Customer Reviews

Brother HL-2270DW Compact Laser Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex

5 star:		(339)
4 star:		(88)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(22)
1 star:		(41)

 

 

The Brother HL-2270DW is the follow-up to the immensely popular HL-2170W. The 2170W was popular for it's amazing value and print quality. It was also wildly popular because of a neat toner trick to get it to print more pages out of the toner, even when the printer claimed the toner needed replacing. The one big knock of the 2170W was the difficult wireless setup and for being only able to use one network connection at a time-- either Ethernet or WiFi. The 2270DW adds an automatic duplexer and also improves performance.

PROS:
- Fast, fast, fast
- Great print quality
- 3 connectivity options including WiFi
- Automatic duplexer
- Supports Windows XP/2000/Vista/7, Mac OS X, and various Linux distros
- Good looking
- Great value

CONS:
- Starter toner rated at only 700 pages
- Slight curl for duplex printouts
- Uses different and more expensive toner than 2170W
- WiFi limited to 802.11b/g

Once upon a time, I used to have an NEC laser printer, a generic scanner, and an Epson photo printer all on my desk. Well that got old and I consolidated to a multifunction printer and the last 3 printers I owned have all been color inkjet MFP's. The advantages were many but the one drawback was major. The cost per page for inkjet prints became huge, even when printing in black & white. Many color inkjet printers still use color inks when printing in black & white, thus requiring you to replace not only the black ink cartridges, but some of the color ones as well. For me, magenta and yellow frequently ran out, even though we ONLY ever printed in black & white. I'd finally had enough and sought out a solution. As recently as 3 weeks ago, I was able to purchase the 2170W for my parents for a great price and was going to get one myself but they all went out of stock or had gone up in price. Then I found out that they were being discontinued and the 2270DW was the newer model. I pulled the trigger and have not looked back.

2270DW vs. 2170W
The difference between the older 2170W and the newer 2270DW isn't limited to just the change in exterior color. Considering that the base MSRP remains the same, the 2270DW is an outstanding bargain. The 2270DW is slightly faster at 27ppm vs. 22ppm for the 2170W. The 2270DW also uses a 200MHz processor vs. the old 181MHz CPU. The dimensions are identical except that the 2270DW is half an inch taller and happens to weigh almost a half a pound more. I'm guessing the automatic duplexer is responsible for the slightly larger size. Brother also decided to get cheap and included a starter toner rated for only 700 pages, whereas the 2170W was 1000 pages or 2 full reams of paper. The 2270DW also adds GDI printing

INSTALL
The toner and drum are pre-installed but you have to remove it and prep (shake) it before use. I found the Quick Start Guide to be pretty clear and useful for all three connection methods. WiFi configuration is still a bit hokey, but it was easy enough in my opinion.

(USB)
The USB install was a cinch. Install the drivers off of the disc or download them from Brother's website, then plug the USB cable (not included) into your computer and you're good to go.
(Ethernet)
Though the printer's wireless abilities are nice to have, I prefer to use the Ethernet connection to plug the printer directly into my wireless router. This still allows me to print wirelessly from my laptop and via a hardware switch from my desktop. I also don't have to fiddle with the wireless settings and have a stronger, more reliable connection through my router. Using the install wizard, I selected Peer-to-Peer Network Printer as my preferred network print type and was off and running. I performed the same setup on my laptop over WiFi and installed perfectly. One note, I could not quickly find the MAC address to the Ethernet port so I disabled MAC filtering on my router temporarily. If you don't use MAC filtering, then you have nothing to worry about. Afterwards, I found out that you can print the settings from within the Brother print driver and find the MAC address.
(WiFi)
I think a lot of people think they need a WiFi printer to print wireless but most people have wireless routers already that they can just connect the printer to with an Ethernet cable. A printer with WiFi is really only useful if it won't be attached to your router and want it completely independent. As with the 2170W, the 2270DW requires it to be temporarily connected by USB cable or Ethernet to configure the wireless settings, unless, your wireless router supports WiFi Protected Setup or AOSS. The installation wizard on the CD-ROM is pretty straight-forward and I found the install to be painless. Although, if you are using MAC filtering and not broadcasting your SSID, you'll probably want to reverse those temporarily to configure it then switch it back. This is especially true if you are trying to configure the WiFi AFTER you've already set it up by Ethernet and using BRAdmin to do it. To find the internal wireless card's MAC address, hold down the Go button for 10 seconds until it prints a network config page that will enable/disable WiFi and also show you the MAC address. I don't really need WiFi so I only performed the install for the sake of reviewing the procedure.

