Brother Printer MFCL8610CDW Business Color Laser All-in-One with Duplex Printing and Wireless Networking, Amazon Dash Replenishment Enabled and High Yield Toner-Retail Packaging , Black

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Buyer beware: although this appears to be a pretty good machine (only used a short time), one would think since it duplex prints it would duplex scan (scan 2-sides), BUT it doesnt; you will need to buy an MFC-L8900CDW to get that function; I should have asked the question rather than ASSUMED; I bought it to get my printing / scanning / copying into 1 machine; somewhat of an expensive lesson learned ......

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I highly recommend NOT getting this printer. We bought 3 for the office, and all of them stopped working after the first time they ran out of ink. I am seriously tired of all these paid 5 and 4 star reviews that are flooding Amazon. Two of the ones we bought would not register the fact we replaced the ink (even their Customer Service could not help). One would not register the Cyan, even after we replaced the entire set of ink (rather than just the one colour). The second would not register any ink after it ran out of one colour, no matter what we did or what Customer Service told us to do. The ink itself is almost $350 to replace all four colours, so you might as well just get a different printer for that amount, especially since they all ran out SO FAST. We didnt even have them for a month before we had to replace the ink, and were making sure not to exceed the recommended duty cycle. The third one worked well for about two weeks, but then it would jam on every single page. Test pages, blank pages, full colour pages, it just wouldnt take any type of paper. Its not like we were using card stock either, it was literally from the same ream of paper we had been using since we started using that very same printer. We contacted Customer Service, and nothing happened. They instructed us on clearing jams, cleaning the wheels, and when it still didnt work, they told us we couldnt return it and would just have to purchase another one. The Driver it comes with is outdated, as well. So it doesnt matter what OS you have, you will have to contact their Customer Service and let them instruct you on which specific driver you will need to install. But nothing mentions that, there is no year posted on anything, so be sure to skip the CD it comes with and just go straight to calling. Just choose a different printer. Maybe an HP or Kyocera.

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Im posting this as a preliminary review, since I have only owned this printer/scanner/FAX for a few weeks. Ill post a followup once Ive had it long enough to put it through its paces, see how often jams happen (and how difficult they are to clear), see if any other usability or maintenance issues arise, and see how long the supplies last. INITIAL IMPRESSIONS: First of all, this model seems to be VERY NEW, so much so that Amazon Dash Replenishment hasnt been integrated yet -- though Brother promises that it will be soon. Nevertheless, there was a firmware update available when I finished configuring the device. Also, for a SOHO or small-workgroup printer, it is BIG and HEAVY, though relatively quiet. You WILL want two people to lift it out of the crate, which is of the same kind that heavy servers are shipped in: removing four retaining clips allows the box (top 90%) to be lifted straight off the base (bottom 10%), in order to get hands under the device easily. Other than this the heavy lift, basic setup was a breeze. In terms of hardware, there were a lot of tape, clips, and other protection to remove, but instructions point out the location of each. Despite the plastic exterior chassis, the build quality was very high. For example, the pull-out tray (actually the drum unit) containing the toner cartridges, and providing easy access to the other replaceable components, is one of the cleanest designs Ive seen outside of datacenter equipment. Additionally, the various trays, flaps, rollers, and access doors involved in the printing and scanning paper paths move smoothly and engage/disengage with a positive audible and tactile "click". In terms of software, one of the biggest pains in the neck for new devices is usually joining the local WiFi. Here, Brother made the process easy, in the same way the Google does with their Chromecasts: the device advertises a peer-to-peer WiFi network which the manufacturers software can use to connect to the device and upload the correct network settings from the computer. After that, local install of drivers etc, was fairly painless. And thats as far as most SOHO users need to go. For those with more complex requirements, it is worth noting that in almost every instance Brother did The Right Thing with the firmware on this device. For example, EVERYTHING can be configured through an embedded webserver, which also supports HTTPS, and allows the admin to create and upload REAL certificates if they choose. It supports just about every local and remote printing protocol imaginable, from the old BSD lpd protocols to AirPrint and Google Cloud Print, and everything in between, along with a full suite of file-transfer and network management protocols... all individually disableable, of course. The WiFi can operate in the "personal" (same password for everyone) or "enterprise" (EAP) modes, and IPV6 is supported but can be disabled. The device can update its own firmware over the network, and the process was basically painless. It was great to see a multi-function laser printer that was as easy to set up as a consumer device (and easier than many cheap inkjets) while having the configuration flexibility, protocol flexibility, and "enterprise" options to meet the needs of a more secure (or more complicated) network environment. In terms of the desktop software, I have only tried the MacOS version. They got the job done, but were not actually as polished as the printers firmware. For example, the network-install wizard, which connects to the printers ad-hoc WiFi network to transfer WiFi credentials and parameters, claimed to have failed with a timeout, despite having successfully configured the printers network interface. The rest of the computer-side install worked well, and it was nice to see that the print drivers use CUPS rather than some weird proprietary interface. The only other gotcha was in the Control Center application, setting up the presets for scanning. This application controls the presets (for example, resolution, file format, destination directory) both for "pull" scanning (initiated by the computer) and "push" scanning (initiated by the printer), but it was difficult to figure out how to configure the latter. The program provides buttons for "Image", "OCR" (which is integrated, fast, and reasonably accurate), "email" and "file", but clicking these configures (and initiates) a "pull" scan. A net nearch revealed that to configure the presents for "push" scanning, in is necessary to hold the "control" key while clicking one of these buttons.. this worked fine, but was counterintuitive and not well documented. These were really the only troubles with the MacOS desktop software. Again, I cant comment on the Windows software as I havent used it, but the MacOS software has all the necessary features, and gets the job done. It just lacks the level of user-friendliness and polish that I would expect given both the excellent firmware on the device and the high build quality. OVERALL ASSESSMENT: Brother did a really good job with this device, especially for less than $500. The model seems very new, with room to improve via software and firmware updates. I hope that future versions of the MacOS desktop software will smooth out some of the rough edges, and future versions of the device firmware will integrate Amazon Dash Replenishment as well as additional web services for print sources and scan targets.

