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Pakistan
1 Level
708 Review
44 Karma

Review on Enhanced Brother HL-L3230CDW Compact Color Laser Printer with Wireless and Duplex Printing, Amazon Dash Replenishment Ready by Heath Cullinan

Revainrating 1 out of 5

You get caught and blackmailed

My complaints are not specific to this printer or even to the brothers' printers. But it still applies because it's part of the experience of using that particular printer. Corporations are just out of control when it comes to holding you hostage over their ridiculously overpriced consumables. This has always been the case, but they are always improving their technology and this is by far the worst printer. After about 800 pages it stops working until you replace the toner with a new genuine Brother cartridge that costs about the same as the printer. The toner cartridge reported as empty is still full. And there used to be paths around it. However, it is almost impossible to change the firmware or rebuild the toner cartridge. You used to be able to cover a small window with a piece of electrical tape and keep typing for a while. There were also firmware changes that could be made using a hex editor to disable auto-suspend. They've only gotten more aggressive when it comes to consumer countermeasures. I had a brand new version of this printer, I sent something to it from my iPad and there was a problem with the driver so it printed 400 blank pages and then immediately told me I was out of toner and refused to do that to print whatever I do. Printers track every page that goes through them, whether you use consumables or not, forcing you to replace toner, belt, drum and fuser. regardless of the actual condition of these parts. It should be illegal for them to stop a user from continuing to type until the quality is unacceptable to them. It should also be illegal to force you to use your own original and extremely expensive consumables. They do this by inserting chips and resistors that are either proprietary or secret to prevent generic manufacturers from piling up inventory. As long as we consumers continue to buy this junk and put up with this unfair practice, they will continue to do so and make our lives miserable. Brother used to be one of the most flexible printers in this regard and now they are the worst. You will be denied access to your own printer entirely, even if it is fully printable, until you send more money to the company.

Pros
  • It's all right!
Cons
  • Dear