Brother HL-3040CN Compact Digital Color Printer with Networking

by Brother

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 18.3 x 16.1 x 9.8 inches ; 48 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 49 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002ONCBXU
• Item model number: HL-3040CN
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #78 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Printers > Laser Printers
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 7, 2009

Product Description

The HL-3040CN is a digital color printer with networking that is ideal for home offices or small offices. It produces brilliant, high-quality output at up to 600 x 2400 dpi resolution with a fast print speed of up to 17ppm in color or black.  The HL-3040CN also provides a 250-sheet capacity paper tray and a straight through paper path via its manual feed slot, ideal for printing envelopes and letterhead.  Additional features include a built-in Ethernet network interface for printer sharing and a Toner Save mode to reduce toner usage.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

103 of 103 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I have owned four color lasers - this is the best of that group, December 31, 2009

By 

Billy Hollis (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Brother HL-3040CN Compact Digital Color Printer with Networking (Office Product)

I have owned color lasers from HP, Xerox, and Lexmark previously. All of them had issues that gave me fits. All had installation and driver issues which cost me many hours of time to resolve.

No such problems here. Plug it in, answer a few questions, and it's printing. I have Windows 7 64 bit, and I was cringing because I expected problems, but I didn't have any. I used the network setup with an Ethernet cable plugged in, and now all the computers in my house can see it and use it. I never did get networking to work right on the Xerox, though I fiddled with settings for the better part of a couple of days.

The print quality of this printer is only fair, but for business use it's more than adequate. I've printed a set of training manuals, which have quite a bit of graphics in them, and not noticed the problems noted by another reviewer. Now it's true that this is not a photo printer, and the quality of the printing is not as good as the Xerox 8560 I had, or various photo printers I've seen. But it's fine for typical reports, slide printouts, and so forth.

As to capacity, I printed about 900 pages with this printer out of the box, and it's still going. A negative reviewer reported problems in getting only a small number of pages with the starter toner, and expressed surprise at the 5% coverage guideline used to estimate pages. Well, every printer I've ever had used that same 5% to estimate page capacity and cost, so I don't see the problem here. I have almost printed the number of pages the printer is supposed to get out of the box without getting any low toner problems.

Another advantage: this printer's replacement cartridges are cheaper than any of the other printers I've owned, even the crayon-like blocks for the Xerox.

The printer also has a draft mode that saves toner, which was not available on any other printer I've owned. I don't expect to use it, but others might find it helpful.

So the bottom line is that the price, speed, quality, and ease of setup make this a very good match for home office or light departmental business color printing. As someone who has been around the block with various color lasers, this one has been a very pleasant surprise.

**Update 14 Jan 2010**

I'll subtract half a star for the marginal front feed mechanism. When I use lightweight card stock through the front feeder, every three pages or so I get no feed and a spurious paper jam. I have to exert a small amount of pressure with my hand on the sheet to ensure that it feeds correctly. If it feeds, the result is good because of the flat paper path, but the front feeder ought to work better than that, especially since it only takes one sheet at a time.

**Update 21 Mar 2010**

I just began replacing toner cartridges after getting about 1100 pages from the in-the-box set. They cyan cartridge went first and the magenta cartridge a bit later, which was no surprise since my slide theme has a lot of blue in it.

I got another pleasant surprise: the printer demanded new cyan toner after printing 60 of 75 pages for a manual. I thought I would probably have to start over (because Powerpoint is utterly stupid about numbering pages on handouts). No problem, though. The printer stays on for toner cartridge replacement, and it's easy as pie to do it. Just don't forget to slide the gizzy back and forth that cleans the corona wire. After putting the cover back down, the printer picked up where it left off and knocked out the last fifteen pages.

In other news, I found a 256M DIMM from an old laptop, and upgraded the printer's memory. Really easy, though of course you do have to turn it off for that one. There's an exposed slot on the side to put the memory in, and it came right up when the printer was turned back on. The printer is faster now, and doesn't tie up my computer as long on these 75 page print jobs.

The printer status software advised me of a firmware update, which I applied. That was easy too, and it improved the print quality somewhat.

The only bad news is that the front feed mechanism for non-standard stock is definitely sub-par. I needed to print some labels through the front feed, and had the same problem with phantom jams that I had earlier with card stock. You have to hold the stock juuuuust riiiiiight to get it feed correctly. That's the only major flaw in a printer than has been a very pleasant surprise overall.

