Customer Reviews

Brother HL4150CDN Color Laser Printer with Duplex and Networking

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is the 4th color laser I've owned. The first two were Konica-Minolta. They were among the first affordable ones in the market (still expensive) and one of them, Magicolor 2300dl, does a decent job considering the technology of its time. The second and smaller one, Magicolor 2400, died in a couple of year and was slow. The third one is HP 2025, which is much smaller (of course still much bigger than color inkject printers.) and it prints duplex. But it takes an hour to print a full page double-sided color brochure. Even though the color output is vibrant, the speed is miserable. So if I want 10 copies of full color image, I have to let it print over night. I will use these printers until their drum lives end, and will sell or give away instead of spending more money on them.

One main feature I want out of a color laser is duplex printing. I decided to try Brother HL-4150CDN because it was sold for $250 on Amazon.com (surprised to see the price went up to $370 after I bought). It has duplex printing and claimed to be fast. Well, it is fast, the fastest of all color printers I have every owned. Even though it is loud when it prints, you hear only a few seconds of noise and then it's completely quiet.

One star was removed because of the color. It is dry, unlike the shiny output from the HP. I don't really mind the dry color. The real problem is the colors being too dark. I tried some adjustment on the configuration and it has improved but still darker than the original, or HP output. That also means I am consuming more toner. I've got it for a week, and I don't think I have printed so much, but the yellow toner is show half left.

I am trying to figure out color calibration, which I've never needed to do with my previous printers. I hope it helps. There is a toner saving mode, I can't find how to set it yet, but I hope that helps. Maybe at the toner saving mode it will give me a lighter but correct colors.

--Update---

The yellow color showing half full was not correct. It shows that way when you look at the printer admin page from the browser, but the digital window on the printer shows full. I did a calibration, but it appears to be perfectly calibrated from the factory. I set the printer to "Toner Saving" mode and set the frequency to "Low" (I don't know what this means). Then the color has lightened but still a little darker than the HP out put.

I bought this printer 1 week ago. As per one of the other reviewers, this unit has some heft to it. It comes with full cartridges, not starter cartridges. The color and sharpness are excellent. I've been using a monochrome HP 1020 laserjet for the last few years. there's a definite improvement in the sharpness of the text. When the machine comes out of its sleep mode, it is louder than I anticipated, and was even a bit shocked at first. Also, it takes about 15 sec to print its first page. I got this for about $280 through Staples and am pleased with the price paid and the performance of this unit. I expect many years of use, which is strictly in the home setting. Setup was simple. This is networked to my home network though an ethernet cable. I have 1 computer running Window 7 and 2 others running Win XP home. all of them found the printer on the network without any glitches. It was much easier to set up than trying to "share" a non-networked printer. I gave it 4 stars because of the noise level. In fairness, I have nothing to compare it to in its class. For the money paid, I think this is a better built unit than the HP 2025, which also costs more, and the cartridges for the HP cost twice as much as the Brother, though there is no drum to replace in the HP since the drum function is built into each cartridge, hence its price. A new drum for this brother runs about $150 but i don't expect that it'll need replacing for few years or so. I can live with that! Hope this helps

I purchased the Brother HL-4150CDN color laser printer one day ago. It prints fast. The test page which consists of very, very simple, small, solid blocks of color and type, printed great! But it was printing only pure yellow, pure magenta, pure cyan. That is not a test of whether the printer prints well if it needs to print any other color. I have had good luck with other brother products in the past. But this one not so much.

I am printing out complex graphics and bought the printer because I read reviews stating that it had the best graphics and the one of best photo printing results for a laser printer. But the first print, and every print I tried, was very dark, had an uneven sheen to it, and anything that was tan or pink was absolutely magenta. The blues, which should have been light blue, were dark electric blues, It was not usable. I had printed the same graphic file the day before with a Cannon laser printer and it was what you would expect from a laser printer... slightly saturated, but perfectly acceptable. The color on the HL-4150 CDN is totally wrong. I am very disappointed. I tried to call Brother 4 times and each time I was greeted by an automated attendant, put on hold for quite a while - (30 to 40 minutes) and when I finally connected to a human being, they put me on hold and I was then disconnected. That happened every time. I was unable to get any help from Brother. I tried adjusting settings on the printer all to no avail. Went on line looked at the manual - no help. It maybe good for simple pie charts where the color accuracy is irrelevant, but If you need to print more complex color graphics I'd have to say, this is not a good printer at all. I am returning mine.

