Brother - HL-L3290CDW Wireless Color All-In-One Laser Printer - White

I’ve used several Brother B&W laser printers before, but this is my first color laser printer from this brand. Just shy of 50 lbs, the printer is not one that you’ll want to move around a lot, so you do want to make sure you leave enough room in front of and behind it to remove the paper tray and access the rear panel respectively. In terms of print quality, I found that text and simple graphics print with great clarity and crispness in both color and black and white. Even very small font remains legible and fine lines and simple gradients are smooth and solid with good saturation. However, this printer doesn’t do quite as well with complex images like detailed photographs and doesn’t always reproduce the full range of colors from the source image, whether scanning a photo or printing from a digital file. When printing digital photos, contrast in the print was reduced and shifting color gradients appeared muddy. Banding was also generally apparent across the entire image. Photocopying color photos produces a slightly darkened facsimile with grayish mid-tones and noticeable banding as well. When scanning or photocopying in black and white, I would occasionally see text bleed from the opposite side of the original document, but this usually only happened in areas with colored backgrounds like images or highlighted text, and may be mitigated by adjusting some of the scan settings. Scanning/copying black and white text-only documents on standard weight plain paper produced the best and clearest results. As for setup, installation of the drivers and software was simple and straightforward and took about 15 minutes when following the quick-start guide closely; I did end up downloading the software and drivers from Brother’s website (~450MB) rather than using the included software CD because neither my contemporary laptop nor desktop have optical CD drives. I was somewhat disappointed with the onboard LCD panel and physical buttons for the control panel to change printer settings. Menu items display one at a time on the LCD, so navigating through several levels of options, and keying in long WiFi passwords one character at a time by scrolling through every character/symbol on the keyboard is clunky and time consuming. However, I was able to get the WiFi connected on the first try. If you can avoid manually keying in the password for the WiFi connection via WPS, I recommend trying that first. If you don’t have a router or don’t want to share the printer across your network, you can use a direct WiFi connection which also works for printing from mobile devices. Sending print jobs to the printer wirelessly may take 10-15 seconds before the printer begins printing. For mobile printing, this printer natively supports AirPrint for iOS devices but you’ll need to download two separate apps for use with an Android device. Oddly, for a printer of its class there is no Ethernet port for networking, so if you don’t have a WiFi network, your only other option is to use a USB-B cable (not included) and connect the printer directly to a computer or laptop; though that would still allow you to share this printer with a network by changing its sharing settings in Windows. I found it useful that there are two start buttons for copying: one for black and one for color. This makes selecting what kinds of copies you need a one-touch operation, rather than having to go in and change the printer’s settings or go through a bunch of menus on the tiny LCD. Regardless of the color type, the print speed is the same, up to a zippy 25 pages per minute (single-sided). The main drawback to scanning and copying with this machine is that there is no automatic document feeder tray. This means you’ll be scanning or photocopying documents one at a time and one side at a time. Also, when printing dual-sided documents, it prints to one side of the page first, retracts the document and then prints to the second side, which greatly slows down print speed. The main paper tray only accepts regular printing paper up to legal-sized and stores up to 250 sheets. You cannot load in envelopes, cardstock, labels, bond paper, or glossy paper to the main paper tray. For these specialty media, you’ll need to use the secondary manual feed slot and insert the sheets one at a time; envelopes and labels will actually deposit on the rear output tray, so that’s another reason you’ll want to make sure you have space behind the printer to open that panel. One nice feature that might be useful in a shared office setting is the ability to password-protect your queued print documents or even the scanner function with a PIN in addition to standard network security protocols. As with most laser printers, the replacement toner cartridges can be expensive. The starter cartridges included with the printer will last about 1000 pages each. If you’re going to buy genuine Brother toner, you might as well get the high yield TN-227 (3000 pages) over the TN-223 (1400 pages). Not only is the cost savings significant but the yield is nearly double and toner never “goes bad” so you can take as long as you need to go through it. When using high yield cartridges, the price per page for both color and black is quite reasonable. Overall, the printer is optimized for a pretty specific kind of usage. If you have a small business or home office that mostly prints text documents and basic graphics, whether black and white or color, and have only occasional need for scanning or photocopying (mostly single pages), this printer does a great job with the former, though is still capable of the latter as a matter of convenience. The printer is easy to setup and share on a network and can be secured as well. The basic wireless connectivity lets you to share the printer across your network without running wires, but doesn’t allow for “smart” internet connected features like “scan to e-mail” or connect to file-sharing services. It’s not the best option if you frequently need to scan or copy multi-page documents, want to print gallery quality photos, or mostly print on specialty paper like card stock or glossy brochure paper.