PERFORMANCE
Time to print has been improved on the 2270DW by nearly 2 seconds, so less time warming up from sleep or off. The actual print speed improvement is less noticeable but 27ppm is insanely fast. I thought my Consumer Reports #1 rated, HP All-in-One Printer was pretty fast, but the 2270DW is at least twice as fast. Text output, even really tiny fonts, looked great. Graphics were also very good. The 2270DW still supports the most current PCL printer language, developed by HP. Oddly though, Brother decided to add GDI capabilities, which is also known as host-based printing and is typically used on low-end printers that put all the printer processing burden on the PC, rather than on the printer's hardware. For example, Brother's bare-bones, cheap 2140 laser printer is GDI only. The 2270DW already has PCL 6 support so I don't see any benefit to having GDI. Even if using a high-end PC might possibly achieve faster to-print speeds, I would think the extra load put on the PC would be a hindrance over just letting the printer's hardware take care of it. I would personally never buy a GDI-only printer. Lastly, given how recently this printer was released, I'm disappointed they didn't include the better 802.11n Wifi support.

NOISE
The 2270DW is noisier than the 2170W, so if you didn't like the 2170W for it's noise, then you definitely won't like the noise from the 2270DW. The fan does stay on for several minutes after it prints but shuts off eventually and then becomes totally silent. The sounds of a laser printer are a welcome change from the wonky noises that my inkjet printers made.

DUPLEXER
If you decide to use the automatic duplexer, it will add more time to your printouts, but what a convenience to not have to manually flip over sheets of paper. Brother rates the duplexer speed to 10 sides per minute. I've always liked the idea of using both sides of a sheet of paper. Save them trees! The duplexer on the 2270DW works well and I have not had any jams, knock on the wood of one of those trees I just saved. Aside from having network printing, the duplexer is my favorite feature of the 2270DW. The only downside to using the duplexer is that it has a noticeable curl. A commenter suggested that heavier paper (24 lb) as opposed to the more commonly used 20 lb paper might help reduce the curl and paper jams.

SOFTWARE
The drivers for the 2270DW include a lot of customization options for your printer, including using the Toner Saver Mode, which is similar to Draft Mode in inkjet printers. Unless you are printing a resume, the Toner Saver Mode is more than good enough for daily print jobs. Additionally, Brother laser printers have the ability to upgrade firmware. Given that the 2270DW is brand new, this is an important ability to note because bug fixes and performance improvements are sure to become available down the road. The most current version of the firmware as of this writing is v1.02. You can also install various administrator utilities for configuration and monitoring (BRAdmin). I used BRAdmin to change the Sleep time from 3 minutes to 2. Another neat feature is that you can use web based management by putting the IP address of your printer into a web browser. This is a great way to review settings and other useful information like how many pages you've printed, remaining drum life, serial number, and firmware version.

