[ajmac25]

I have owned the Brother HL-4070CDW for the past year. It works great. Color is good and duplex is a great paper saver. The wireless feature is very difficult to set up with my Airport and after multiple issues, I went back to Ethernet. The replacement toner cartridges are expensive but you can find good deals (NewEgg.com). I would recommend this printer for home or small business use.

[davebarnes]

I agree with both skipaq and ajmac25 about the Brother HL-4070CDW.

I have owned one for 15 months and use it for our home-based business.

Works great. I love the duplex feature.

The wireless is pain to setup, but I do have it working throughout the house with Airport Extreme and AirBook.

I highly recommend this printer.

[JL_Music_Therapist]

I was very interested in this article as I am currently considering purchasing a laser printer to print note cards and artistic cards for my developing photography business. While I appreciated the review of the three models, I was disappointed that you did not review any of the HP printers (a.k.a. Colour LaserJets). Does this mean that you did not review them or simply that they did not meet your quality standards.
I, personally, would love to see a future article specifically about the printing of full colour images comparing "pro" inkjet printers and laser printers. I have heard that the quality of laser output does not match that of the current "pro" model inkjet printers, which also seems to be reflected in some of the comments on this article.
Thanks for the timely article.

[normandygroup]

Also one might consider the Xerox 8560 DN. It is a little more expensive than the 6180, but they often have very good rebates. I bought the previous model, the 8550 DN for $799 when it listed for $1299 with a $500 rebate.
This model gives you 30 PPM with a 600 MHZ processor, full Postscript III (not emulated)and a very fast 5 second first page. Color is great with solid ink, no mess, no drums to replace. Each individual solid ink cartridge lasts with minimal replacement and reasonable cost. Auto duplex. Solid ink gives a vibrant, almost raised texture to color copies.
I've had my printer for 2+ years and have not any any problems. No paper jams, and less maintenance than ordinary laser printers. Would definitely buy again except that it has an 85,000 page per month duty cycle, way above my usage, so I don't know how long it will take to wear it out!

[dewd]

Uh...no color laser printer yet devised by man will do a realistic print of a great photograph as it was intended to be seen. Nor will it do well on heavy stock or textured papers ( like watercolor ). Definitely won't do for printing DVD's with custom faces.
No matter what , you need both a quality inkjet photo printer and a color Laser to cover the territory. The two modalities really cannot be compared.

[bassman]

How about touching some on the cost of a complete set of toner cartridges for a laser printer, and how many typical sheets will be printed from that set of cartridges. Some of the toner cartridges I have priced at the office stores is more then 3/4 the coast of a new color laser printer.

[skipaq]

Just thought that I would let you know that Amazon has the Brother HL-4070CDW wireless color laser on sale for $314.00. The sale ends on Dec. 6.

[sixfive]

its been quite a while since you posted your last comment but I was wondering if you might be able to help me with any info as far as setting up my newly purchased HL 4070. So far its been a pain and I cannot print . . . ANY info would be greatly appreciated :-)

[bugsnw]

sixfive,

I bought a very nicely priced Brother b&w laser printer for my son. The setup directions were written for non-humans and I didn't feel like trudging through the CUPS setup to get it hooked up via ethernet. The easy solution was to hook it directly to my son's iMac via USB and just share the printer through that connection. Through USB, there was no setup, just plug & play.

[skipaq]

I am not sure what kind of a setup you want to use: ethernet, USB or wireless. It is important that you set up your printer for the type of connection you plan to use. The instructions for each are in the Quick Setup Guide that came with your printer. You will also need the setup CD.

With ethernet and USB the connection is made from a Mac directly to the printer with the appropriate cable, then follow the instructions on page 39 of the Quick Setup Guide for USB or page 41 for ethernet. You can then turn on printer sharing over wifi from your Mac so that others can connect to the printer.

I chose to do the complete wireless setup using the DSL wireless/ethernet router that sits next to my iMac. The instructions for doing this are on page 49 of the Quick Setup Guide. If you don't have a wireless router, you can still set up wireless printing using a Mac's built in wifi. For this you would use the instructions starting on page 53 of the Guide. The advantage of the DSL wireless is that anyone with wifi can use this printer without sharing through my Mac's wifi. It is more complicated to set up wireless printing; but it is well worth it.

