Brother HL-L3290CDW Compact Digital Color Printer Providing Laser Printer Quality Results with Convenient Flatbed Copy & Scan, Wireless Printing and Duplex Printing, Amazon Dash Replenishment Enabled

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I bought this printer for my business to replace a lexmark. I chose this one because they tout themselves as compatible with linux, and I was a little tired of having to have to re-start my lexmark printer between every print. Turns out, this was even worse. No, I dont have to re-start the printer, actually, the opposite, I have to restart my computer every time I want to print something. Inconvenient? Thats an understatement. So... I call support. Their answer, literally? "We cant reproduce the problem, but were using a different firmware, you should update the frimware on your printer." Okay, umm... how do I update the firmware with my linux computer? Option for updating firmware with linux does not exist. No response. No response. No response. So finally I spend a few dollars and acquire a windows computer, for the sole purpose of updating the firmware on the printer. My goal is to not have to shove this thing back in a box and send back. Finally, I get the firmware updated, and lo and behold... the problem is worse. Really? I think the words I have for this printer are not kind. I shall refrain from using them. Oh, one more thing, if youve been using lexmark, and print with this, consider the colors are at least 50% lighter. For now, I need to figure how to send this back, as it has been past my 30 day purchase, and only because Ive been so kind as to allow that much time, to make it work, which it is not. Please consider this a negative 15 stars for two reasons: 1. It is not compatible with linux. 2. Brother lied about the compatibility.

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After doing a lot of research on the web, I purchased this machine. The print quality is not good, especially the contrast. I tried all of the adjustments available, and it improved it only slightly. This printer quit; completely died, after only 4 months of light use. The warranty states they will ship you a "refurbished model" as a replacement. The Brother warehouse is out of stock, so Im waiting. Not a great thing for a business to be without a printer. Wont be buying again.

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At first I thought this printer was great: easy to set up, worked well, good print quality for my needs. Then I turned it off (the button, not unplugged) because I knew I was not likely to print for at least a week. So the next time I needed to print I turned the printer back on, right? Only now it will not print, says it is offline. Huh-The wifi light is on. The print que window has a connect command but it doesnt seem to work. I try a bunch of things, using their utilities and such and finally go through one to check connection which finally lets me print a test page. But get this, it says I have to restart my printer to actually print anything! Of course I needed a page in a hurry and have already wasted too much time. So what I seem to have learned is that if you want to print you have to leave the printer running all the time or restart your computer every time you want to print. The whole reason I replaced my HP was that I found I was having too many hassles with it when I needed a page in a hurry. There is nothing convenient about this machine if you dont print frequently or are interested in saving energy by turning it off.

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I made the mistake of purchasing this printer with the hopes of printing photos for a work project. I had a laser printer 15 years ago that printed better than this. So I hard time accepting that this was indeed the best I was going to get. I spent an hour doing the online troubleshooting guide. Then talked with online support for an hour. It was then escalated to the next level and was told they would call me the following day by 2:00. Didnt happen. Contacted online customer support again asking for a call back. They said it would happen by 5:00. Didnt happen. (It was in my file that they did indeed call me but I didnt answer. Not possible as there was no call on my call log.) Contacted online support again the next morning. They said someone would call by 11:00. Didnt happen. Contacted online customer support and was given a phone number so I could call them. First call I was on hold for over 30 minutes. Gave up. Called again and actually talked to someone for an hour. Didnt fix anything. He escalated to the hardware division and said I would get a call the following day before 11:00. YES, it actually happened. At that point I was told that the printout I scanned (first photo) was an acceptable print of the actual photo (second photo). Well, needless to say, the printer is being returned. So all in all, I spend 6 HOURS trying to "fix" a printer that was never going to print a decent photo.

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Ok so I used many different brands but the 1 brand that always has calibration issues is Brother brand. I dont know what they are doing, but I can connect my mac with HP, Canon, Xerox, etc. and all are able to replicate what I see with some modification relatively well. With Brother, its like there is no way I can get it to accurately print anything with color or pages with large images. Shame.

