- Up to 30ppm color and black printing
- Automatic duplex printing
- Wireless 802.11b/g, 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet and Hi-Speed USB 2.0
- Up to 2400 x 600 dpi resolution
- USB direct interface
The Brother HL4570cdw is a fantastic printer for everyday and office use. This is my first Brother purchase. I''m using it to print out full colored brochures (graphics, photos, and text). So far it''s been more than adequate when using the appropriate paper i.e. glossy paper. When on regular paper, the colors are not as sharp and pictures are not as clear. For photos, the resolution quality is acceptable/good, but there is a noticeable difference in quality from a print shop and a heavy duty office printer (you know the 5 foot jumbo printers).
As for print speeds, from start to finish it prints at an above average pace. The spooling process is quick (less than 2 minutes) for a 80 mb print job. It printed a 60 page, full color (vivid mode), double sided booklet in about 8-10 minutes.
PROS
Easy printer and wireless Setup (less than 5 minutes).
Good print speeds (auto-duplex and straight printing).
Excellent print quality for general graphics and text.
Good photo quality when using the right paper.
Acceptable noise level for a printer
Toner replacements are cheaper than HPs, Lexmark, and Canon.
CONS
Printer reads toner as empty when full. You must do the toner trick which involves covering the clear holes with black electric tape on the toner cartridges as a temporary solution. For a more permanent solution, you need to reset the computerized toner levels on the printer. You do this by 1) Opening the printer door 2) Holding Back and Cancel at the same time 3) A menu to reset the toners pops up 4) You hit Okay to reset.
I printed approximately 900 full color pages with the "starter" cartridges it came and some cartridges are already visibly running low. While the prints were on the high color (vivid) settings, it is a shame that this printer appears to be another "toner hog" and did not print to the 3000/1500 page estimates the cartridges claim.
Photo prints are poor when printing full sized photos on regular paper. For best printing results you need to use specialized glossy paper.
Must use "multi-purpose" pullout feeder tray for specialized paper or else risk paper jams
Very slight paper curl
Noise level maybe too loud for a quiet office space.
I compared the Brother HL-4570cdw''s print quality extensively with HPs and Canon color lasers in this price range, and the Brother printed out more impressive looking demo prints than its competitors. The print quality is enough to merit the purchase of this printer and because the toner replacements are relatively cheaper than other companies the Brother HL-4570cdw receives my recommendation.
Overall, I''m happy with this purchase and would recommend it if you get it for the right price. I would not pay more than $400-$425 for this machine which is the price I paid.
Buy Brother HL4570CDW Color Laser Printer Now
I hope the one message I can get out to everyone is that printers are one of the most undependable machines that anyone can look to purchase. I run a home business and I made the mistake of spending well over $1k a few years back for a Konica Minolta 5430DL. It was a beauty of a printer, but shortly after spending nearly $600 in replacement cartridges the printer started falling apart.
What I learned is that even the priciest printers break. This is more of a disposable technology than something you can hand down to your kids. When all the printer companies play the game of selling printers with limited ink cartridges and then charging you more than the printer itself for refills, you know that the only way to come out ahead is to buy the best bang-for-the-buck printer with the expectation that it''s only going to last a few short years.
I believe the Brother HL4570 is that kind of printer.
For $400 I knew I was buying something mid-range. It would certainly be a step down from the $1k Konica Minolta but at least the value of the printer is close to the value of replacing cartridges. This means when I finally deplete the cartridges I have the choice of buying more cartridges or another printer -whichever costs less.
I chose Brother because I wanted a wireless printer that played well with Mac. If read on counteless discussion forums that more than any other brand, the Brother is the easiest to install with a Macintosh computer.
Those discussion forums were correct. The wireless setup with my iMac took less than 10 minutes to complete.
...but I am getting ahead of myself.
Bought this printer when it dropped in price to $399 from $450. Had it shipped Amazon Prime 2-day and Fedex delivered it overnight. It''s rather heavy, weighing in at about 65 lbs. The unit is well packaged. Be sure to read the quick-start manual for important unpacking instructions. There are a lot of doors and drawers that you need to access and remove small pieces of packaging.
Once unpacked and plugged in, the first step was to pair the printer to my WiFi. A small LCD display lets you navigate through a setup wizard that automatically detects your WiFi network. The next step is simply inputint the password which is a bit of a cumbersome process as you have to wade through rows of characters till you get to the numbers and letters you need. Frankly, that part of the setup seems very old-school. Brother could have really improved upon this process. Be aware that as you enter each number and letter of your password that character quickly turns to an asterick to hide it. Don''t be confused by what the printer is doing.]
Once the password was entered the printer immediately paired to my network. No hiccups whatsoever.