I noticed some other posts about laser color printing. Photos and high quality graphics should be printed using ink. The toner used in laser printers just cannot produce good Photo or Artwork prints. This Brother printer outputs photos that are slightly brownish on regular paper. This may be OK for proofing a layout; but not for final printing of these items.

[Mac_Cat]

I wanted to echo ibettle's comments about needing a good, thorough review of the latest laser printer options for a small home business or personal use ($300-700 price range).
Mac OS 10.5 introduced us to the CUPS print spooler, and while I liked using it, my older HP laser printers (1200 and 2100tn) just can't seem to stay on-line since I started using Leopard, even with the newest HP driver packages. So, I'm afraid to buy a new laser printer and find the same problems or worse.

The HP drivers don't work very well and it appears that MAC OS only sends out postscript documents now. Does that mean I need to look at a Postscript only printer? I also noticed that HP printer drivers "emulate" postscript printing and I wanted to find out how that impacts the end result (better, worse, slower, or not a really a factor).

My current printer is 600 x 1200 dpi resolution and most of the new printers appear to be 600 x 600. Is that all we should need or hope for?



Hey MacWorld: it's time to do a new mid-range office laser printer review!



I thought I'd be ready for a color laser printer, but nobody makes one that is wireless (? odd since so many inkjet printers are) and while the price of the printers is reasonable, the cost of 4 ink cartridges ($500+) is more than the price of most printers !? Do we just need to plan to buy a new printer in two years?



( I'm a home business user with multiple laptops and one MacPro, who prints about 700 pages a month. I like to have two printer trays and have an optional printing tray for letterhead and envelopes. That doesn't seem to be as popular an option as it used to be. I love my inkjet for photos, but not for text work. )

[skipaq]

This discussion page has talked quite a bit about the Brother HL-4070CDW printer which is: A color laser printer with ethernet, USB and wireless connectivity. The resolution is 2400 x 600 dpi and it has the option of adding an additional tray. It's rated at 21 ppm and has built in duplexing. It also is Postscript compatible using BR-Script3. I purchased this printer last fall from Amazon for about $400. I've since seen it on sale for around $320. My printer is set up to print wirelessly and I have no problem printing from multiple Macs using Leopard over this wireless network. This printer is suitable for small business and home use. As has been often pointed out this printer (all color laser printers for that matter) is not suitable for finished photos. Amazon's price right now is about $470 with free shipping. There are other good printers like this one from HP as well.

[Mac_Cat]

Thanks skipaq.
I have been researching Brother printers and I did read the previous posts here, too. I've also been all through the last 4 years of my MacWorld issues. It's time to get a fresh report on the $300-700 priced laser printers.



(BTW, Amazon lists the HL-4070CDW at $469 today, but it does have free shipping. I think that's a great price and their toner cartridges are all around $90, vs $120 list - 30% discounted).



What worries me is that they have no printer drivers for Mac OS X for any of their "HL" series laser printers. :0

So, I think that leaves you using the Generic Postscript driver in CUPS. The generic driver won't let you do duplex printing, print of other paper trays, or take advantage of many of the other features that a particular printer might have (ink levels, network status, etc.).



I have the same worries about LexMark (and Dell's Lexmark series of printer). They are great printers, but they don't have any Mac or Unix specific drivers. I'm sure they will print most text and postscript documents just fine, but they should offer the same features to Mac users that they do to Windows customers, who pay exactly the same price for the printer.







I've had some hands on experience with the new low end HP color laser printers and the toner handling disappointed me right away. I had a royal ink dust mess the very first day - toner got into everything. I've never had that problem with my B&W toners... :(



Just my opinion!

[MysteryMan]

Brother does make drivers for their HL series printers. When installing the driver for my HL 5250 I have the choice of the CUPS driver or the the Brother BR-Script 3 driver. When setting up the printer you are offered the CUPS driver by default but if you click on the "Print Using" pop-up menu, choose "Select a driver to use..." and then enter the model number you'll see you there is more than the CUPS driver to choose from. Even the CUPS driver lets you print duplex.


MM