COST PER PAGE
The high-yield (2600 pages) genuine Brother toner (TN450) from Amazon is currently $46, which equates to about 1.8 cents per page. That is ridiculous! It is so much cheaper than most inkjets, which can cost between 4 cents and 8 cents per page of text. The only bummer is that the Brother drum unit (DR420) currently costs $84. At that price, if my 2270DW's drum needed replacing, I would probably just end up buying a new printer. The drum is rated at 12,000 pages, which is 24 reams of paper. A lot of factors go into when the drum unit should be replaced but given that I personally don't print more than a ream of paper per year, it would last me 24 years, or basically the life of the printer. Factoring in the cost of a new drum unit, I calculated the cost per page to only increase to 2.5 cents per page. Whenever 3rd party toner cartridges become available, the overall cost is sure to drop even more.

MISC
RE: Toner trick. I believe Brother wised up and created the new TN450 toner specifically to address the toner trick. I could not find any holes or openings in the toner or drum unit that could be covered up like the 2170W's TN360 toner. As long as I get close to the rated output for the toner, I'm ok with this. One of the reasons why the toner trick for the 2170W was so lauded is because Brother's method for measuring the toner was inaccurate. I am hopeful that they have improved their measurement method and the trick is no longer necessary.

I love the 250 sheet main paper tray because I no longer have to feed the paper tray on a monthly basis. The manual feed "slot" only accepts one sheet at a time to feed labels and envelopes. Since I use self-adhesive envelopes, I refrained from printing on them. Also, though I was very tempted to, I did not feed any of my inkjet labels through the manual feed slot. Brother does not recommend using inkjet paper due to the risk of paper jams.

I found the multifunctional "Go" button to be confusing. I think a cheat sheet card would have been very helpful to keep all the functions straight. For example, you can hold it down for various lengths of time to make it do different things like reprinting the last print job or pushing it several times in order to continue printing when the low toner warning light comes on.

The 2270DW uses more energy during printing than the 2170W, but less in standby mode.

Out of the 11 monochrome laser printers that Consumer Reports tested, only 2 garnered their "Recommended" rating. Both were Brother printers.

CONCLUSION
I can't imagine the Brother HL-2270DW not reaching the same heights that the HL-2170W did. The 2270DW performs very well, has great features, and is inexpensive to buy and to operate. If I didn't still need a scanner, my HP multifunction printer would be banished from my home. I highly recommend the Brother HL-2270DW for any home, home office or small office.

This is a nice, compact laser printer with good build quality.

Wireless was essential for me - I've been waiting quite a while for a wireless laser that had reliably great reviews. I unpacked the box, removed the plastic strips, scanned the quick start guide, plugged the printer in, and everything was great so far. I then downloaded the newest drivers from the Brother website (drivers on included CD's are usually 3-12 month old) for my Windows 7 x64 and Windows 7 x32 laptops; executing the driver programs walks you through setup. In the past for wireless products, I've found you usually have to first set them up on a wired (Ethernet or USB) connection, then change things over to wireless. I decided to test the technological development level and go straight to wireless setup, starting with the 64-bit machine. This consisted of inserting the tip of a pen [you could also use a paperclip, etc] into the wireless setup button hole, telling the printer to start looking for a router; then I ran downstairs, pushed/held the WPS button on my wireless router, telling it to start looking for another device - in one minute they met, and fell in love. That was it. The driver installation software (on the wireless 64-bit laptop) detected they had a successful partnership and moved on to the final screens. Windows 7 had installed the printer with all of the advanced menus and controls. I then installed the driver on the 32-bit laptop and it auto-detected the successful partnership without touching any hardware - very simple install and wireless printing was ready to go.

I never bit with the wireless inkjet offerings, as the long term operating costs of inkjets are crazy. I've been refilling the toner cartridges on laser printers for years, running them for so cheap it's amazing. If this unit just had laser printing and reliable wireless it would be a fantastic deal. However, it has many features which are totally surprising. This review is already too long so I'll just say that the auto duplexing is great. What is even cooler is the Booklet feature. I'm holding in my hand a 20-page PDF that I selected "Booklet" in the options while printing. It printed on both sides of the paper, reduced the pages to half-sheets, arranged the pages in the precise/complicated order, and output tiny stack of FIVE sheets (from 20). I folded the stack in half and viola - a perfect booklet that is more convenient to travel with and uses one-quarter of the paper! I'm not sure you can know how cool this is until you actually have a booklet in your hand - so buy this machine now and see for yourself.

