Brother HL-4070CDW Laser Printer

Summary: I’ve owned a lot of printers dating back to the early 1980’s, and so far this one holds a lot of promise. I decided to purchase this printer for two reasons: (1) the price for color laser with duplex and Ethernet, and (2) a small amount of brand familiarity - I purchased a refurbished Brother all-in-one unit earlier this year, and it impressed me.

Unpacking and installation - the instructions were easy to locate and well organized (better than most IMHO). All of the packing materials in the printer were orange to make then easy to locate. When I got to the point of printing a test page, it printed gloriously - the colors were vivid and sharp with nice gradients.

Software drivers - I have only installed Ethernet so far, and the install process went very smoothly (better than almost all IHMO). So many installation programs are obvious hodge-podges of component pieces, where you seem to get lost clicking an assortment of “next,” “continue”, and “finish” buttons in no particular order. In contrast, this install was clean, quick, and concise - and most importantly it worked the first time - with no confusion

Front panel - pretty nice in some respects - colored background (green, yellow, red) to alert you to problems or the lack thereof. And here’s the really cool part - toner status is right there all the time. Navigation is pretty typical, although definitely better than some - uses 4 buttons, up, down, ok, and back. Reprint button was a good idea, but watch out. My last job was 40 copies of the same page. I told reprint to print one. After three I pressed cancel. So I guess 1 copy is really 40 pages if that’s what the PC sent. Cancel did respond very quickly - faster than other printers I have used.

Performance - the ratings seem to be accurate. Single sided screams at 21 pages/minute. I didn’t time it, but it seemed really fast. Duplex on the other hand is rated at 7 sides/minute. I almost missed this specification when shopping - it is found on the brother website in their brochure (http://www.brother-usa.com/VirData/Content/Printers/ModelBrochures/HL4040_70Cat.pdf). I did time a 40 page double-sided print job at 10:42 - which is actually a little faster than 7 sides/minute. In fact, most of the pages came out at about 4 pages (front and back) per minute. Now my print job was mostly text, some color, and one small graphic.

Direct Print - When I inserted a USB flash drive, it immediately recognized it and allowed me to scroll through my files (using 8.3 filenames). I selected a PDF and was given the option to alter a number of parameters like duplex. Supposedly it only prints PDF and JPG, but it lists files with other file-types as well. To print you press the “Go” button - wasn’t 100% obvious to me, but I guessed it pretty quickly. Not sure what else the Go button would be used for. It tells you not to remove the drive while printing, the inference being that any other time is OK to remove. Quite easy to use - except maybe for the 8.3 filenames.

Transparencies - I had some grief with my last printer in this area (media mismatch issues). I didn’t find any option in the print properties, so I just put a transparency in the multimedia tray, and voila!

Noise - when printing in a quiet home office, it seems a little loud - but only when printing. You can barely tell the difference between standby and sleep.

Web-based control panel - has a lot of information like total pages printed, status of consumables (other than toner). The organization seemed OK, but it didn’t really speak to me. I did use it to set the node name that it uses to register itself with my Linksys router. I also spent some time looking for the toner status until I realized it was right under my nose on the front panel. I can’t imagine why I would need to use this much. Probably more useful for the guy at your company who manages printers for a living. I think it would have been nice to include percent remaining for toner, but they didn’t.

Features not tested - wireless, USB port, parallel port, PictBridge.

So, is \"the HL-4070CDW the fast, affordable color laser printer that everyone has been waiting for?\" I am inclined to say yes.

Summary: I just got my HL-4070CDW today & I'm in love with it already. The reason I'm writing is that I almost did NOT buy this printer because of the reviews that claim the colors are not adequate. Although I did not purchase this printer for color photos (my application is home business letters with color letterhead), I just HAD to test the colors when I received this printer.

I'm not trying to get into a debate with anyone who has felt they experienced less vivid colors - but I wonder if they used the advanced settings that are available. The first thing I did when I was up and running was to explore the ADVANCED settings for the VIVID COLOR option. These settings are GREAT !!! I was able to set the Contrast, Brightness, Red, Green, Blue, and Color Saturation for my print job. Each of these settings provides an adjustment of PLUS (+) or MINUS (-) 20%, along with a color preview window so you can see the effect of your settings. I carefully set-up one of my favorite photos, using quality laser photo paper, and the result was an outstanding match with a professional print that I had for the same photo.

I next decided to try printing black & white photos which are an important part of my home decor. Using the Fine setting under the advanced options I was truly amazed - at what I could do with this printer. Each result was absolutely suitable for framing!!! Although my application is business correspondence, this printer will quickly pay for itself when I compare the cost of professional photo finishing for my black & whites to the cost of a high yield black toner cartridge. I often pay the cost of a high yield cartridge just to get a group of 5x7 and 8x10 black & white photos printed to add to my decor.

I LOVE IT !!! I'm only a digital photo hobbyist and would have been happy comtinuing to pay for professional processing of my black & whites (or even my color photos), but I am very happy with this printer. The ONLY REASON I'm writing this review is that I ALMOST DID NOT purchase this printer because of the reviews about the \"less than vivid\" colors. I am very happy to have the perfect printer for my home business application PLUS the added extra bonus of saving money on photo processing - I will be adding to my home gallery (