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Post categories Laser Printers

Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer – Good Printer, not Perfect

I had reservations about this printer as i had read a couple of negative reviews. . I think it’s a great printer. It did however encounter one glitch when it became off line for wireless use as it had somehow of its own accord changed its ip address. This however can be found by pressing buttons on the front and i just had to re-tell the computers linked to it, its new ip address. However after doing this, the following day it reverted back to the ip address it had been originally when installed. But this has not been a problem since and it has worked like a dream with no such glitches. I have it set to ‘toner save mode’. With this setting i got 800 black and white copies out of the first cartridge as supplied by the manufacturer at half full (standard practice for cartridges packed with a new printer), even though the quoted quantity was that i would get up to 500.

This is a good printer don’t get me wrong however it does have a few issues. Below i will tell you my positives about it and negatives. I will also talk about the few issues i have with it. Positives:- affordable for a colour wifi laser printer. – cheap to run if you refill the toners yourself. – prints in high quality very well. – booting time is extremely quick.

I have had a brother b&w laser printer for some years now and it has been a great work-horse and totally reliable. So, when it finally cam time to replace it, i looked at alternatives on amazon. The brother hl3070cw looked impressive in specification and from my previous good experience with a brother printer i felt confident that i could rely on it to ‘do what it said on the can’. I did notice some reviews on amazon that said the wireless option was hard to set up – but i felt confident that i could sort out any networking issues. The printer was shipped in very sturdy (very big) packing and came with very comprehensive instructions. It was really easy to load the toner cartridges (be careful to follow the instructions and open them carefully), loaded some paper and printed a test sheet – no problems. Having seen some adverse comments about ease of setup of wireless, i took this next part steadily. I can see how easy it would be to make a mistake over this since although the spirit of the instructions is correct, some of the detail is wrong. I set it up totally according to the instructions – and nothing worked.

  • Brother LED Printer HL3070CW
  • Brother HL3070CW
  • Respectable printer for the money

As with others i had some problems with setting this up. Once i worked it all out everything became fine with the two cabled and one wireless computers in our setup. This is a good machine and a good price for a led printer.

Not bad at all, but wireless problems. The printer itself is great, much higher quality than the previous one we used in the office. One slight regular problem is that there is some difficulty with the wireless networking aspect in that it needs regular ‘restarts’ (turning it off an on) at the start of each day and one of my colleagues needs to re-install the drivers each day. Maybe this is because of our router and his computer (win7).

I have had a brother b&w laser printer for some years now and it has been a great work-horse and totally reliable. So, when it finally cam time to replace it, i looked at alternatives on amazon. The brother hl3070cw looked impressive in specification and from my previous good experience with a brother printer i felt confident that i could rely on it to ‘do what it said on the can’. I did notice some reviews on amazon that said the wireless option was hard to set up – but i felt confident that i could sort out any networking issues. The printer was shipped in very sturdy (very big) packing and came with very comprehensive instructions. It was really easy to load the toner cartridges (be careful to follow the instructions and open them carefully), loaded some paper and printed a test sheet – no problems. Having seen some adverse comments about ease of setup of wireless, i took this next part steadily. I can see how easy it would be to make a mistake over this since although the spirit of the instructions is correct, some of the detail is wrong. I set it up totally according to the instructions – and nothing worked.

Used as a office printer, it is good and cheap to run and hasn’t broken and is a good all around printer.

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One comment on “Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer – Good Printer, not Perfect”

  1. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    The printer may be not of the highest specs, but the wireless setup (in my case, wired network) was increadibly easy and worked from the first attempt. The printer is very compact and quiet which is a bonus as it is in the bedroom. I am very pleased with this upgrade from epson inkjet.
    1. The printer may be not of the highest specs, but the wireless setup (in my case, wired network) was increadibly easy and worked from the first attempt. The printer is very compact and quiet which is a bonus as it is in the bedroom. I am very pleased with this upgrade from epson inkjet.

  2. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    I think brother printers are the best printers and when i bought this one for the office i thought it was wireless?. Plus not very good with mac aswell.

  3. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    I think brother printers are the best printers and when i bought this one for the office i thought it was wireless?. Plus not very good with mac aswell.
    1. This was purchased as a christmas gift. It has been installed by my son with very little effort. The wi-fi worked immediately and the print quality is good. It was chosen for its value for money and so far is working well. Slightly bigger than i expected though.
      1. This was purchased as a christmas gift. It has been installed by my son with very little effort. The wi-fi worked immediately and the print quality is good. It was chosen for its value for money and so far is working well. Slightly bigger than i expected though.

  4. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    Superb, had some issues with connecting it to one of our lap tops, the others were fine. It produces a fantastic print quality and the laser ink cartridges last long enough to make it cheaper to run than my old lexmark inkjet. It is worth the initial upfront investment to save money long term.
    1. Superb, had some issues with connecting it to one of our lap tops, the others were fine. It produces a fantastic print quality and the laser ink cartridges last long enough to make it cheaper to run than my old lexmark inkjet. It is worth the initial upfront investment to save money long term.