One final caution, the supplier I normally order bulk toner from does not yet have the formulation for this printer. I'm sure they will in time, but for now you might actually have to buy the TN450 replacement cartridge which runs at roughly 2.2 cents per page, once the 700-page starter cartridge is exhausted.

I've only had this printer for a few days, so hopefully it lives up to my current expectations and retains its 5-star rating. To be honest, these things are going for less than a hundred (on sale + coupon, at office supply stores) and at that price point just straight laser printing with wireless is a great deal.

I dumped my one year old HP 8000 wireless inkjet when it became obvious it was going to cost me two hundred dollars a year for even minimum use. You can read my review on that pig's product page for more details.

As with most users I have no expertise in wireless. Every time I add a device, it's plug-and-pray time. My network is run through an old Asus router which supports only WEP and WPA, not WPS. I don't know exactly what that means, other than that WPS apparently is a new standard which improves the installation process. My home network has slowly grown to inlude a W7 desktop, a Vista laptop, two other XP desktops (I never throw away old computers), one wireless adapter for my TV and bluray player, and one wireless printer.

I have to say that this Brother printer was the easiest installation experience I have ever had with any piece of wireless hardware. For once, a manufacturer went to obvious effort to make certain the manual was clear and coherent. Every step on every page is exactly representative of what was shown on the screen [Update: Mac users, see Rich Hayhurst's comment (below)]. Every paragraph is bulleted so that if you are directed to skip a step based on your particular configuration there is no confusion as to where to proceed.

The net result is that, though I could not use what is billed as the one-button WPS setup and had to input the SSID and network key manually (I'm glad I wrote those down a couple years ago when I first set up the router), the Brother printer was recognized and up and running on all three active computers in less than twenty minutes, total. All for little more effort than inserting the installation disk in each drive.

The print quality is excellent, the automatic duplex functions flawlessly, the machine is fast, quiet and has a very small footprint. I am hoping its economy and durability live up to the rest of my initial experience with this great little printer.

p.s.: Anybody want to buy a wireless inkjet, cheap?

Update 12/2/10 -- I do notice the paper curling (due to heat, I'm sure) some other reviewers have described. It's possible a heavier weight paper would lessen this but I haven't had a chance to experiment, yet. This curling might be an issue for business users who are concerned about quality of presentation in printed correspondence. It's perfectly acceptable for my general personal uses.

One minor tip: If you get this printer, keep in mind the paper feed in this unit is towards the front of the tray. I'm accustomed to the top of the sheet feeding towards the rear of the tray. I was printing adhesive labels and having alignment problems until I realized this difference.

I bought this from a retail OfficeDepot outlet. OfficeDepot and OfficeMax are the only websites that seem to carry this printer at the moment and only OfficeDepot would actually let me order it -- and it turned out my local OfficeDepot store actually had exactly ONE of these in-stock, which I promptly purchased.

Why? It's perfect for what I needed:

- Wireless to eliminate cable clutter, enable locating it in the most convenient spot, and enable printing from my girlfriend's laptop from anywhere in the house.

- It's a laser printer, so it prints faster and cheaper than an inkjet -- of course there's no color, but if we need that that's what a specialized graphics/photo printer is for. This is just for text and things that don't require color or extremely detailed graphics, which is 99.9% of what I print (the text and graphics are perfectly crisp though, don't get me wrong).

- It's got auto-duplexing, so you don't waste half (the blank back-side) of your paper when you don't need to and don't have to waste time manually flipping the paper with printers that only do manual-duplexing. Saves space, time, and money.

- Easy to set-up via the included CD, assuming you're not totally clue-less with computers. You'll need a USB cable to go between your computer and the printer, or an ethernet cable to go between your router and the printer, to set up the wireless for the first time. No, there's no LCD screen or any way to set it up without your computer, but you can't expect things like that in this price bracket.