>>> Overall I have been using the Brother HL-L3290CDW at home for the past week and I would say it feels better suited for home (and perhaps small office use), mainly due to having a single automatic paper tray. It is an affordable printer for what it offers, though. It has fast response times and the printouts are of high quality with vivid colors (what would be expected at the chosen resolution). It is my first time using a Brother printer, and I was initially not sure what to expect, and despite a few drawbacks, so far I am happy with it. I would rate it 4-5 stars. >>> Setup and first use It is heavy, so you would need a helping hand if you don’t want to put strain on your back when removing it from the box and placing it on your desk/table. Following the “Quick Setup Guide” poster made it easy to install the cartridges and get the printer ready (using the setup guide is optional as things are properly labelled and secured). I opted to configure the printer from my laptop connected to my home wireless network. The support website (see the quick setup guide) detected the configuration I needed (Windows10 64 bit) and I chose to download the default package which was about .5GB (perhaps it was better to use the provided DVD?). Wireless configuration was effortlessly, this is something I liked very much. Initially, it gave an error about not finding a printer and prompted to select the current network (the one the laptop was connected to) and upon selecting it, the software was able to detect the printer and configure it! From the downloaded package, I chose to install all the suggested software except for the Check/Update one. Also, I didn’t install the suggested “PaperPort” document organizer software, I don’t know if it would be of any help to me or my wife. I don’t mind having Brother collect data for research/diagnostics purposes. As a software developer I’ve learnt that getting good telemetry from your software can help drive improvements to it. As a result, I didn’t block data collection. After software installation I found two entries for the printer on my laptop, one “Brother HL-L3290CDW series” and the other “Brother HL-L3290CDW series Printer”, I could print from either one though. First print test was very fast. The printer responded and woke up almost immediately after sending the document from the laptop. Colors easily resembled whatever was on screen (see attached calendar picture). >>> Main use This is a great companion for my Canon Pixma inkjet, which is mainly used for photo printing. With this laser printer I can print color documents, especially charts (and some pictures) with speed and great quality (the latter are the two main qualities of this printer). I intend on using this printer for everyday printing (I just hope the cartridges last a couple thousand pages) and relegate the Canon Pixma for photos. >>> Printing and Scanning Scanning at the highest resolution (1200dpi) was pretty slow. It looks like in terms of speed, it works better at 600dpi. This printer doesn’t have an automatic feeder for the scanner, so it seems a little inconvenient if you have a business that needs to do a lot of scanning/copying. The other drawback is the single side scanning. Interestingly, the Copy option (Copy/Scan button) produced better results than scanning the document, saving it to disk as PDF and then printing the PDF file. I still need to play with the settings, and perhaps I can achieve similar quality, but from an initial experiment, Copy wins. See attached picture for some comparisons on how a chart looks like when printed, when Copied and when choosing to scan/save/print. >>> Other comments This is a very affordable printer, and perhaps it was asking too much, but for its weight and size, I was expecting it to have at least two automatic trays, so I could have at least two different paper sizes (Legal and Letter). It is also somewhat inconvenient to have to pull the paper tray all the way out to replace paper. Finally, opening and closing the cartridge compartment feels flimsy, I thought I was going to break the side supports of the compartment. I had to push hard until a crack was heard to close the compartment. I would be reluctant to open/close the compartment frequently (it seems that this will prevent me from opening the compartment and shaking the cartridges when running low and instead replace the cartridges).

My first impression of the Brother - HL-L3290CDW Wireless Color All-In-One Printer is that it's bigger than it looked in the photos. It's also heavy, at just under 50 lbs. It's aesthetcally pleasing and doesn't look out of place in a home office. Setup wasn't difficult, but it was a bit time consuming. It comes with drivers and software on a CD, however I no longer have any optical drives in any of my office PCs. The software can also be downloaded from their website, but it's pretty bloated - almost 500 gigabytes for the drivers and another 400 gigabytes for the software, which took a bit of time to download. While it was downloading, I proceeded with the physical setup of the printer, which consisted of removing all the tape, removing the toner cartridges (there are 4: magneta, cyan, yellow, and black) from the printer, removing the tape and plastic protectors from each of the toner cartridges and then installing each cartridge. Loading the paper into the 250 sheet tray was convenient. There's a single sheet paper feeder right above the tray. Once the drivers were downloaded and everything installed, setting up the printer was pretty quick. There's a minimal LCD screen and a few buttons and everything was setup from there. My first disappointment is that you have a choice of either a USB connection to a single PC (from which you can share) or a WiFi connection for network printing. There is no ethernet interface. Once the HL-L3290CDW was connected, both black and color pages printed quickly. The quality of both was excellent. I didn't print any photos or use photo paper (I have a color laser for that), but the charts were clean and vibrant. Photos imbedded in the document were crisp, well detailed and colored accurately. Scanning was no fuss and scans were of excellent quality as well. Which brings up the other disappointment and really the only real complaint I have -- there is no auto document feeder. If you want to scan, it will have to be done 1 page at a time. This is fine for a home printer, but in my opinion is an oversight on a color laser printer for a home office. Printers in this class from other manufactures (HP, Epson, and Canon come to mind) include a document feeder. This oversight is the only thing preventing me from giving it 5 stars. If you don't do a lot of scanning and don't need ethernet connectivity, I would highly recommend this printer.