This is a new printer from Brother and I was a little nervous because there were no reviews for it. Bought this printer locally for $299 plus a $50 trade-in, bringing my price to a very reasonable $250 plus tax. First, it is a sizable printer, so you need some room for it. It is also fairly heavy, which hopefully implies a more substantial product. None of the parts, such as the paper tray or manual feed extension, feel flimsy at all. Setup instructions were trivial and I was printing in under 30 minutes, including assigning an IP address.

I used the CD to install the print drivers on two windows 7 machines and they installed successfully with no issues. The printer comes with four starter cartridges and the print quality is very sharp, IMO.

I will provide additional updates as I use this printer more, but after 7 days and 100 pages of printing, I am extremely pleased with this printer!

Update - 1/19/2011. Machine continues to operate well. I guess Brother must have changed their toners to full toners (or Office Depot had a different SKU with starter cartridges). Either way, I definitely got starter cartridges included with mine. I haven't printed much since the first review, but I am now replacing toner cartridges. I have about 125 pages printed and all of the color cartridges are blinking (meaning low cartridge). And yes, I was stunned to see that the replacement high yield cartridges are retailing at ~$120 each! I just bought four off of ebay for about $85 each, which is still not cheap. However, these cartridges are rated at 3,500 pages (and 6,000 for the black), which works out to about $.09 per page for toner. If they last this long, then this will be a pretty good deal. If you are going to buy this printer, check to see if you are getting full cartridges! It's worth paying a bit more for the printer, IMO.

My advice

We run a small software company, and after years of installing 100s of HP laser printers, a couple years ago we switched gears and now install mostly Brother printers. HPs were the gold standard for years, but the software has gotten so bad that we finally threw in the towel with them.

This is the third Brother color printer we have had in our office, and this one performs flawlessly. I got the printer on sale and it was cheaper than replacing the toners+drum in my old one, so why not?

This printer is fast, the color quality is excellent, and I just cannot find a single complaint with it after a month or two of moderate use. We have just finished printing a few hundred letters/brochures with it and I couldn't be more pleased with it. Drivers work like they're supposed to and since we're running the ethernet interface we can access settings, etc., in a web browser which makes it easy. We use color laser specialty paper which makes a huge difference in the quality of output versus regular copy paper.

ONLY COMPLAINT - toner is still ridiculously expensive. Best price I've found on the toners is here at Amazon. The color printer I got rid of was destroyed by using aftermarket toner (avoid the company "Tonerize" on ebay at all cost) so I hate to go that route anyway -- but there isn't much to choose from yet.

Anyway, great printer, and I'm sure toner will get a little cheaper once some aftermarket competition develops.

***10/27/2011***

First, let me say that I have a background in graphic design...so needless to say my review may not be "typical" - although it will be relatively short.

