562
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #29,622 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★★
Awesome printer, cheap, great quality
I've had this printer for a whole 10 hours, and only printed about 5-6 pages so far, but it's awesome! Setup on my Mac was a breeze. Hooked the printer up to the network and immediately got an IP with DHCP. I then attempted to use the standard PCL driver with a standard JetDirect port on my Mac running OSx 10.6.. but don't do this.. it seems that printing a single page will cause the printer to just print a blank page... and then another one.. and then..won't stop :P. Ohwell.. After loading the proper drivers, Mac nicely finds the printer over bonjour and automagically sets it up as a printer and scanner (whoo hoo).
The Ups:
- Fast printing -- From deep sleep to wake up it takes about 20 seconds to get the first page out (pretty darn decent for a printer under 200 bucks)
- Energy saving -- in deep sleep it consumes less than a watt
- Solid drivers/software that doesn't get in the way.. for mac at least (not sure about windows)
- Painless duplex printing
- Copying without the need of a computer
- Super light (25 lbs?) and small footprint
- Toner cartridges that don't cost an arm and a leg
- A button on the printer that stops the current print job (AND actually works.. unlike some lexmark and hp printers I've encountered which cancel jobs that HAVEN'T been started yet.. ugh.)
The Downs:
- Automatic document feeding can't scan double sided... but kind of expected, although.. you can tell it to scan a stack of (one-sided) documents and print double-sided documents
- The scanner lid seems to be spring-loaded, so be gentle when closing the flatbed scanner
- The scanner lid only opens 45 degrees not 90 degrees... maybe this is normal.. but my xerox copier goes all the way up.. ohwell)
-Getting this printer to work in Linux (ubuntu 11.04) was a little painful-- had to install the cups and lpr driver from the website.. but it's decently document on Brother's website, so check it out (hint: even though ubuntu "recommends" using the 7045 driver, dont.. use 7065dn.. using the 7045 will just send the printer data, and then the printer will just go back to sleep without printing anything).
So even with all the things that I don't like about the printer, I still highly recommend the printer, given the price and how many features brother packed into this model. I would totally recommend this printer to anyone in the need of b/w network printer.
EDIT: 7/31/2011--
The printer doesn't seem to have airprint support (yet), so those of you who want to print directly from you iphone/ipad/iwhatever.. sorry -- it won't work out of the box.. you'll probably need to setup a print server. I'll probably try doing this on a dd-wrt instance. Also, I tried using the Brother iPrint&Scan app on my iPhone, but it didn't work with this printer.. ohwell.
EDIT: 9/30/2011 @ 5:05pm--
According to the handy-dandy printer statistics webpage built into the printer, I've printed 442 pages so far, and the printer is telling me that I'm running low on toner. I'm using the toner that came with the printer, (TN420) which is advertised to last about 1200 pages. I don't believe that I've printed any images or anything that requires a ton of toner, so I'm a bit confused on why I'm low on toner. Still-- Printer/scanner is great.. maybe just a defective toner unit that got shipped with the printer?
EDIT: 9/30/2011 @ 5:13pm --
I found this "toner save" option in the web interface, so I enabled it. (Oops-- forgot about that. Printed out a page and in my opinion, it looks the same as when the "toner save" option was disabled. Hopefully I'll get better performance out of toner cartridges now.
EDIT: 10/19/2012:
Yep, printer is still running strong.. by the way, numerous people have commented that the toner included with the printer is a 'starter toner'. So if you buy this printer, you'll probably want to purchase a Brother TN420 along with this printer (or upgrade to the Brother TN450, if you're looking for the high yield model).
June 2011 · Office Products · verified purchase