolerable, but this printer weighs ~ 45 lbs.
Thankfully, there is another method to complete the setup wirelessly from a laptop or desktop with a wireless network card, if you can find it buried in the “Network User’s Guide”. There’s no mention of it in the only printed manual that comes with the printer (the quick start guide).
This method temporarily changes your wireless settings to connect to the printer to give it the password and settings for your wireless network.
During setup, I also discovered there have been several firmware updates in the short time this printer has been available. It doesn’t instil confidence that Brother released this printer with several problems that needed fixing. My firmware was out of date so I updated. The “Status Monitor” program installed with the driver will check for updated firmware, but not install it. It just directs you to the website where you have to manually download and install the firmware.
**Print Quality**
The demo page printed during setup looks very impressive, after some real-world tests, it’s clear that this demo image is carefully chosen to mask many potential quality problems. Text and lines, at least, print very well. They’re sharp and crisp, and the colors are bright if you print in color. Images are a different story however. Periodic banding (perpendicular to the paper feed direction) is visible throughout the image and is especially noticeable in areas of solid color. Updating the firmware and running the calibration routine didn’t improve the print quality.
**Conclusion**
Pros:
Reasonably priced toner
Built-in wireless networking
Good quality text printing
Fast
Cons:
Poor quality photo/graphics printing
Bigger and heavier than some of the competition (e.g. Samsung CLP-315)
No USB or network cable included
Noisy
Not the most asthetic design
Full disclosure: I received a test model of this product for review but was not compensated in any way for reviewing it.
Rating: 2 / 5
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.
Update: Finally got it printing, but it was a lot more difficult than it should be.
Now that wireless printing works, it is a little slow to print even a simple web page. Still great quality, but I think I would give it a 3.5/5 if I could.
Rating: 3 / 5
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!
Rating: 5 / 5
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.
Rating: 4 / 5
This wireless color printer is conveniently easy to install. Print quality is very good, but not quite the same as a color inkjet for photos (typical for color laser printing). However, for most of the color printing that I do it is just fine and I don’t have to clean inkjet printheads or replace inkjet cartridges to get a decent color copy. Although it is larger than my previous inkjet printer, it is quiet while printing and silent in the sleep mode. Impressive.
Rating: 5 / 5