The next step was even simpler. I put the install disc in my iMac, run it, and it automatically installs the drivers and detects my printer. Never have I ever been able to pair a printer to my Mac or PC this easily. It really is true -this printer is Mac''s best friend.
I decided to do a test page which is done simply by pressing the GO button on the printer. It didn''t take long for the printer to whiz into motion and produce a page.
Two immediate problems: First, my room stunk of toner. This thing put out a stench that I could not believe. I had read another review from someone complaining about the smell this priter produces. Fortunately, it seems, the stench was only present at the initial print. I am hoping that the printer is just breaking itself in. I will keep you posted on future prints.
The second problem is page curling. Pages come out curled. I am using 30 weight paper which should be less prone to curling. I understand there are adjustments you can make in the computer to lessen the curl. I will certainly look into this and keep you posted.
Print speed and quality is very good. Black text looks very crisp but colors are not true to original. I had read in another review that this Brother printer produces darker versions of the original color. This is true. Oranges were deeper, light blues became dark blues. Potentially, I don''t see this as a major problem -but some who are more finicky about their printer producing true colors will not be happy.
I won''t even talk about photos. Haven''t tested photo printing because I already know it will look like garbage. You don''t use these printers for photos and anyone buying it for that use is foolish.
Is the printer loud? Somewhat, yes. But realize that I am coming from a monstrous Konica Minolta machine that was even louder than this Brother. So, for me, the printer is quieter than the more industrial sized machines I have been used to.
Thus far, I am very impressed with the ease of setup and immediate pairing to my WiFi network and iMac. I mean, I had this running in less than 15 minutes after full unpack.
As for overall quality? It is what I expect from a $400 laser printer. It''s speedy with highly acceptable print quality. However, it''s not on par with business class machines. It suffers from subdued color reproduction, colors are slightly darker than they should be and pages curl.
The machine awakens from sleep and produces a page in less than 10 seconds. This is great. My Konica Minolta would wake from sleep and go through a minute of two of machine "whirring" until it decided to spit out a page.
For $400 this doesn''t seem to be a significant step down from my $1k Konica Minolta business class computer and that''s why I am not complaining.
You can read through countless reviews on Amazon hoping to get the right printer. Every single one of them has a handful of bad reviews and complaints about breakage and toner cost. I found the Brother, particularly this model, to be the better rated printer in its price range. Certainly toner replacement will be a little cheaper than going with HP.
UPDATE
The stench I was experiencing with print jobs has lessened, though there is still the slightest odor of print toner whenever I run the printer. I am hoping this subsides with age.
Went into PRINT SETTINGS on my Mac and selected REDUCE PAGE CURLING. It did very little to curb the problem. This printer still produces curled prints and that''s the only annoying issue I still have with this printer.
In all, the Brother 4570 is probably the best color laser printer in the $400 range. Certainly a better option than purchasing an HP which comes with limited-filled toner cartridges and (from reviews I have read on Amazon) its own set of headaches.
Read Best Reviews of Brother HL4570CDW Color Laser Printer Here
I purchased this in November 2010 and have had for 5 months. I wanted to give it 3.5 stars, but Amazon doesn''t allow half stars. While the purchase price was a VERY good value, the price of the replacement toner and insistence of the system to force you to replace the cartridge even when they clearly still contain ink is very frustrating.
PROS:
1. Reasonably priced for a wireless color laser
2. Excellent color documents
3. Relatively fast
4. Prints double-sided
5. Wi-Fi
CONS:
1. VERY expensive refills. I don''t print that much and all 4 cartridges have run out in 5 months. The replacement cost for the 4 cartridges is $200. Because it''s a relatively new model, it doesn''t appear there are options other than to buy genuine Brother Products.
2. The printer just stops working when it deems that the toner cartridges need to be replaced. The documents I printed the day before looked great and so I can''t believe all 3 color cartridges are fully depleted of toner, but Brother insists they must be replaced to get the printer to run again.
3. The pages curl up at the ends.
4. It won''t print B&W or gray-scale in PowerPoint 2010 even when selecting that option (Brother told me to call Microsoft and have them re-write PowerPoint software to fix this problem, which a complete blow off of a customer).
5. It works great with a PC, but won''t print color photos from a Mac (they come out B&W and won''t size correctly).
6. A little noisy but not too bad (don''t plan to have a phone conversation via a speaker phone or headset if you''re sitting within 10 feet of the printer while it''s printing)
UPDATE as of 11-July-2012:
I just ordered 4 new high-capacity ink cartridges (the TN-315 model) yesterday (for $85/each x 4 = $340), which is the second time I''ve ordered high capacity cartridges in the ~20 months I''ve had the printer. This is after using the regular-capacity cartridges that came with the printer when I purchased it in November 2010. I can''t say exactly how much printing I do, but it feels like I''m filling the paper tray about every 4-6 weeks and so it''s not a lot. At this pace, I''m spending ~$350 per year on ink.