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UPDATE: In less than two months of light home office use, the printer gave me a "toner low" warning, then ran out of toner the same afternoon. If you do buy this printer, which I do not recommend, make sure you have extra toner on hand. I have had this printer for a few months. Set up on my wireless network was very simple (connect via USB first, then wifi). The printing speed is slower than my old Dell printer, but I like the double-sided printing. The manual feed does not work well and jams almost every time for envelopes and labels. (I now put the labels in the feed tray instead.) The biggest failing is the scanner - I would not recommend for photos or business cards. The scan loses about 1/8" of the edge on both the top and side, even though the business card or photo is lined up with their corner mark. I emailed Brother about that and they said that is correct - you cannot do edge to edge scanning of a photo without moving it down about 1/8". Since I cannot really return the printer, I will have to make my own raised template to line up photos or business cards. I would not recommend as a scanner unless you are only scanning documents. The quality of the scanned image is fine, as long as you dont mind losing the edge or not using their plastic guides to line up your photo.

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I purchased this two months ago, feel like Ive barely used it, and just got a "black toner low" notification. I checked the print count and its at 700 something pages (211 being black/white). Not only does this number seem completely wrong (Im wracking my brain trying to figure out what those 700+ pages are...), but when the in-box toner says its good for about 1,000 pages, its clearly wrong somewhere. Long story short, overall printer function is great, but expect to be buying toner quickly and watch your page counts because Im pretty sure mine is completely inaccurate. Wasnt expecting to be purchasing toner this quickly, and Im hoping the next cartridge lasts longer! This is, after all, why I purchased a laser printer!

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The color printing is ok for business documents and such, but there is little to no gradation of colors, so photographs are simply awful. I wasnt expecting a quality photo print from an LED printer, but what I got for a photo print is useless. I have included an original photo and a copy of a print as an example. I found the setup and installation easy enough. It is working fine over the network and normal printing is fine. I only just installed it so I cant comment on usage of toner, etc. I expect the color toner is going to last a long time, given the quality of photo prints.

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I have to say that overall I really like this printer. But its a pain in the butt when it comes to internet connections and keeping them. If I had thoroughly done my research then I would have went for their next model which does support ethernet. So this is a totally wireless printer which is a pain. It does print well, it prints fairly quickly, but it does take time to download large documents and print them so that is another issue I have. I buy a lot of PDF printable sewing patterns and it can take up to 10 mins maybe more for the download from laptop to printer, which I find is very time consuming. The quality of regular paper printing is great. The quality of picture printing is not good. I do like the printer overall so far. I have only had it a few weeks but have printed over 100 pages so far. So if you are looking for color laser printer, this one does do a good job for regular documents but get something else or print somewhere else for pictures. But I would highly suggest getting the other version which can support an ethernet cable unless its just slow to process stuff. I am not sure.

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Much better than other wireless printers I’ve had. I’ve had Epson and HP printers and this machine is worth a bit more in initial cost considering the quality and print results. I did have trouble connecting to my wireless network, but the issue was I use the Google wi-fi mesh system. Recommend not directing the printer to the Google wi-if, but to the primary router. The only small “con” is that you will then need to connect to that wireless router to print. My devices automatically connect to the Google wi-fi (as it is throughout the house with the strongest signal) so I need to redirect any device when I want to print. Takes a few seconds, but worth the convenience of being able to print wirelessly from anywhere in the house. My printer is 3 floors up in a home office and I have no issues printing from the 1st floor from any laptop or device (iPhone etc). Deducted one star as I find the printer’s screen a bit outdated and cumbersome to navigate through the options, but once the printer is set-up most options can be changed through the Brother print/scan app easily. Firmware is also easy to update through the app. Keep in mind you can buy non Brother toner without the chip for a reasonable price (currently $85 for all 4 high capacity cartridges) but you will need to take the chips from the original toner cartridges and install them onto the other manufacturer’s cartridges. Otherwise the toner alert (out of toner) will display. Not a big issue as the chips are easy to swap. Overall, this is a good printer and worth the $280 as compared to others for 1/2 the cost. My son (9 years old) uses it for school as well and prints wirelessly from his Chromebook with no issues. Thanks Brother.

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