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Review on πŸ–¨οΈ Enhanced Brother HL-2170W 23ppm Laser Printer with Wireless and Wired Network Connectivity by Mark Loebis

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Terrible setup ruins a good printer

Before I talk about Brother support and setup for this machine, listen, let me say this. The HL-2170W is an excellent printer that delivers exceptional print quality and a low cost per page after actually working. The machine has decent build quality, isn't overly noisy (like most laser printers) and doesn't cause the lights in my house to dim badly on initial warm-up (all laser printers do). The printer is across the room and prints with very little delay. Pages per minute is almost as advertised and I have no complaints about the device. Of course, I don't use it for long, so I don't know how well this Brother will work for long. The last brother I had was bought in the 90's and lasted about five years. The performance was terrible, dimming the light by nearly 90% when turned on or warmed up. Now let's start with the setup. It took me almost four hours to get it working because there were two different instructions in the box. one seemed to balance the other, but didn't make much sense. Searching the internet I found the third guide. I ended up trying to install the printer driver and then the printer via Cat5 via the web, but it was a fiasco. It didn't work with the Belkin router and I had to call Brother.On for ten minutes. Disabled. Repetition. Rinse and spin. Finally a human and she can't help me and asks me to ask Belkin for help. plug and play on his system). Call my brother back and the process they put me through was completely unlike any instructions I had found up to that point. There were ZERO similarities. So the whole process took about four hours and pretty much ruined my day. There's no excuse for such nonsense, and I'm once again wondering why I keep using Windows. By the way, I have XP Pro. Vista sucks and I don't feel like upgrading to Windows 7 until I get a much newer machine. There she is. I hope this review is helpful. If you're new, don't install this thing on the internet. You will not like this process. NOVEMBER 2012 UPDATE. This printer works despite heavy use. I replaced the aftermarket drum and toner and had no problems. The toner cartridge sold by Brother tells you it's empty even though it has a capacity of a thousand pages or more. It is ridiculous. Also, installing Windows 7 is much easier. No more trouble.

Pros
  • Free for educational purposes
Cons
  • Not sure