if you found this video it means you're looking for a printer for you small business or your office, but still haven't decided. in this video i'll help you decide if this printer is a good option for you. another thing, if you're looking for a color laser printer, that's because you already have or had an inkjet printer, but want a more professional printer. with a laser printer you won't worry about clogged print heads and missing lines anymore.
high end color laser printer, for exemple, if you don't print anything for 2 months and then turn this machine on and print, the prints will come out exactly as the before. in this video i'll talk about 3 models: hl-3140cw, hl-3150cdw and hl-3170cdw
these are the most basic models of the brother led/laser color printers it costs around r$1400 in brazil, €180 in europe and u$180 in usa. to make this review i have here the model hl-3140cw i bought this one here in portugal on a sales and paid only €129. in brazil i couldn't find for sale the models: hl-3150cdw and hl-3170cdw i only found the model hl-3140cw, this one here. now, what are the differences between these 3 models? well, the main differences are only 2: the model hl-3140 doesn't have automatic duplex. the other 2 models (3150 and 3170) have.
the model hl-3170cdw is quite faster than the other two, it prints at 22 pages per minute while hl-3140 and hl-3150 prints at 18 or 19 pages per minute. these models are perfect for those who don't need to print too many pages per month. the ideal is to print a maximum of 800 color pages per month. if you need to print more than that i do not advise these models. you will have to look for a more expensive printer. this is a basic printer and it gives you the basic. it only prints. it doesn't make copy or scan documents. it prints a4, legal and letter sized paper. one of the best things about this printer, besides being a laser printer, is that it has wi-fi. so you won't need to put it close to a computer.
this is great for those who have a small office and it's hard to fit anything. places where is hard to wire stuffs you just plug it to a socket, connect wirelessly and that's it! it doesn't even have to be in the same room. you can place it anywhere, at the entrance, kitchen, wherever you have a spare place and wi-fi signal. you can also connect many computers, not just one. connect your tablet, mobile phone, everything wireless. if you already bought this printer and need to connect to your router click in this note or a link in the description. when you buy this printer it comes with 4 starter toners this toners last less than the normal ones. but still enought for around 1 or 2 months.
this printer's real resolution is 600 x 600 dpi and an "expanded" resolution of 2400 x 600 dpi. this is the default paper tray, just pull to remove. here i have an a4 sized paper, but you can insert up to legal paper. this tray fits only 250 sheets of normal paper. its quite enough, it takes a while to put more. and up here is the manual paper tray. you know, if you need to insert paper manualy, without have to open the main tray... but in this manual tray you can only fit 1 paper at a time. can't put more.
only 1 sheet at a time! to insert the paper, just place here... fit inside... and wait for the printer to pull the paper. ok, it pulled and now it's ready to print. by defaut, if you send anything to print, it will print first on the manual tray. if you don't have a paper in the manual tray it will pull paper from the main tray, of course. the energy consumption while printing is around 350w this is much more than an inkjet printer, which is around 15w while printing.
if you have to print lots of paper i advise you to lift this "tab" here to hold the papers. when they come out, if is only 1 or 2 that's fine, but if you print a lot they begin to pile here and if you have this tab lift it will hold the paper. otherwise they will fall on the ground. to change the toner and install the new ones. just open the cover by lifting it, don't need to press anything, just lift. it will hold opened. here we have all the toners and drums of the printer. to remove, just lift and pull.
look, this is the yellow toner. and this is the drum unit. to remove the toner from the drum unit you just press this lever. press it... and lift the toner. it comes out. this is the drum unit. the imaging unit. this drum fits any color, cyan, magenta and yellow. but only color. the black drum unit is different.
to insert the toner. just fit in here. and press it to lock in place. it uses the toner model tn245 in europe. in brazil and usa it uses the model tn225. attention to the number to not make a mistake! here are the other drums and toners. down here is the transfer belt unit and below it is the waste toner to insert you just put them in, no room for mistake here. and after everything is in place just close the cover.
press to close. let me just show you something about the toners. i only use the compatible toners. i don't buy the original ones because they are too expensive and it's cheaper to buy a new printer. in europe each original toner costs about €90 so, €90 x 4 = €360 i paid €129 for the printer in a sales. so it's much more cheaper to buy a new one. this compatible toners i pay around €15 on german ebay in brazil each compatible toner costs around r$60 or r$70, depending on the shop.
the originals cost is a joke, around r$400 each one. so i really don't know who is going to use the original toners in this printer in brazil. they will spent r$1600 in 4 toners for this printer. it's cheaper to buy a new one. even though they say that the starter toner prints less than the normal one, you still have a new machine! so the best deal is to buy compatible toners and use them until print quality starts to fade. then you just buy a new printer, doing so makes you save lots of money. if you buy the 4 compatible toners paying r$70 on each one you will spend r$280.
if you take those r$1600 of the originals and divide by the compatible ones you can buy more than 5 packs of compatible toners. so, you have printed lots of paper with the compatible toners. even if it screw up your printer, i think it's worth. now i'll show the speed of 10 prints in black and white, normal mode. ff ok, done. i just want to warn you that i'm using draft paper to print the pages. these are failed prints from other prints to not waste blank papers in these tests.
now printing 5 color pages. to print in a heavy paper 140lb or 250g/mâ², i need to insert it into the manual tray i can't put it inside the main tray because it will jam. so, insert the paper in the manual tray and open this cover behind the printer. i'll just pull it so i can open behind... you have to open because the paper will come out from here. if the paper passes through here it gets too rolled. so, it's better if it comes out from behind.
here is the heavy paper 140lb or 250g/mâ². it's quite heavy... i'll insert here... with these heavy papers you have to push a little to get them in. sending the file... sent... now it's printing and i'll grab when it comes out from behind. look, the print looks perfect. it still keeps a little curved, but that is ok. just curve it the other side and it goes flat. this is a party sign and later i'll cut these frame off.
now i'm going to make a quality test so you can compare this printer with and inkjet and a professional konica minolta printer: bizhub c220. i'll send the file. it's already receiving the file... i'm picking up the camera to show you better. that's a draft paper, but i printed on the blank side. i'm putting here to compare with the others. my magenta toner is in the end of life and these lines starts to appear. but now let's see the quality of the printer. you can clearly see the dots in the image... this is a 6 x 4" (10 x 15cm) picture and i have put 4 of them in this sheet.
let me take a ruller... i took a ruller to show you the size of her head. her head is measuring about 1.5cm (2/3") you can see all the dots. watch in full hd let's take a look at this other girl... now let's see the print from a pigment epson inkjet from this view we can see that the magenta is a little bit faded in the inkjet. let's see her face...
and now the other girl. i'll put them side by side. in the right is the brother and the left is the inkjet. now i'll take the print from this konica minolta bizhub c220 her face... now the 3 comparisons. now just the 2 laser printers side by side. to compare the laser printers. now another comparison from the sabe image, but printing at 2400 x 600 dpi.
let's compare... comparing the two brothers. as we can see there are a few more details, but nothing as good as a professional printer konica minolta. this one on the right. look at the details on the dress. and the details on her face... now the plus sides of this printer. wi-fi connection and good quality prints. the cons side: just the high cost of the printer, comparing to a basic inkjet.
well, that's all folks. i hope i have clarified some of your doubts and helped you decide whether to choose or not to choose this printer. if you still have any doubts you can leave a comment here and i'll try to answer your question. did you like this video? click like and subscribe to my channel.
