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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.
Rating: 5 / 5

Bought this color printer after looking for weeks in store. Very easy to set up. The first sheet takes a few extra seconds to print but thereafter sheets print quickly. My personal need is not for speed but for printing large multi sheet jobs. Quality is very good – crisp colors.
Rating: 5 / 5

I’ve owned this printer for about a week and have gone through the starter black toner that comes with the printer and 2 other black toner cartridges. According to the documentation I should have been able to print nearly 5000 pages. How many did I actually print? 2700!! (a lot of printing but I’m doing a school project for my children). Most of those were with toner saver on!

I suggest that you not buy this printer unless you have vast wealth and are willing to pay more than 7 cents per page. Cartriges are expensive and contain very little toner.

Also when I spoke to Brother support about how much toner the printer was using they were less than helpful and told me that 1000 pages is not unusual per cartridge event though the box and manual claim 2200 pages.

Rating: 1 / 5