Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I hope the one message I can get out to everyone is that printers are one of the most undependable machines that anyone can look to purchase. I run a home business and I made the mistake of spending well over $1k a few years back for a Konica Minolta 5430DL. It was a beauty of a printer, but shortly after spending nearly $600 in replacement cartridges the printer started falling apart. What I learned is that even the priciest printers break. This is more of a disposable technology than something you can hand down to your kids. When all the printer companies play the game of selling printers with limited ink cartridges and then charging you more than the printer itself for refills, you know that the only way to come out ahead is to buy the best bang-for-the-buck printer with the expectation that it's only going to last a few short years. I believe the Brother HL4570 is that kind of printer. For $400 I knew I was buying something mid-range. It would certainly be a step down from the $1k Konica Minolta but at least the value of the printer is close to the value of replacing cartridges. This means when I finally deplete the cartridges I have the choice of buying more cartridges or another printer -- whichever costs less. I chose Brother because I wanted a wireless printer that played well with Mac. If read on counteless discussion forums that more than any other brand, the Brother is the easiest to install with a Macintosh computer. Those discussion forums were correct. The wireless setup with my iMac took less than 10 minutes to complete. ...but I am getting ahead of myself. Bought this printer when it dropped in price to $399 from $450. Had it shipped Amazon Prime 2-day and Fedex delivered it overnight. It's rather heavy, weighing in at about 65 lbs. The unit is well packaged. Be sure to read the quick-start manual for important unpacking instructions. There are a lot of doors and drawers that you need to access and remove small pieces of packaging. Once unpacked and plugged in, the first step was to pair the printer to my WiFi. A small LCD display lets you navigate through a setup wizard that automatically detects your WiFi network. The next step is simply inputint the password which is a bit of a cumbersome process as you have to wade through rows of characters till you get to the numbers and letters you need. Frankly, that part of the setup seems very old-school. Brother could have really improved upon this process. Be aware that as you enter each number and letter of your password that character quickly turns to an asterick to hide it. Don't be confused by what the printer is doing.] Once the password was entered the printer immediately paired to my network. No hiccups whatsoever. The next step was even simpler. I put the install disc in my iMac, run it, and it automatically installs the drivers and detects my printer. Never have I ever been able to pair a printer to my Mac or PC this easily. It really is true -- this printer is Mac's best friend. I decided to do a test page which is done simply by pressing the GO button on the printer. It didn't take long for the printer to whiz into motion and produce a page. Two immediate problems: First, my room stunk of toner. This thing put out a stench that I could not believe. I had read another review from someone complaining about the smell this priter produces. Fortunately, it seems, the stench was only present at the initial print. I am hoping that the printer is just breaking itself in. I will keep you posted on future prints. The second problem is page curling. Pages come out curled. I am using 30 weight paper which should be less prone to curling. I understand there are adjustments you can make in the computer to lessen the curl. I will certainly look into this and keep you posted. Print speed and quality is very good. Black text looks very crisp but colors are not true to original. I had read in another review that this Brother printer produces darker versions of the original color. This is true. Oranges were deeper, light blues became dark blues. Potentially, I don't see this as a major problem -- but some who are more finicky about their printer producing true colors will not be happy. I won't even talk about photos. Haven't tested photo printing because I already know it will look like garbage. You don't use these printers for photos and anyone buying it for that use is foolish. Is the printer loud? Somewhat, yes. But realize that I am coming from a monstrous Konica Minolta machine that was even louder than this Brother. So, for me, the printer is quieter than the more industrial sized machines I have been used to. Thus far, I am very impressed with the ease of setup and immediate pairing to my WiFi network and iMac. I mean, I had this running in less than 15 minutes after full unpack. As for overall quality? It is what I expect from a $400 laser printer. It's speedy with highly acceptable print quality. However, it's not on par with business class machines. It suffers from subdued color reproduction, colors are slightly darker than they should be and pages curl. The machine awakens from sleep and produces a page in less than 10 seconds. This is great. My Konica Minolta would wake from sleep and go through a minute of two of machine "whirring" until it decided to spit out a page. For $400 this doesn't seem to be a significant step down from my $1k Konica Minolta business class computer and that's why I am not complaining. You can read through countless reviews on Amazon hoping to get the right printer. Every single one of them has a handful of bad reviews and complaints about breakage and toner cost. I found the Brother, particularly this model, to be the better rated printer in its price range. Certainly toner replacement will be a little cheaper than going with HP. UPDATE The stench I was experiencing with print jobs has lessened, though there is still the slightest odor of print toner whenever I run the printer. I am hoping this subsides with age. Went into PRINT SETTINGS on my Mac and selected REDUCE PAGE CURLING. It did very little to curb the problem. This printer still produces curled prints and that's the only annoying issue I still have with this printer. In all, the Brother 4570 is probably the best color laser printer in the $400 range. Certainly a better option than purchasing an HP which comes with limited-filled toner cartridges and (from reviews I have read on Amazon) its own set of headaches.