After searching the web I found a work-around to the problem I mentioned above, which allows me to manually reset the ink cartridge counter so that it will continue using the cartridges until the ink actually runs out (the only downside is that I need to look to see when the ink stops printing a specific color and then replace the cartridge). Overall, I really like the printer and would give it 4 starts at this point.
Want Brother HL4570CDW Color Laser Printer Discount?
I purchased the Brother HL4570CDW printer to replace an HP Business Inkjet Networked/Duplex printer that I had owned for 8 years. I did not want an all-in-one printer nor was I interested in printing photos. I merely wanted a work-horse to accommodate all of our b/w and color printing needs. The Brother printer fills the bill. It is so fast, even in duplex mode! The Energy-Saver feature is great. It powers off after 3 minutes of idle.
For $9.69, you can upgrade the memory of the printer with an additional 256 SDRAM. The folks at Brother recommend the Kingston memory module sold on Amazon.com -Kingston 256MB DDR2 SDRAM Memory Module 256MB (1 x 256MB) DDR2 SDRAM 144pin KTH-LJ2015/256. It is easily installed via access to a side door compartment. After installation, you can navigate to "Print settings" on your printer LCD Panel and print the page, to make sure it shows the increased RAM size.
I love this new printer. The ease of setup was great. I didn''t even have to follow the printed directions or CD. I simply went to the Apple web site and downloaded the most recent drivers. Apple OS did the rest of the work. In mere minutes, I had USB/Wireless/Ethernet connections for all of my desktop and laptop machines, including a PC.
A manual is included that does a good job of explaining features, but they are also quite intuitive.
The machine itself is sturdy and well-built but be warned that it occupies a fairly large footprint. For me, this was not a problem because my previous printer was also large and this one actually occupies the same space more efficiently. The printer measures 16"W x 18" L.
Amazon offered the best pricing on the Brother printer plus the bonus of no shipping charges/no tax. The printer requires four separate ink toner cartridges that each cost >$100 but Amazon sells them for $47-$80. Note that there are two versions: regular and extended use. The 310 series is regular and the 315 series is extended use, which accounts for the difference in pricing. You can find all of the correct refill cartridges for this printer here: Brother TN315BK Black Toner Cartridge for Brother Laser Printer Toner
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This printer has all of the features that we needed -duplex, network capable, and color laser with decent reviews.
I had a good out of box experience installing the printer on my peer-to-peer network so that the printer could be shared by all family members without any particular computer being online. I''m no IT expert but everything worked the first time and that''s worth something.
The machine was packaged and protected well. It took some time to carefully remove all of the packing material. I think that''s good. It''s a heavy printer and you don''t want to damage it in shipping.
If you appreciate Borg design you''ll love this printer.
It works, and that''s that. I''ll have more to say about toner usage later.
Kudos to Brother for a great OOBE.
ADDED 08 Sep 2011
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It''s been a little while and I am still very pleased with this purchase. I do not find it to be any more of a toner hog than the HP Laserjet 5L that I replaced. I DO NOT recommend printing photos with this printer, it''s not quite suited to that application in my humble opinion, I still use my HP Photosmart 8750 for that.
I suspected this would be the case and I proved it today. I have this printer connected to my wireless router with a cable. We installed the drivers today on a laptop while it was wired to the network. We chose the Wired Network option for the installer and let it proceed as normal. When the installation was completed, I removed the wire and allowed the laptop to continue accessing my wireless network. It was able to print over our wireless network to the wired printer NO PROBLEM. This is great. Now, all our house computers are guaranteed access to the shared printer which runs its own print server software.
Very, very pleased with this.
ADDED 15 Dec 2011
=================
It''s been about 6 months and I now have some toner life information. I print regular text-based and some printing from web pages. I have the 4 computers that access this printer set for Toner Save Mode, and only 1 computer set to Not use automatic duplex. We do not print photos on this printer as a rule although there may be some minor exceptions.
Just got a Low Toner warning on the Cyan cartridge and printed off a summary of approximate remaining life:
BK 45%
M 30%
Y 30%
C 15%
These are the standard cartridges (2500 pages for Black, 1500 pages for the rest of them). They will be replaced with the extended cartridges which are a better buy.
A total of 721 pages have been printed, but about half of them are Duplex, which means, twice the toner, so for comparison purposes, think about 1100 pages worth of toner.
We all know that manufacturer numbers for toner life are in effect "inflated" since no one prints what is used for the testing and certification or we''d get the same results. If average numbers were specified, users would see both plus and minus the averages depending on their use. And the product would be forced to sell at a lower price. I''m pretty sure Everyone gets Lower numbers.
That being said, I consider the toner life to be in the ballpark, not too bad, and as I said before, commensurate with the printer that was replaced.
Cheers
