My requirements:
1200 dpi
Auto double side
Wireless
Generic toner/drum readily available
Budget up to $500
Main use is printing ebooks. I don't need MFCs or colour.
I bought a Brother 5200DW recently but unfortunately it's a dud. It started out great, fast and beautiful, but after about 100 pages it started printing streaks even after replacing new set of drum+toner. This experience makes me want to stay away from Brother.
The 5200DW was brand new straight from Synnex the distributor so the drum/toner should be new. I replaced with generic ones which did not produce streaks but there were random specks. When I checked Amazon's reviews the duds are all recent ones, so I think Brother probably has a bad batch going around at the moment.
I have the brother L6200WD it’s great. Generic ink and drum are cheap.
It does wifi printing too which is great.
Our previous Xerox WC3550 printer is good as well but the generic toner is a lot more expensive. But after a while it stopped working, keeps paper jamming. Maybe I have to replace the drum if it has one?
I think paper jam is usually caused by the paper feeding rolling mechanism. Drum causes printing quality issues.
Brother does have cheap but good generic supplies, they just need to get their quality control back on track.
I use the printer at work. Very cost effective and it even staples and puts in hole punches.
I recently discovered the binding machine at work too. Wife asked me to print out one of her old assignments recently. Printed and binded it. I was going to make a laminated cover, but thought it would be taking it too far
Shame work printers log absolutely everything that is printed these days, file name, size, some even log the files themselves.
Work in IT. Just because something is logged does not mean at all that anyone checks anything.
It’s like security cameras, no one is watching or checking it’s in case something happens.
When the boss ask "why are our printing costs so high?" after he spots a 100 page ebook in the printer tray I reckon someone might start looking.
I have been looking for something similar for a small business environment, but cannot find anything worth buying.
Main use is printing ebooks.
Mate just get use to your kindle.
I got a Kindle DX and Kindle paperwhite, but sometimes I just prefer real paper when it's the kind of book that you need to flip pages back and forth often.
Wait.. so you sit there leafing through A4 pages to read a book? And that’s better than a Kondle to you??
Interesting, I not so long ago purchased a Brother 5200DW, has the original Brother cartridge. Often spots & streaks are evident, not very happy over this and have been debating returning the beast for replacement.
Have had other Brother machines in the past and they have been mostly good, but this 5200DW is looking like rubbish!!.
The Office works extended replacement plan and the Brother warranty should sort this problem machine out??.
All in all "Not Happy Jan" to quote the old Telstra ad.
I think you can return defective printer within one month, after that it's the standard one year warranty, I don't know much Officeworks or credit card warranty extensions. I bought with ebay plus and ebay customer service has been surprisingly reassuring, but I didn't expect to need it because Brother printers used to be rock solid for me.
By the way I'm returning it for refund not replacement. Chance of getting another dud is just too high at the moment and I won't be able to get refund the second time.
Standard two year ACL warranty.
We got the L6200. Seems ok. Use generic drum and toners.
It’s cost effective.
I have exactly this printer 5200DW from Brother. I had the same problem and approached Brother tech support. They eventually decided it was the cartridge and replaced it. It happened again. This time they came up with a microcode fix and a replacement toner. It works OK now. I don't recall what firmware level that was and my printer is located too high up for me to read the screen on it without getting a chair to stand on. However, I just noticed that there is new firmware at V1.50 available. I am unsure if updating the firmware will fix the problem immediately or just prevent it happening again. The cartridge may also need replacing even if you update the firmware.
Firmware updating:
Turn on the printer,
run Brother Utilities from the Win 10 Start menu,
Select Tools and then Status Monitor.
If it needs updating you will be advised.
You might be onto something, because my printer worked great straight out of the box, then i installed brother utilities which prompted firmware update, it was around this time that printng quality deteriorated. So if your printer is working fine, i suggest you hold off updating to latest firmware.
The recommendation by Brother support was to do a firmware update to fix it. They appeared to develop that update when I had the problem the second time as I checked and there were no updates available. They were also very generous in that they gave me a 3000 page cartridge first time it failed and when it failed a second time they gave me an 8000 page cartridge. That is worth almost more than the printer, lol.
However, nfr, you may be right. It may have been a certain version of the firmware that was the problem. Brother support were not saying much about the problem so I don't know. They were very happy that I was patient with them and I think this may be why they gave me such a large toner cart. I have the impression that to fix the problem it was necessary to update the firmware AND replace the toner cart. It seemed that once the cart had failed there was no option but to replace it.
We had a similar issue with our Brother, but tried another generic toner. 1 generic one didn't work and we tried another brand and that was fine. When you replaced the drum and the toner were they genuine ones.