- It's cheap. Only printer in the ~$150 price range I could find that's laser with wireless and auto-duplexing.

The only reasons I docked one star from the rating:

- No third-party toner is available yet. Brother made new toner cartridges for these 2200-series models, and finding even that toner is tough. So, there's no ultra-cheap third-party toner available yet (that I can find), but even with the Brother toner cartridges it runs about 3.5 cents per page with the regular cartridge or about 2.5 cents if you get the high-yield. Still pretty good.

- OfficeDepot is the only place you can seem to find this printer anywhere at the moment. I dunno if they got it early, if this model is delayed or discontinued before it's even really come out and I'm a bit afraid I'll end up having a printer I can't find toner/service for at all.

But, assuming I'm supposed to have it, this is the perfect home/home-office/small-business laser printer. Highly recommended (once you can actually find it)!

This is an excellent little printer; clear, fast, and hassle free.

The installation went smoothly for attaching it to wired ethernet network, I haven't tried wireless or USB so I can't comment there. Although two things were a bit ambiguous about the instructions. First, the matter of how it's connected to the network refers to how the printer is connected to the network. Never mind that your computers may be connected wirelessly to the router. The printer's connection is all that matters here. Secondly, even though you may have an infrastructure (central router) based network, choose peer-to-peer as your network type.

The software installation was a bit surprising. While most manufacturers embed a pile of useless software and some rather annoying add-ons like browser toolbars, the Brother allowed a clean and minimalist install. It was quick and efficient, and it worked. Just a solitary icon on the desktop that directs you to support if you need it.

One aspect of the printer driver that is rarely touched upon in the reviews, is the "booklet" mode. I've often wanted to print items in a reduced size format that could be carried about easily. I tested the function and chose a 15 page PDF document to print. I merely set the printer driver for "booklet - automatic" and it printed perfectly; all of the pages in order, ready to fold and staple. This is normally something you have to fiddle around with in a word processor to achieve. For better or worse, the driver reverts to single page printing upon completion. I like that, I don't want to send a stack of invoices to the printer and have them inadvertently printed as a booklet.

Another nice feature that's been overlooked is that the printed pages are delivered to the tray face down. In other words, in order. No more sorting them or having to print in reverse order, as is the case with ink jet printers.

The thing is blazingly fast; typically done with a job before I reach for it. Print quality is very good. Ninety percent of my work is in monochrome (or could be) so by having a dedicated black and white printer will save me a great deal of supplies. Most color printer drivers don't give you an option of using the black only. I'm sure everyone has experienced printing a flashy web page with a color ink jet printer and have the pages come out laden with ink and noticeably damp from printing all of the useless advertising and background colors. Even more maddening, it now refuses to print a black and white document claiming the yellow has run out. With this monochrome printer you don't have to worry about it.

A number of reviews have commented on it's power consumption. First there's the allegation that it's draws so much power that the lights dim in the house. The problem here is that your building needs to have it's wiring upgraded. In any case, the printer shouldn't be plugged into a circuit that also supplies room lighting.

Next, there have been comments that it's not really energy saver, seemingly because the power LED remains on in dimmed mode when it's sleeping. In fact, in only uses 0.9 watt when it sleeping (2.8 watts with WAN on); that's a lot less most modern appliances, such as TV's or microwaves. Far less than a high speed modem or router. It needs to consume some power in order to keep it's connection to the network on standby. You can change the status of the power indicator to "off when sleeping" in the software if it makes you feel better, but why bother? You can save a lot more energy by vacuum cleaning the coils beneath and behind your refrigerator. (I know you haven't done that lately.)

