Brother HL-3170CDW Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex, Amazon Dash Replenishment Enabled

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I purchased this in 2015 and have been using it for a just about 2 years when the fuser black roller broke. I called Brother and they told me that yes they have seen this problem before and since it is out of warranty I need a new fuser from the authorized service center. I called the authorized service center and they told me that this model has manufacturing defect with the fuser. She has seen numerous complains almost one every day with new and old purchases. I was just about to buy the same model and she stopped me, and told me to go back to Brother and ask for replacement. I called Brother and talked to the supervisor and he told me that he understands that there are manufacturing problems but Brother cannot don’t anything. I told him that If I was purchasing a car and there was numerous complaints about a part they will do a recall. If Brother stands behind it products and quality they should do a recall. But nothing happened. So I am warning everyone on Amazon not to purchase this model till Brother stands behind its products and fixes this issue. I also called Amazon and told them to put a freeze on this product if possible so other customers don’t fall for this trap. I am possibly going to buy another brand printer but hopefully this review will help others make their decision.

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Great printer, but the toner life is based (as far as I can tell) solely on pages printed. So if you print x number of pages even with only a single dot of color on it, the printer will count that as a page printed in that color. My starter black toner quit after 250 pages. Here is how to fix this - open the top of the printer, then simultaneously press the "Secure" and "X Cancel" buttons. This will put the printer into a special service mode. Use the + and - buttons to scroll to whichever toner you want to reset. Each color should have three options which, I believe, allow you to tell the machine what type of new toner cartridge is installed. I think "Y.TNR-STR" is yellow cartridge standard, "Y.TNR-HC" is for the high yield yellow cartridge and "Y.TNR.STD" is for a standard yellow cartridge. Once youve selected the cartridge you want to tell it youre installing hit the "OK" button and will get an "OK reset cancel" type screen. Hit the up arrow to reset. Now youre back to printing in style! Replace your toner cartridges need to be replaced, not when it tells you to. UPDATE: 8/28/2016 I could not get Airprint from my iPhone to work. In searching for fixes I found that there was a firmware update for this printer. I was afraid an update might take away the ability to use the above method to correct toner levels but I am happy to report the updated firmware still lets you correct toner levels. I still cant get Airprint to work but PrintCentral Pro for the iPhone does work.

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Was looking for an automatic duplex color laser printer for the fiancé who is in med school. Last year, she printed over 10,000 pages. Its important she has color so she can see the details of the anatomy or cardio diagrams she has to print out. She used to have a color Brother 3045CN but there was no auto duplex mode (sucks the paper back in and prints on the other side). She had to manually refeed the paper in to print on the other side and at times would make errors because she put in the wrong way. There goes 20 sheets of paper in the recycle bin. and I realized she needed a better printer. This printer is amazing. Has great color and auto duplex works like it should. If you know how to setup a router to have wifi password, setting up the wifi on the printer shouldnt that difficult. When you first plug it in, (no need to plug it into a computer or anything), itll ask you to setup WLAN. Press ok, find your wireless network name, press ok, put in password, press ok, done. Now all the macbooks, windows, iphones, and ipads in the house can print wirelessly. My only complaint is the starter cartridges that came with it. Like how most printer companies make their money, this printer decided to stop working because the black toner was low. I checked printer status and it shows it printed 600 pages of black! Thats it for a starter cartridge?! It refuses to print unless I change the cartridge! I searched online and figured out how to reset the cartridge making it think it has a new toner inside. What you need to do is lift up the top cover and leave it unhinged. Simultaneously press the Secure and the Cancel button at the same time (with top cover open). You will see option to choose which toner you want to reset. Select the one you want, press okay and press the + to confirm reset. Done. Now you can keep using whats left in the toner cartridge which in my case had at least 50% left. As for refills, this is going to be a tad more difficult than typical Brother cartridges. You are going to need to drill a hole a size of a dime on the top of the cartridge and then pour the ink in. Use same tape to cover up the hole you make. No need for resets gears or any of that. Just do the same procedure as above to reset it and your good to go. All in all, Im happy with my purchase. If you print a lot and need decent color printing (not photo quality) and want to print wirelessly, this is the printer to get. -=UPDATE 1/24/2015=- Very sad to say but the printer bit the dust today after a little over a year of use. Printer count shows just 10,000 pages printed, but the printer started printing crinkly pages. I opened the back of the unit and the fuser (black and orange hot bars) were torn to bits. Did some research and it seems common with people who excessively print and never let the printer cool down. Was never aware of this. Just a warning for everyone! -=UPDATE 2/7/2015=- Called Brother up, they sent out a new empty (no ink or ink tank) refurbished printer out (within 2 days) and I shipped back the broken printer. Easy peasy and Brother paid for all shipping costs. Warranty is extended extra 30 days after my ORIGINAL 1 year warranty. Although the replacement printer is refurbished, Im satisfied with Brothers customer service.