I bought the HL4150CDN because it was CHEAP ~ $250 for a color laser printer with duplex capability. I looked at the printer in comparison with other HP models and thought "What the heck, $250, might as well try it." I can say that I am pleased with the speed of the laser printer - it pumps a full-page, full-color 300 DPI PDF out quite quickly over my peer (home office) network. Obviously this baby won't do bleeds...but when I say full-color, I mean full-color, edge to edge with 1/4" border. I appreciate that attribute...I use this printer for real estate / business purposes. We all know, if you want true color, outstanding looking prints, you have to use a press, or a nice Epson inkjet, preferably large format. However, having said that, I was looking for a printer that would produce NICE, ACCEPTABLE COLOR output for my real estate business (namely flyers). Well, I hate to say it...but the color reproduction is just plain off and the HL4150CDN comes up short...images have way too much of a reddish, deep skin-tone to them. For example, I took interior photos of a client's home, manipulated them in Photoshop, etc. etc. Well, a beige/taupe/khaki (think HGTV neutral walls with white trim here) color comes out looking like a Caucasian skin tone with reddish overtones. The HL4150CDN just won't print or reproduce the neutral colors correctly. I went into the Control Panel (driver/printer settings) to adjust the print options...color settings, etc. The only way I can get the image to look relatively acceptable is by dialing down the saturation to -10 and dialing down the RED -4 (if you add (+) BLUE, it adds too much of a BLUE HUE to the whites). Because you have to dial down the saturation, the whites/accents just don't POP like they should. I suppose the printer is "good enough" to the untrained eye...but I was looking for something more and was really hoping to score a gem in the rough for $250 + TAX. I sooooo wanted to hit a home run with this printer at this price point, but alas, I cannot - more like a double...possibly a triple in baseball speak. Hopefully my client's don't have the "trained eye" I am referencing, otherwise I will be forced to look at the HP printers that cost 2x - 3x the price of this Brother (HL4150CDN). The printer will work for flyers, etc. with the workaround, but if I get a picky client that thinks his or her walls should look more beige or neutral than skin-tone with a hint of RED...I could be in trouble. If you are using this for throw-away business docs...you should be ok. But, if you are thinking of putting this output in front of your clients in the form of digital proofs, I would seriously consider shelling out the extra $500 ($750 total) on something more substantial. We are all looking for a deal, and don't get me wrong - it is still a deal (as long as the consumables aren't a total rip-off)...but it just isn't the quality I was truly hoping for given the technology that is now available.

I have not owned the printer long enough to speak of the consumables expense...namely toner, drum-life, etc. As of right now, I can only speak on color output. I hope this review helps those small business owners looking for a bargain. If I could give it 3 1/2 Stars, I would. Thanks.

***UPDATE 01/03/2012***

Evidently I wasn't the only one having color issues - Brother has released a firmware upgrade for the HL-4150CDN. I implemented the firmware upgrade, but I don't think it has made much of a difference. When I print docs with a gradient, the output is absolutely terrible looking - instead of a nice smooth gradient like you would expect, you end up with blocky/jaggy/pixelated transitions in the image (printed from Adobe Acrobat Pro X)...TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE for a color printer in today's age. The printouts are virtually worthless. I wish someone from Brother would read this and contact me for a fix.

I bought this to replace my old HL-5170DN that finally needed replacement. As I've never owned a color laser, I was surprised to find out that if you print in either AUTO or COLOR mode, and the document (not the page - the document) has a single spot of color, all the black text will be printed by layering the colors rather than using the black toner. If you look closely, you can see it.

So, set the printer to monochrome mode by default and only turn color on when you need it.

It's still annoying with the 150 page document that has a color image that I need in color every 4-5 pages. If I print it in color mode, all the black text gets printed in color. If I print it in monochrome mode, I don't get color images where I need them. The solution is to print only the pages you need in color and the rest in monochrome, but that's a gigantic pain in the butt on a large document.

It's still a nice printer, and it may have been a quirk of the PDFs I were printing rather than the printer (I really don't know) but from what I've seen, that might be the case with this printer. I'd still recommend it, but just be aware that you're going to burn through toner in no time flat if you're not careful.

