Brother Printer HL2270DW Wireless Monochrome Printer Review. The hl-2270dw is a compact, monochrome laser printer with built-in wireless and ethernet network interfaces for small office or home office printer sharing. it features a fast print speed up to 27ppm, automatic duplex printing for two-sided documents, and up to 2400 x 600 dpi resolution for high-quality output. in addition, the printer’s stylish, space-saving design fits virtually anywhere.the hl-2270dw provides flexible paper handling via an adjustable, 250-sheet capacity tray and a manual by-pass slot for printing thicker media. it also offers a high-yield 2,600-page replacement toner cartridge to help lower operating costs and a toner save mode for less critical business documents....
"Brother HL-2270DW" 2010-10-15
By The Admin
I purchased this unit from a Office Max in NY. The price was $162 including tax. This seemed like a perfect fit for my needs, since it had a duplexer and wireless built in.
I am a Network Admin and even I had some trouble setting this printer up initially. I will list some very helpful steps below to streamline the process. Brother does not really explain enough in detail about the setup portion of this printer. I had to go digging around on the web to find configuration settings. I actually found a PDF of the HL-2170W settings, which were identical to this unit.
Since this unit lacks a LCD, it can be very difficult to know what the printer is doing. If you are setting this up for USB printing, just install the latest drivers, 32 or 64bit from brother.com site and you should be fine.
If you are planning on using this through the network interface, wireless or wired, it can get challenging. Brothers utility tries to setup your routers settings into the device but it can not pick it up while it is plugged into the USB port, even though Windows can see the device and print from it just fine. What I did was configure my laptop wireless card into ad-hoc mode and then logged into the printers web interface to then configure my wireless router.
In order to use the above mentioned method, first configure your laptops wireless card into ad-hoc mode (google it if you have never done that before). Reset the printer to factory default settings by turning off the power switch and holding the go button and turning the power switch back on. Keep holding the go button for 5 secs and the lights will disappear. Then press the go button 8 times and the unit will reset. Now the network must be reset as well. Repeat the same steps but this time press the go button 7 times to reset the network.
After everything is reset, we will need to find the printers IP address. Press the go button 3 times and the printer settings should be printed out. It is very important that the wireless settings are showing as "active" and not "inactive", otherwise repeat the reset procedure. After you have the IP, change the IP of your laptop to the same range. Now it should show up in the windows wireless networks available then connect the 2 devices. From this point on, you should be able to go into your browser and type in the printers IP address, which takes you to the printers web server. The default PW for "Admin" is "access".
The rest is pretty much self-explanatory. Look around in the menu and find "wireless" and configure your router manually or browse for it. Make sure to power-cycle the unit after all settings are finalized.
After all the settings were put in place, I was able to print from all the wireless laptops. This printer prints quality documents and is plenty fast for home or office use. My next challenge is to find a aftermarket toner, since this is a new printer and they are not readily available yet. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on some good refill kits, please let me know in the comments.
"Am I even supposed to have this printer yet?" 2010-10-06
By P. Jackson
I bought this from a retail OfficeDepot outlet. OfficeDepot and OfficeMax are the only websites that seem to carry this printer at the moment and only OfficeDepot would actually let me order it -- and it turned out my local OfficeDepot store actually had exactly ONE of these in-stock, which I promptly purchased.
Why? It's perfect for what I needed:
- Wireless to eliminate cable clutter, enable locating it in the most convenient spot, and enable printing from my girlfriend's laptop from anywhere in the house.
- It's a laser printer, so it prints faster and cheaper than an inkjet -- of course there's no color, but if we need that that's what a specialized graphics/photo printer is for. This is just for text and things that don't require color or extremely detailed graphics, which is 99.9% of what I print (the text and graphics are perfectly crisp though, don't get me wrong).
- It's got auto-duplexing, so you don't waste half (the blank back-side) of your paper when you don't need to and don't have to waste time manually flipping the paper with printers that only do manual-duplexing. Saves space, time, and money.
- Easy to set-up via the included CD, assuming you're not totally clue-less with computers. You'll need a USB cable to go between your computer and the printer, or an ethernet cable to go between your router and the printer, to set up the wireless for the first time. No, there's no LCD screen or any way to set it up without your computer, but you can't expect things like that in this price bracket.