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So basically this printer broke about 3 months after purchase. The printer no longer detects brand-new official brother toner as full. The black toner ran out after 2 months of light text prints. I dont have the exact number of pages, it seemed early but maybe I was using it more than I realized. Well, I buy a new official toner cartridge from brother, replace the old one, and I get maybe 1 week (~50 pages) of printing before this cartridge is reported as empty by the printer. Lovely... So I submit a help ticket to the Brother Help Desk. They are helpful and answer my questions, but basically confirm that this printer is inoperable and unfixable. Both toner cartridges are clearly not empty, but their proprietary chips are reporting them to be empty so you replace them sooner. This is unethical and should be considered fraud. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Here is a transcript from Brother Support: ""Thank you for your email. I understand that you would like get the steps to reset the toner counter in your HLL3230CDW since your machine is still displaying that the new cartridge must be replaced. Please know that, unfortunately this machine does not perform toner counter reset. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that this may cause. "" --------------------------------------------------------- I will not be buying 3rd nearly 50$ toner cartridge because they design a printer to fail. I will also never buy another Brother product since they have changed from their once reliable company to one about deceptive business practice and planned obsolescence. 0/5 Stars. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT BUY!

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Dont be swayed by the positive reviews. TWO of the three Brother HL-3170CDW printers we purchased 8-10 months ago (and used only lightly) are useless because of defective rollers. Our small office is on three floors, so we wanted two printers -- even though each prints less than 100 pages on average, per week. We bought a Brother HL-3170CDW printer in January 2015 (10 months ago) and liked it, so we bought another in February 2015. The second printer stopped working barely a month after purchase, but only when we tried to print double-sided: the roller would crumple the paper and jam (regardless of the paper quality we used). We gave that printer to a a friend who doesnt double-side, and -- because the first printer still worked well and we had dozens of expensive new cartridges -- we purchased another Brother HL-3170CDW printer. Big mistake. A month ago (after 6 months of light use -- under 100 pages per week), the new printer began to make a grinding noise and the roller began to disintegrate. Pieces of roller came off in flakes (see photos). TWO defective printers in one year? Oh, Brother. We will not be purchasing another. In posting this review, I noticed a review by Luke (December 8, 2014) who wrote: "Rollers are defective and disintegrate. Brother is aware of the problem but wont do anything about it." Wish Id seen that review before buying. Brother HL-3170CDW Digital Color Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex

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First off, this is my first laser printer Ive ever had and I use this printer a LOT (I homeschool my kids, and I print a TON of resources) Its fast, it has decent quality images (not inkjet quality, but its fine for what we need) I love that it has an auto duplex feature which makes printing workbooks for my children fast and easy. Ive loved all of my brother printers from the past, so I thought Id try this one. Ive had it for a month and Ive printed 1100 pages. HOWEVER, I HATE that this printer does not have a toner reset option. I feel like Im getting robbed every time I have to throw a toner cartridge out, and for some reason, ALL of the cartridges seem to run out at the SAME TIME. Im pretty sure its tracking a page count, not how much toner is actually being used. I printed some black and white pages in grayscale mode (I set it on both the printer AND the computer) and for some reason, in the middle of printing those my computer told me the toner for my yellow was gone and now cannot print ANYTHING. I am pretty peeved I need those worksheets! I KNOW there is still toner in it, but because it has a "smart" chip, the consumer gets screwed. I wish I would have gotten an earlier version of this same printer so I could reset the toner manually. So if I had to choose again, Id choose to get a different printer that allows consumers to reset and continue using until all of the toner was gone. Its definitely not worth the cost. I wish I would have known this before buying the printer. So I thought Id share what Ive learned in hopes that it helps someone else from making the same mistake!