This is my first Brother Printer and my first color laser printer. I chose this printer for its fast 25 pages and for its large capacity ink cartridges. Standard ink cartridges offer 1400 for black 1300 pages per cartridge for color with available High yield 3000 pages per cartridge black available and 2300 pages per cartridge color and then a whopping 16,000-page available drum unit. This is a great feature for a small business owner that wants the speed of a laser printer and the ink capacity comparable to that of the newer large tank inkjet printers at a much more affordable price. Additionally, the 250-page paper feed tray complements the high yield ink capabilities nicely. This printer also has wireless capabilities meaning you can connect wirelessly with your smartphone, tablet or laptop. There are Android and I-phone apps available as well to streamline your wireless printing simplifying the process. The available software for your Windows PC or Apple computer is simple and easy to use. However, I would like to see a few more features and settings within the Brother Utilities PC software. In addition to the Brother Utilities software there is I-Print and Scan a very simple and straightforward tool as well as a desktop icon that opens up a webpage to Brother creative center where you can use and create just about any kind of prints you like from Birthday or Christmas cards to banners for festive occasions and business documents as well. For the printer, hardware features the buyer should presumably be aware of its features before purchasing. I opted for this model knowing the feature set and knowing it did not have a document feeder. That being said I do wish that the single page feed slot had more capabilities. While it is handy for printing out envelopes and card stock I did not find a way to use it to scan documents on to the computer or make copies and I researched it on Brother's website. So unless I am missing something I do not believe it is capable of being used to make copies or scan. After only previously owning HP and Canon inkjet Printers I have to say that I am very impressed with the build quality of this Brother printer. I would definitely recommend this Brother Printer and my initial short term impression is that this printer will last a long time and is a league above other printer brands I have used especially HP. If you are a small business owner or have the need for a color laser printer I would not hesitate to buy this printer or another model from Brother!

I've had this Brother all-in-one for almost a month now, and I'm really happy with my purchase. Setup was really easy with my Mac. I just followed the printed directions, downloaded the software onto my computers, and it worked flawlessly. The software is pretty basic, but it's easy to navigate and pretty intuitive. So far I've mainly used my printer for scanning, and it scans perfectly. All my scans come out ultra clear, even if I reduce the resolution to shrink the file sizes. Printing has been pretty straightforward. Prints come out the way I'd hope. I haven't done any large printing jobs, so I can't say much about how fast the printer works. Jobs sent to the printer through my network get started promptly though. This printer is pretty large, but I'm OK with it because I'd rather deal with a large laser printer than a blasted inkjet printer anymore.

This color laser all in one printer is my favorite. Very quiet when printing and scanning (compare to my DCP-L2540DW). Very good quality printing color photo. Very sharp printing text. Connects to wifi network with no problem and very stable with no disconnection. Very easy to install and setup. Very good looking so you can place it anywhere. Perfect size too. The only thing I don't like is the scan bed, if you place the document at the top corner edge following the indicator, about 5mm top and side won't get scanned. You have to leave some gap at the top and side edge. This is the same with my other Brother laser printer. It should be easy to design it correctly.

It prints fast and quality is really good. The printer is heavy. Perfect for home use.

The Brother - HL-L3290CDW Wireless Color All-In-One Printer is very compact and packed with powerful features for print, scan and copy. Setup was very easy and it came with Brother HL-L3290CDW Wireless Color All-In-One Printer, CD-ROM includes printer drivers, DR223CL drum unit set (approx. 18,000 pgs) and Quick set-up guide. I have connected with my desktop using the USB cable provided for the initial setup and downloaded the latest software from the brother site. I have followed the instructions to configure the printer to print over the wireless. After the software installation and configuring the printer, I was able to see this printer on a home network to print from any device. It is very convenient to print from other devices and my son is using this printer every day for his school work and printing from his laptop. It has a 1.92" high-resolution monochrome LCD screen to print, store files and business apps directly from your printer. This printer can print up to 25 ppm in black and color. It can handle large volumes quickly at a low cost per page. Toner is using powder instead of ink to get smudge-free images and text. It has featured with Apple Airprint enabled to print from iPad and iPhone or with free Brother iPrint&Scan app. This printer works with Brother TN223 and TN227 toners. The Starter Black/Cyan/Yellow/Magenta toner cartridges yield up to 1,000 pages and the DR223CL drum unit set can yield approx. 18,000 pages. The resolution of printing is superior quality and it can print up to 600 x 2400 dpi (dots per inch) color resolution. The paper tray can hold up to 250 sheets input capacity and 150 sheet output bin. Four individual print cartridges are economical and easy to replace toner cartridges (black, cyan, magenta and yellow) when a color runs out. The design is very good with stylus looking. I have been using InkJet printers and cheap laser printers before and Brother - HL-L3290CDW Wireless Color All-In-One Printer is huge upgrade. This printer does not have an automatic document feeder which is a really important feature to scan multiple documents quickly. I am using this every day for copy, print, and scan for my personal and office work. It is one of the best printers in the market with excellent configuration. I highly recommend this printer for home and office use and now I am a big fan of Brother products.