  5. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    Respectable printer for the money. I was impressed with how much printer you get for your £120 these days: the box was huge, although the printer itself was reasonably compact and quite attractive to look at. There are a number of possible methods of setting up this device. If your router supports secureeasysetup, wi-fi protected setup, or aoss, it can be configured without a cable. However, the simplest method is to temporarily connect the printer to a computer via a usb cable (not supplied) and then run the utility on the cd-rom. This was my first colour laser printer, so i can only compare it to the various monochrome lasers and colour inkjets i have owned. The quality for text is basically the same as with any other laser printer, but i was far less impressed when i tried to print photos–colour fidelity was worse than i was expecting. Obviously, this printer is no substitute for an inkjet for photo printing; i wasn’t expecting it to be, but i was still underwhelmed. One other gripe is that no hard copy of the user guide is supplied–only a pdf on the cd-rom. I spent ages looking for it, thinking i had accidentally thrown it out, before realising there was none.

  6. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    Respectable printer for the money. I was impressed with how much printer you get for your £120 these days: the box was huge, although the printer itself was reasonably compact and quite attractive to look at. There are a number of possible methods of setting up this device. If your router supports secureeasysetup, wi-fi protected setup, or aoss, it can be configured without a cable. However, the simplest method is to temporarily connect the printer to a computer via a usb cable (not supplied) and then run the utility on the cd-rom. This was my first colour laser printer, so i can only compare it to the various monochrome lasers and colour inkjets i have owned. The quality for text is basically the same as with any other laser printer, but i was far less impressed when i tried to print photos–colour fidelity was worse than i was expecting. Obviously, this printer is no substitute for an inkjet for photo printing; i wasn’t expecting it to be, but i was still underwhelmed. One other gripe is that no hard copy of the user guide is supplied–only a pdf on the cd-rom. I spent ages looking for it, thinking i had accidentally thrown it out, before realising there was none.
    1. I have had this printer for just over a year now and my only niggle is that it will not carry on printing once a toner runs out. The printer seems really solid in terms of build quality and its a substantial weight compared to other products on the market. The wireless software was easy to set up through my router but when i moved one of my pc ‘s on my home network i changed it so that it was hard wired to my main pc yet was still able to print off my laptop. The toner cartridges are expensive so next time i intend to have them filled locally now that i have a spare set. Brother hl3070cw compact high speed wireless colour led printerthe issue of expensive replacement cartridges is not unique to brother products so it seems unfair to moan about this too much especially as there are plenty of firms out there who will do re-fills.

  7. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    I have had this printer for just over a year now and my only niggle is that it will not carry on printing once a toner runs out. The printer seems really solid in terms of build quality and its a substantial weight compared to other products on the market. The wireless software was easy to set up through my router but when i moved one of my pc ‘s on my home network i changed it so that it was hard wired to my main pc yet was still able to print off my laptop. The toner cartridges are expensive so next time i intend to have them filled locally now that i have a spare set. Brother hl3070cw compact high speed wireless colour led printerthe issue of expensive replacement cartridges is not unique to brother products so it seems unfair to moan about this too much especially as there are plenty of firms out there who will do re-fills.
    1. Brother colour lazer printer. This printer(hl-3070cw) is the bees knees so far as small office/home printing is concerned. It may not be the quickest but quality and ease of use are both excellent. All you want from a small quality printer and only for about £200.

  8. This review is from : Brother HL3070CW Compact High Speed Wireless A4 Colour LED Printer

    Brother colour lazer printer. This printer(hl-3070cw) is the bees knees so far as small office/home printing is concerned. It may not be the quickest but quality and ease of use are both excellent. All you want from a small quality printer and only for about £200.
    1. I’ve had no problems with the printer and the print quality is very good. Wireless is very convenient and i’ve had enough of inkjet printers drying up.
      1. I’ve had no problems with the printer and the print quality is very good. Wireless is very convenient and i’ve had enough of inkjet printers drying up.
  9. Brother led printer hl3070cw. I wanted a colour printer with laser quality for home use with wifi built in so that i could put the printer into another room without additional hardware or needing a cable network. Although the specs on this looked good, i hesitated before buying the printer because i read a review that stated the wifi would not work well. I configured the printer with a fixed ip using the cable connection and added it to the allowed wireless devices on the wifi router. Now as soon as it is powered up the printer links to the network router which is located on a different level and about 15 – 20m horizontally away from the wifi network router without any problem. Printouts seem quick even from cold and have the desired quality, the resolution appears as good with the led array as for a normal laser. Although the footprint is typical for an office laser printer, the height of the printer is quite a low profile and so it is not too obtrusive. The printer goes into sleep mode when not in use and then is completely silent.
    1. Brother led printer hl3070cw. I wanted a colour printer with laser quality for home use with wifi built in so that i could put the printer into another room without additional hardware or needing a cable network. Although the specs on this looked good, i hesitated before buying the printer because i read a review that stated the wifi would not work well. I configured the printer with a fixed ip using the cable connection and added it to the allowed wireless devices on the wifi router. Now as soon as it is powered up the printer links to the network router which is located on a different level and about 15 – 20m horizontally away from the wifi network router without any problem. Printouts seem quick even from cold and have the desired quality, the resolution appears as good with the led array as for a normal laser. Although the footprint is typical for an office laser printer, the height of the printer is quite a low profile and so it is not too obtrusive. The printer goes into sleep mode when not in use and then is completely silent.

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