Excellent Printer... Needs a Driver Update!

I love this printer I bought it on sale over the weekend for under $100 (couldn't resist a laser printer at that price!). I probably printed about 700 pages this weekend one of the perks of being a Grad student I suppose.



The Positives

-Prints quickly and great font quality

-The printer is SMALL smaller than my injet.

-Works great with XP and Vista (sorry No Mac to test on)



The Con

-This printer won't work with my wireless print server. The reason given is that the driver doesn't support it at this time. My workaround for the time being is to share the printer from the desktop in my office since I do most of my printing from my laptop in another room.



Hopefully that driver or a firmware upgrade to the print server (whichever comes first) comes out soon! Otherwise this is an incredible laser printer for the price!



On a side note many people in discussion forums have complained about the high cost per sheet for a laser printer (about 4 cents a page) it is still far lower than any inkjet AND the printer just came out as far as I've seen Laser cartridges (at least here on Amazon) tend to fall in price by a few dollars after the product has been out for 6 or more months. I don't see this changing for this printer as well.More detail ...

Excellent printer overall

This little boy is excellent. And you can't beat it for the price too. Also extremely easy to set up.



I am coming from an HP LaserJet also 30 papers per minute. So I was comparing it to the HP when I shopped.



My HP while it served me good was not as sharp black as the Brother is. I like the print results from the Brother much better. Plus the Brother have settings whether you're printing text only graphics general or office documents in addition you can choose "manual" and tweak the settings yourself to your liking. I also like that the size of the printer is pretty small.



The HP was a little faster from sleep mode (like 8 seconds) while the Brother 5370 takes approx. 14 seconds. Not a biggie. The processor was faster in the HP but 99% of the time you won't notice the difference. Once it starts printing it spits out papers like crazy. Very fast. One important note though: The fast 32 ppm is only if you are printing in 600 dpi mode. If you need the higher quality 1200 dpi mode print speed will be down by half! But there again 99% of the time the 600 dpi is more than enough. Some higher quality graphics may require 1200 dpi though.



Printing envelopes thru the multi-purpose paper tray is very good and they're not getting curled (like many old Brothers did) as long as you open the rear output tray. It can not print thru the regular printing area (if you do it will still print but envelopes will get wrinkled). I miss the HP in that area. It's much less cumbersome.



The printer is quite noisy. But most fast laser printers are noisy.



The duplexer worked beautifully. You just select "Duplex" or "Booklet" and the printer does the rest. Very good job with that.



I did not use the wireless networking but from the manual it seems to be a little complicated. Also from the manual is the following: "...Although the printer can be used in both wired & wireless network only ONE of the connections methods can be used at a time..." So keep that in mind if you want to use both.



I would suggest the following improvements if Brother is interested to listen:



- Make it quieter;

- Add a little high-quality display instead of all the lamps (also miss from my HP - all cheap inkjet have'em today!);

- If out of paper it should beep so I know to add paper (optional - not everyone will like beeps);

- Enable the multi-purpose paper tray to be opened with one hand (like my HP) not force me to use both hands.



Overall though it is a pleasure to use. Highly recommended.



**UPDATE**



I contacted Brother to help me setup wireless network. I must say I am amazed at the support I got. I can't recall if I ever had such a good experience with any other company! No waiting knowledgeable staff and helped me in less than minutes! And it works like a charm!More detail ...

No driver for Snow Leopard 10.6

I purchased this printer 6 months ago and it has been a good solid printer. Recently I upgraded my iMac to Snow Leopard OS 10.6 and realized just about every driver for HP products is available except the P2035 and a handful of others. HP is working on a driver for Snow Leopard but does not have a date yet. If you have a iMac running Snow Leopard heads up!!!More detail ...

Very fast easy to set up with Mac OS X and cheap.

I had considered purchasing a laser printer in the past but my little inkjet seemed more cost-efficient. Now that I'm into my dissertation and need to print 20+-page articles every few days - sometimes 9 or 10 at a time - the inkjet is no longer useful for my purposes. I saw this printer for very cheap at Staples and decided to go for it.



I am unsure about real-life cost-effectiveness since I've only had the printer for a few days. I am still using the starter toner that came with the printer. It has lasted through about 250 pages of full text so far. I ordered the high-yield (2500-page) toner from Staples for $61 including tax. Drum replacement looks to be about $100 every 12000 pages (every 4 toner cartridges). That says it will cost about $350 every 12000 pages or so if the printer lasts that long.



This printer is small and light and very simple. When it runs out of paper it gives the red error message. You add paper press the single button and it works again. Startup-to-print time is very quick - less than 10 seconds after flipping the power switch. I was stunned at how fast pages came out of this little thing (quicker even than the HP 2300 I have in my office). And yes the lights in my apartment dim when it prints.



I use this with a Macbook Pro over Airport Extreme (it worked! first try!)



I am confident in my purchase. (But not so confident that I waived the $15 warranty option when I purchased from Staples for $69 after rebates!)



2 caveats: this printer does not come with a USB cable (but my $3 USB 2.0 cable worked just fine.) As I said it only comes with a starter toner which is supposed to last only 250 pages (mine has lasted exactly that and no fading yet).More detail ...

Great printer but programmed to rip you off in toner

I bought the HL-2170W from Amazon at the beginning of 2008. I found it very easy to configure for both wired and wireless networks although I use mine on a wired connection out of convenience. I print mostly plain text and the quality is very good.



I have but two complaints:



First the paper comes out slightly curled but this is a fact of life for a printer this size.



Second Brother has programmed the printer such that when its thinks the toner is empty it stops working. This happened to me when I was printing some important documents. I did some internet searches and examined the toner cartridge. There is a clear plastic circle at each end of the toner cartridge. The printer shines a light through to see how full the toner is. Simply cover one of them with a piece of opaque tape and the printer will think that the toner is full. I've already gotten 1500+ pages out of the starter toner that was "empty" at 983 with no difference in printed quality.More detail ...