Finally, it's been stated that it draws 1,000 watts while printing. Well, inrush perhaps. But let's do the math based on the 1,000 watts. In most cases 1,000 watts for an hour's time would cost you about ten cents. Ignoring the time you'd spend reloading it with paper, and at 25 pages a minute, your cost in energy would be 0.00666 cents per page ($0.0000666). Pretty cheap, all things considered.

It does exhibit a slight "curling" of the paper, particularly when using the duplex mode. I switched to 24 lb. laser paper to combat this and noticed an improvement in print quality as well. There is an option in the printer's software that supposedly will reduce paper curl. I haven't tried it because I feel that the manufacturer would not have the default set to off unless there are performance issues associated with it's being on.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this printer. For what it's designed for, a SOHO environment, it can't be beat.

This high quality Brother product has altered my perception of the world. I never thought it possible - nay, the concept had remained unimaginable to me - that a young college student of my means could enter the world of duplex laser printing. Sure, maybe someday when I have a real job and a real car and a real wife and I'm living the American dream, but those are theoretical points in the future that the college industrial complex has constructed for me to justify my sinking into debt and working a full time job while taking a double load of classes. I never thought those times would actually come, and I definitely didn't see it anytime soon.

The amazing thing about capitalism is, though, if you can't make it to P* on the supply curve, the supply curve will eventually make it to you.

Brother has produced, for the poor wretched masses of this world, a printer which will print a piece of paper, PAUSE, suck that paper BACK IN, and THEN print the other side. It's literally more amazing than the pyramids, more beautiful than the cover of The Cars' Candy-O album (I guess?), and when you have to print out a packet of notes that is 24 pages long, you come to class a lighter and richer man.

While I only have had my life changed by the wireless-duplexing magic of the 2270DW for a few months now, I have had an older work of Brother's (Brother HL-2140 Personal Laser Printer) for several years and have been incredibly supportive of the company's effort to bring me cheap, reliable, unjammable printing products. I almost feel the urge to go out and start collecting all of Brother's personal-sized laser printers.

Almost.

My wife and I finally got tired of replacing high-priced ink cartridges in our ink jet printer. The 26ml pigment black cartridges are about $15 each adding up to over $570 per liter. (We still have it and love it, a Canon MP 610, when we want to print in color). Before I retired, I used a Brother laser printer daily at my last employer. It always worked perfectly. Based on that experience I didn't hesitate to buy the HL-2270DW which also duplexes, prints both sides of the sheet. We've had it for a month, using it daily to print info from the internet and print out documents we generate. It has never made a mistake. It comes with a Quick Setup Guide for both Windows and Macintosh and an Installation CD-ROM. You can download an instruction manual from their website if you need one. You also need to provide a USB 2.0 cable (Type A/B) if you don't use the wireless feature. Set up only took a few minutes. One of the previous reviewers commented on paper jams. I worked most of my career in commercial print shops and 8 years selling paper to printers. After opening a ream of paper you need to fan the sheets apart to break the surface tension between them before loading the paper tray. That ream of paper was tightly wrapped at the mill, put into a carton and stacked onto a pallet that weighs 2,000 lbs. The individual sheets are stuck together and have no air between them. That is the biggest cause of paper jams in copiers and printers. Also, the cheapest paper will have more dust particles that can stick to the drum and paper path in a laser printer or copier causing more printer problems. I recommend buying paper that's at least one level up from the bottom. I'm very pleased with my new printer and recommend it for a home or an office.

Our faithful TN2100 drum went out and could not find a replacement! Needed to get a laser printer fast and found this new model on sale at Fry's. Local stores do not even have them on display and try to talk you out of buying this! But, this is a great printer for the price. Looks and feels flimsy when compared to TN2100. But, all printers in this price range feel the same.

Pros:

1. Good print quality, even in their Tone Saver Mode.
2. Easy to setup as a dedicated printer via USB.
3. Equally easy to setup as a wired printer.
4. Wireless setup is OK, but see the cons below.
5. While the duplexing took several tries to work properly, eventually got it to work well. You need to get into the printer advanced features to set up the correct duplexing for your need. Default did not work well for us.
6. Option to print multiple pages on a sheet works pretty well.