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Easiest printer to set up. I own a business and work from home and have had more printers than I can count. My last ink jet printer was drinking ink as if it was water so I planned to get rid of it and ordered this one. When it arrived, I took it out of the box and let it sit for two weeks......I dreaded setting it up because setting up new printers Is always such a pain in the neck. BUT, I finally needed it so began the set up process. It went like this......turned it on, pressed set wizard, entered my WiFi code, searched for the printer on my computer, found it, clicked on it, and then printed a Word document. No drivers, no calls to support, no frustration. This is my first day to use it but I love it so far.

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Just received product and set up was a breeze , however , printing seems to take 3 minutes with the macbook, and iphone. It could be because of our wifi connection. Scanning is easy thru the app. I will update review if this improves.

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Replaced a consumer grade all in one brother color.laser that needed new drums. This is a higher volume small business grade printer. Comes with enough toner to print 3k pages so it was almost a wash compared to getting all the consumables for the older printer. Works fine. Has a multi page source doc feeder for single sided copies, works. Well. The only minor gripe, the wireless N does not support the 5ghz band. It is large and heavy, needed 2 people to unpack. The previous Brother model lasted us 4 years w several toner refills and one set of new cartridges

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Do not buy!!!! Nothing but trouble. Bought two, will not consistently communicate over our network, print quality is poor at best, Brother customer service is terrible. I rarely write reviews but this has been such an extraordinary waste of time I want to make sure no one else experiences the same. Amazon has not help and only sent us to Brother.

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But just like my last Multi-Function Brother, it doesnt do envelopes worth a dame. The leading corner always gets wrinkled so bad that I finally bought a hundred dollar HP laser printer just for printing envelopes and address labels . . .

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No complaints at all! Excellent quality. Warm-up is reasonably fast, and printing is fast as well. Large capacity tray and colors are excellent. Easy set-up, works well in simultaneous wireless and USB connection modes (one of my computers requires a USB connection for security purposes). Solid machine, but very heavy (about 65 lbs).

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Definitely worth the cash! This machine can produce professional quality photo prints FAST! Its also very stable even over a wireless connection. My client is very happy with the purchase and so am I!

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