*** Update 19 August 2011 ***

This printer is still chugging along. I'm on my fifth set of toner cartriges, and never had a serious glitch except for the front sheet feed. Not a single paper jam in two years of use, except for the spurious ones caused by inadequate front feed, and I've learned how to hold the front sheet just right to avoid that.

I don't understand why other printer manufacturers can't make it this easy to own and use their printers. But I do wish Brother would fix that front feed.

*** Update 25 Sept 2011 ***

About those one star reviews...

I browsed through the one star reviews today, and noticed what seem to be some misapprehensions on the part of some purchasers.

First, a couple seem to think they're supposed to add up the page counts for the four cartridges to get the total page count out of the box. That's incorrect; the cartridges are not additive, so don't expect 5000 pages. The starter cartridges are supposed to get 1000, and as I said above, mine got about 1100.

In general, the people claiming this thing drinks toner apparently have not used other color laser printers. It's very much in the same territory as others I've owned, perhaps a bit better. It's possible that their experience has been with monochrome printers, which typically have more generous cartridges, and they just don't realize the realities of the color laser world.

Second, someone said they replaced the drum units after only 1000 pages along with the toner cartridges. No reason was given, but the drum units are supposed to go to 10,000 pages. Now, I'll be candid - when you get to 10,000 pages, I'd suggest replacing the printer rather than replacing the drum units. I just don't see the economics of buying a drum unit and four cartridges (which together cost more than the printer) at that point. But absent defect or abuse, there's no reason a drum unit should only last 1000 pages.

Finally, I get the impression that some of the reviewers are trying to use this as a photo printer. Don't do that. The quality is not up to it. And you will absolutely go through a lot of toner if you are printing full pages. So don't pay all that toner cost for substandard photo prints. Get an inkjet for that. You'll still pay a fair amount for ink, but most of them get decent quality. I have a Canon Pixma iP4700, which has been upgraded to the Canon PIXMA iP4820 Premium Inkjet Photo Printer (4496B002), and I've been happy with it for photos.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Secret for maximizing life of toner cartridges, March 21, 2011

By 

Sean Aitken - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother HL-3040CN Compact Digital Color Printer with Networking (Office Product)

For the second time now, this thing said it was out of ALL THREE color toner cartridges at the same exact time! The first time this happened, it seemed very suspicious. Wish I held on to the toner carts. Now that the printer has bugged me for the second time that it needs new color toner, I dug up a page that has the reset instructions for the cartridges. Apparently, the printer keeps track of the number of pages, regardless of how much toner is actually used. Pretty darn lame. Anyway, here's the trick that just made me very happy:

1. Open the front cover that gives you access to the toners.
2. Press and hold "Secure Print" and "Cancel" at the same time. You will see "K-TNR-STD" display on the screen.
3. Using the "+" and "-" buttons select the toner you want to reset.
4. Press the "Ok" button.
5. It will display "Ok?" and hit the "Ok" button again to reset the toner.
6. Close the lid.

Also, FYI, I called Brother and the support rep was a real pain. He got irritated when I wanted to skip steps in his "troubleshooting" process. He basically denied that there was any known issues with the printer that would cause this. He also gave me the number of a local Brother shop that could "repair" it (since it was still under warranty). I called the shop. They never called back.

I hope this helps someone else! I rated the "hate it" because I literally hate companies that do this to us. May as well just steal my lunch money from me.

Cheers!
-Sean

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Print Quality, Easy Install, October 17, 2009

By 

eds65 (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brother HL-3040CN Compact Digital Color Printer with Networking (Office Product)

I have had this printer about two weeks, and so far it is great. Install was easy on my network,with networking built-in. The print quality on both black & white, and color is very good. The toner cartridges that come with the printer are "starter" cartridges, and yield only about 1000 copies. So far, Brother direct, or Staples seem to be the only ones that have replacement cartridges, and they are expensive ($65+) for 2500 page yield cartridges, and there are four of them total? Have been able to print both labels and card stock from the regular print tray, with minimal curling. There is a straight-thru manual feel slot. Price was right, sub$200 with discounts... and a free label printer thrown in...