Top positive review
7 people found this helpful
Great Value
By Gizmo on Reviewed in the United States on June 18, 2014
After having at least 10 HP printers over the years, I finally decided to get a Laser Printer. I initally shied away from Brother, because formerly they were a low cost and low quality brand. After reading the reviews here, I decided to go with this one, and I couldnt be more impressed. At $123, it is a professional quality printer, that prints two sided and is like the type of printer they have in large offices. It prints quickly, and after alot of pages (a lot, no idea how many), I have not had a single jam. Also, the toner has lasted so long. I bought an extra toner cartridge when I bought the printer, but I havent had to use it yet. I did get a low toner warning, but I followed directions online (search for it) to reset the count, and I am still using the same toner cartridge more than 1000 pages later! That would have been like $300 in HP Cartridges!! That alone means the printer has paid for itself. It is quick, high quality, and everything I could want in a scanner/printer. My one complaint- and its not really a complaint, is that I have found myself using the scanner way more than I thought. It is very easy, and so many people want documents scanned and emailed these days. I wish I had gotten one with a feeder. They do sell ones with a feeder and next time I will get one. I recommend it if you can find the version of this printer with a scanner feeder. The software is great. By great, I mean that I don't know that its there. HP always installs like 10 programs, that fill up your taskbar and send warnings, notices and ads non-stop. I don't know why I put up with it. Brother has software that works great, but quietly sits in the background and just does what its supposed to. In other words, when I hit print, it prints. When I hit scan, it scans. If you want a billion useless features and bundled apps, go with HP. But I really appreciate that I don't even know anything is installed, unless I go looking for it. Actually, I love it. I hope you read this HP. A few other little issues. The wifi is a little tough to set up, but no harder than any of the other printers I've had. It is though only 802.11b and g, not N. The problem with this is that your whole wifi can only go as fast as the slowest item on the network. Everything else in my house is N, except the printer. This means that I have to use G internet. N is the same speed as G, so thats not an issue, but the range is better on N. If none of this made sense to you, then it very likely doesn't matter to you. There is no fax. I dont have a phone line anymore, just cell, anyway. It would be nice to have a fax at the house, but as I dont have phone service anyway, its moot. If you do, this would probably be a good feature to have. Everytime I print with this printer, I exclaim to my fiancee that "I love my laser printer" Seriously. I got so jaded on printers with HP printers. I got a Laser printer because Ive always used them at the office and they seemed much better. Can't print color or photos, but the one time this came up in the past year, I just went to FedEx/Kinkos, where they have a much better photo printer than I can afford anyway. At this price, the printer is an absolute steal. It doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but it scans/ copies and prints black and white like a printer 10x the cost. I have been seriously impressed by the value of this Brother printer and cannot recommend it highly enough. I don't say that often. I don't write reviews very often either.
Top critical review
11 people found this helpful
Brother Printer HL2280DW
By Robert Smith on Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2012
Cons: Scanner places very faint light and darker vertical bands on a scanned image. Pros: Printed an excellent quality return label. Print quality is MUCH better than my old ink-jet printers. I received this printer a week ago and have to return it for replacement. I scan a lot of images and it's one of the primary reasons I bought this multi-function printer. After scanning just a few pictures I noticed a difference in quality from my old HP 3310 scanner. Doing some testing I found the scanner placed very faint light and darker vertical bands in groups about an inch wide on the scanned image. To make sure it was a scanner problem I scanned an image with a solid dark background, turned the image 90 degrees clockwise and scanned again. The bands on the first picture was perpendicular to the second picture verifying the bands weren't part of the image but were placed there by a defective scanner. I also tested the scanner using the built in function of the printer and then second scanning using PSP9 and third with the included software "Control Center 4". I also tested the "copy" function. Printing documents is great with much better quality than my old HP3310 or my Canon MultiPass. I tested the printer with my XP Home/32 computer and my Win 7/64 computer with the USB connection option at 200 x 200 up to 600 x 600 DPI and got the same results. Additionally, while this printer feels less sturdy than my old HP3310, it feels heavier and more sturdy than my Canon Multi-Pass. The scanner function is an important function of this "Multi Function Printer" and is advertized to produce "high-quality color scanning" so I have to drop 2 stars. I have not yet been able to use the wireless mode in either my XP Home/32 or my Win 7 Pro/64 computers and have not been able to print from the network computers but I haven't spent too much time trying to set them up as yet. Comments: Copying a color picture to a black and white image required setting the "Brightness" to max and the "Contrast" to minimum to get an acceptable monochrome image. Since that isn't an expected function of the printer I only include it here as an observation. I hate the hassle of returning any merchandise so if the replacement printer shows the same defect I'll return for a refund, update this review and try another Canon. Besides, a week after ordering this printer the price dropped $20.00 and Amazon has no post purchase price matching option. Edited review. The replacement printer arrived very fast. Unfortunately the scanner of the replacement is just as bad as the first. For a printer that advertise a "High Quality Scanner" this is unacceptable. There is another review that also comments about the scanner being poor quality so if you don't intend to use the scanner then you might like this printer. In addition I have been having trouble with this printer maintaining a connection with the computer. It's hit or miss when turning on the computer whether this printer is recognized or not. With both printers I had to re-install the printer several times after turning on the computer to get it to work. I have tried this printer connected to an XP and a Win 7 computer. I'm not a computer expert but I have operated a BBS with Frontdoor and FIDONET and can create web pages with FrontPage and Kompozer. Perhaps an IT professional might figure out how to get this printer to function reliably. I now have to return this printer and it's doubtful that I will ever look at Brother printers again. ======================== Edited: I thought I'd mention how to create a PDF Document with this printer. Hopefully these steps are understandable. I had to use the accompanied software, Control Center 4, to create the PDF. Creating a PDF file without using the ADF Control Center 4 - OPEN On the {SCAN TAB} - SELECT [CUSTOM] Select {DEVICE SETTINGS TAB} - then select [FILE] This will save to PDF format) Select the [SCAN] TAB Press [SCAN] After the page scans, before continuing, insert the next page on the scanner bed. Then select [CONTINUE] again until the last page is scanned. (Remember to insert the new page before clicking "continue") [FINISH] SELECT WHEN ALL PAGES HAVE BEEN SCANNED --------- To create a new PDF: [CLEAR] SELECT Repeat the above steps ============================================ Oct 7. Another short note. After the printer was returned I got a note that Amazon wasn't going to refund the shipping part of the refund. It was a confusing note saying something about "Promotions". I know Amazon doesn't price match or refund the difference if the same item goes on sale for a lower price and I understand that completely. What a headache it would be trying to sort through all the requests for partial refund. But I also know when I return an item that is not what it's advertized to be I expect a full refund. I don't know, maybe this isn't our Fathers Amazon.
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