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This printer does not print colors well at all. Red prints as a sort of orange-ish color and light blues don’t print at all. All of the colors that do print are dark and muted. I have contacted Brother 3 times about this issue and they had me buy all new printer cartridges. $300 later and nothing has changed. In addition to that the wifi connection sucks, I can only print wirelessly if I reset the connection every time I turn the computer on. I gave up on doing this because it’s super time consuming and not worth the effort. I am now stuck with a “wireless” “color” printer that sucks. Spend your money on a better printer, this one isn’t worth the money or the hassle.

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Pros: - easy to setup for mobile and desktop - nice printing quality Cons: - not for printing photos - big # Print Quality I didnt buy this printer for printing photos. Printing pages with some color images is fine. If you want to print a photo, skip this printer and buy an inkjet printer. # Setup - remove stickers, protections, etc. It is big and heavy. The box has a sticker Heavy. (photo #19) Compared to my other brother monochrome MFC, it is bigger. (photo #20). There are many tapes that secure covers and plastic parts that protect toners. Removing them is easy. # Setup - Wireless Once power is on, you can easily set up network information for your printer. (Photo #1 to #6) By pressing menu and arrow buttons, you can enable wireless lan, search SSID, select SSID, enter a password. Entering a password part was bothering me. For each password letter, you need to press up/down password to find a upper or lower case letter. Fortunately, pressing a button will change alphabets quickly. # Setup - Air Print Some reviewers wrote that air print was not working after upgrade. My iPhones iOS version is 11.2.6 and the printers firmware version is 1.11 (01/27/2017). AirPrint is working great. (Photos #7 to #16). Ive tested AirPrint on Photos and Dropbox app. From Photos app - select a photo (Photo #8) and click Print - click Select Printer (Photo #9) - select my brother printer (Photo #10) - click Print (Photo #11) At my first trial, my brother printer showed a message something like small print, open a back cover. It printed a small image (Photo #12). But when I tried again after closing back cover, it printed a big image. (Photo #7) From Dropbox app - select a document - click Print (Photo #13) - click AirPrint (Photo #14) - click Print (Photo #15) Because I already set up a printer using Photos app, Dropbox shows my brother printer as a target printer. You can change settings like duplex, color/monochrome. (Photo #16) # Setup - Mac From the Printers & Scanners panel, Click + and it already shows my new brother printer as a candidate. (Photo #17) # setup - Windows 10 From the Printers & Scanners menu, my new printer is already added. # Setup - iPrint&Scan I didnt added photos for Brothers own app iPrint&Scan. With a few clicks, you can easily add your printer. From this app, you can add other cloud accounts such as iCloud, Dropbox, Google drive, Evernote, OneDrive. Printing was easy. But AirPrint is working great and requires fewer clicks.

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This worked good for 3300 prints. Then began to disintegrate. Review video post as well. Here is my pic. If they replace the defective machine I will update my review. Really like this printer otherwise! Have had 5 brother printers. UPDATE - sent this pic to Brother Support with ticket. Emailed back that a Authorized repair guy would call. He did - told me a replacement roller assembly had been mailed - installed it a few days later. Works great. NO FUSS ON GETTING IT REPAIRED! Mine was out of warranty, but had low page count. Thank you Brother.

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The last year has been a printer nightmare. I got a well-reviewed HP Envy 5663 because I found cartridges for $15 each on amazon but they suddenly disappeared and the only option was $35. And it wouldn’t take refilled cartridges so now I have a bunch of ink I can’t use. I finally decided to bite the bullet on a Laser printer and because I’ve only had excellent experiences with Brother brand products, I waited a few months to find an amazing deal. I rarely print in color but I did want the option. Copier function would have been nice but I don’t need it as I can just use a scanner app on my phone and this laser printer. I bought this printer Certified Refurbished on Amazon Warehouse Deals for around $125. The only decent mono laser printer was already $80, so it was an easy decision. The next cheapest color laser was twice the price, and the cartridges were insanely expensive. I checked to be sure I could refill the toner myself and found Brother is one where that is possible. Some machines require a new chip but that’s still cheaper than new cartridges. The nightmare we had on our last printer was affording cartridges. Spending $35 a month just for black refills was insane. This printer pays for itself within four months and the toner lasts forever in the printer world. Inkjet is the biggest scam ever. I had the printer unboxed, plugged in, connected to WiFi, and printing in under FIVE minutes. And it is fast. Definitely glad this does a few pages more per minute than the next model below. This printer was a steal and a huge problem solver. *Update* This printer works flawlessly. Even if we lose internet due to an outage or restarting our router, there have been zero connection issues. The print quality is consistently good! I highly recommend this printer.

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