This printer prints quickly with subpar with minimum jams. We had a Konica Minolta Magic Color 3300 which when new was selling for ~ $1,000 but it began to jam a lot so we decided to go with Brother which seemed to offer all the same features for ~ $250. The KM even though it was older printed more accurately meaning more crisp lines and accurate color. The Brother prints everything darker than it actually is. The Brother gets loud when warming up and printing but immediately after finishing the print goes silent again. This is okay in my book because the loudness is abbreviated and the printer is very fast. The most frustrating thing regarding the Brother is toner life. With older laser printers you could get ~ twice as many prints out of the toner cartridges than what was stated on the package because you could run them until the pages started coming out slightly faded. At that point you knew they toner was gone and then replace the toner because it was evident the toner is low (or shake the toner for a few hundred extra prints). The KM would print thousands of pages and I didn't change the toner for years. The Brother on the other hand, when it "THINKS" a cartridge is empty or it hits it's magic mark of 1,500 pages it will stop printing. Yes, it stops printing, as in, the printer is 100% COMPLETELY INOPERABLE until you run to your local brick and mortar to pay full retail for the toners $70+ Tax or be out of commission for a few days while you wait for Amazon to ship the toner at discount prices. Here's a tip, keep extra toner on hand if this is your printer or as others have commented, buy a second printer as they cost about the same. Also keep in mind, this printer does not do card stock as mentioned by another reviewer. On Amazon as of this writing standard yield toner costs ~ $200 for 4 new OEM toner cartridges or you can buy a new 4150CDN (preloaded with standard yield toner) for $250... I'd guess you could sell your old printer for the difference. We've had our printer for over a year. Bottom line for us, we've committed to 2 black toners (2500 pages each or 5000 total) and which will run through 3 sets of color toners (1500 pages each or 4500 total) and then we're changing to another brand. We don't like filling up landfills with toner cartridges when we feel they still have use in them but software decides to no longer use them. It seems to me irresponsible for the health of the earth but wise if your sole goal is profits. Think about this, when one color cartridge was bad, they all had to be replaced at the same time. Anybody who has owned a printer knows not every cartridge goes empty at the same time. But if you have this printer thinks one color cartridge is empty, it will not work until all color cartridges are replaced. We're on our second set of color toner already and we just ordered our first replacement black toner. So we got one more round of color to purchase and when those babies have about 1000 pages on them, we're gonna try to sell the printer. We're hoping to find a color laser with similar speed, auto duplex, slightly quieter, more accurate printing brightness/color/sharpness, MUCH better yield on toner, able to print card stock and a printer that preferably will not completely fail when it "THINKS" the toner should be replaced. We're assuming we'll have to pay an extra $100 or so above the initial cost of this Brother to get something a little more refined but feel we'll get that back on full usage of the toner, quieter operation, better prints, etc.

Purchased this printer (from another source) in December 2010 and am extremely pleased with it. Previous color laser printer was Minolta 2300DL. (For the life of me I don't understand how anyone who previously used a 2300DL, before this one, could complain about the noise. For EVERY color page printed on the Minolta the huge toner-cartridge wheel would have to rotate, bringing each of the four cartridges into place--whirrrr... clunk,whirrrr... clunk, whirrrr... clunk, whirrrr... clunk--before it ejected the one page, then do it all over again for the next page. The Brother is MUCH quieter--and faster, of course--than that.)

My experience is that Amazon is NOT the cheapest site for replacement toner (at least at the time I ordered the set). As noted before, the price of this printer at Amazon was all over the place around Christmas.

I originally gave this printer only four stars because it produced a terrible curl on card stock (i.e., 60-110 lb). I have since discovered that the printer is not designed to print on such heavy stock--indeed, Brother claims that doing so may damage the drum, etc. So I have adjusted my rating to five stars, since my one and only complaint was about asking the printer to do something outside its specifications.

Paid $299 for this printer just under a year ago and now, with light home use, the low-toner warning is coming on. The original Black toner cartridge is supposed to be good for 2500 pages, the color: 1500.

I print an average of 15 pages per week, (maybe 750 so far) and rarely use color. There is no way that I am anywhere near 2500 pages! And now what? Do I pay $189 for new toner cartridges, $326 for high-yield replacements that may or may not be high-yield...buy another, brand-new unit for $249, Or trash the Printer before getting sucked in to Brother's Profit Whirlpool?

TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE of the part of BROTHER for pricing the replacement cartridges so high... putting perfectly good printers in the LANDFILL !