Cons:

1. In wireless mode, it is hard to print large files. After investigating, their document states that for best operation, wireless connectivity should not have walls and large objects in between. They recommend wired connectivity for printing large files.

We found that setting up this printer as a peer-to-peer wired printer attached to a wireless router to be the best option. This way, it appears as a wireless printer that can print large files without any problems. Unless you want to locate the printer away from the wireless router, this option seems to be the best.

As others have commented, error codes are not intuitive, but we got used to it. They have used a hex code for several error conditions using 4 available LEDs. Not bad to bring the cost down. But, for a new user, it can be irritating. Just remember, only Red Error LED blinking is Paper Jam and Only Red Error LED on is No Paper.

I purchased this unit from a Office Max in NY. The price was $162 including tax. This seemed like a perfect fit for my needs, since it had a duplexer and wireless built in.

I am a Network Admin and even I had some trouble setting this printer up initially. I will list some very helpful steps below to streamline the process. Brother does not really explain enough in detail about the setup portion of this printer. I had to go digging around on the web to find configuration settings. I actually found a PDF of the HL-2170W settings, which were identical to this unit.

Since this unit lacks a LCD, it can be very difficult to know what the printer is doing. If you are setting this up for USB printing, just install the latest drivers, 32 or 64bit from brother.com site and you should be fine.

If you are planning on using this through the network interface, wireless or wired, it can get challenging. Brothers utility tries to setup your routers settings into the device but it can not pick it up while it is plugged into the USB port, even though Windows can see the device and print from it just fine. What I did was configure my laptop wireless card into ad-hoc mode and then logged into the printers web interface to then configure my wireless router.

In order to use the above mentioned method, first configure your laptops wireless card into ad-hoc mode (google it if you have never done that before). Reset the printer to factory default settings by turning off the power switch and holding the go button and turning the power switch back on. Keep holding the go button for 5 secs and the lights will disappear. Then press the go button 8 times and the unit will reset. Now the network must be reset as well. Repeat the same steps but this time press the go button 7 times to reset the network.

After everything is reset, we will need to find the printers IP address. Press the go button 3 times and the printer settings should be printed out. It is very important that the wireless settings are showing as "active" and not "inactive", otherwise repeat the reset procedure. After you have the IP, change the IP of your laptop to the same range. Now it should show up in the windows wireless networks available then connect the 2 devices. From this point on, you should be able to go into your browser and type in the printers IP address, which takes you to the printers web server. The default PW for "Admin" is "access".

The rest is pretty much self-explanatory. Look around in the menu and find "wireless" and configure your router manually or browse for it. Make sure to power-cycle the unit after all settings are finalized.

After all the settings were put in place, I was able to print from all the wireless laptops. This printer prints quality documents and is plenty fast for home or office use. My next challenge is to find a aftermarket toner, since this is a new printer and they are not readily available yet. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on some good refill kits, please let me know in the comments.

I rarely use a printer and because of that, every time I went to use my ink jets, they would be clogged. I tried cleaning them with limited success but usually, I had to throw them out and buy new ones. I recently went to purchase new color and black ink cartridges at a local Staples and after expressing my frustration at the constant failure of ink jets, the guy recommended I get a black and white laser printer if I didn't really care about color. I had no idea they had come down in price so much (they were in the thousands back when I paid any attention to them).

Anyhow, SO happy with this printer. It works every single time I turn it on to use it. I live in a very dry climate now so no more worrying about ink drying up - it uses dry toner. It prints double-sided and it also has built in wireless so I don't even have any cables running to it from my computers. I couldn't be happier with this thing, especially for the price. One thing to note, however, is that the toner cartridges are a little more expensive than ink jet but on the plus side of that, Brother claims an average of 1200 pages from that, which is much more than you would ever get out of a black ink cartridge.