- It's cheap. Only printer in the ~$150 price range I could find that's laser with wireless and auto-duplexing.
The only reasons I docked one star from the rating:
- No third-party toner is available yet. Brother made new toner cartridges for these 2200-series models, and finding even that toner is tough. So, there's no ultra-cheap third-party toner available yet (that I can find), but even with the Brother toner cartridges it runs about 3.5 cents per page with the regular cartridge or about 2.5 cents if you get the high-yield. Still pretty good.
- OfficeDepot is the only place you can seem to find this printer anywhere at the moment. I dunno if they got it early, if this model is delayed or discontinued before it's even really come out and I'm a bit afraid I'll end up having a printer I can't find toner/service for at all.
But, assuming I'm supposed to have it, this is the perfect home/home-office/small-business laser printer. Highly recommended (once you can actually find it)!
"Good printer, crappy duplexer" 2010-10-24
By J. Chang (Philadelphia, PA United States)
I bought this from the local Staples because it was in stock and the same price. But it's a royal pain in the butt to set up for wireless (I highly recommend the USB option) and once it was set up, the duplexer mangled 4 out of every 5 sheets. The main reason I got this printer was because of the built in duplexer, and so this was really disappointing. I am going to return it to Staples and perhaps get another one to see if the duplexer was a one-time issue. But now I'm worried that the duplexer will crap out after my return period ends, which would annoy me no end.
By The Admin
I purchased this unit from a Office Max in NY. The price was $162 including tax. This seemed like a perfect fit for my needs, since it had a duplexer and wireless built in.
I am a Network Admin and even I had some trouble setting this printer up initially. I will list some very helpful steps below to streamline the process. Brother does not really explain enough in detail about the setup portion of this printer. I had to go digging around on the web to find configuration settings. I actually found a PDF of the HL-2170W settings, which were identical to this unit.
Since this unit lacks a LCD, it can be very difficult to know what the printer is doing. If you are setting this up for USB printing, just install the latest drivers, 32 or 64bit from brother.com site and you should be fine.
If you are planning on using this through the network interface, wireless or wired, it can get challenging. Brothers utility tries to setup your routers settings into the device but it can not pick it up while it is plugged into the USB port, even though Windows can see the device and print from it just fine. What I did was configure my laptop wireless card into ad-hoc mode and then logged into the printers web interface to then configure my wireless router.
In order to use the above mentioned method, first configure your laptops wireless card into ad-hoc mode (google it if you have never done that before). Reset the printer to factory default settings by turning off the power switch and holding the go button and turning the power switch back on. Keep holding the go button for 5 secs and the lights will disappear. Then press the go button 8 times and the unit will reset. Now the network must be reset as well. Repeat the same steps but this time press the go button 7 times to reset the network.
After everything is reset, we will need to find the printers IP address. Press the go button 3 times and the printer settings should be printed out. It is very important that the wireless settings are showing as "active" and not "inactive", otherwise repeat the reset procedure. After you have the IP, change the IP of your laptop to the same range. Now it should show up in the windows wireless networks available then connect the 2 devices. From this point on, you should be able to go into your browser and type in the printers IP address, which takes you to the printers web server. The default PW for "Admin" is "access".
The rest is pretty much self-explanatory. Look around in the menu and find "wireless" and configure your router manually or browse for it. Make sure to power-cycle the unit after all settings are finalized.
After all the settings were put in place, I was able to print from all the wireless laptops. This printer prints quality documents and is plenty fast for home or office use. My next challenge is to find a aftermarket toner, since this is a new printer and they are not readily available yet. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on some good refill kits, please let me know in the comments.
By P. Jackson
I bought this from a retail OfficeDepot outlet. OfficeDepot and OfficeMax are the only websites that seem to carry this printer at the moment and only OfficeDepot would actually let me order it -- and it turned out my local OfficeDepot store actually had exactly ONE of these in-stock, which I promptly purchased.
Why? It's perfect for what I needed:
- Wireless to eliminate cable clutter, enable locating it in the most convenient spot, and enable printing from my girlfriend's laptop from anywhere in the house.
- It's a laser printer, so it prints faster and cheaper than an inkjet -- of course there's no color, but if we need that that's what a specialized graphics/photo printer is for. This is just for text and things that don't require color or extremely detailed graphics, which is 99.9% of what I print (the text and graphics are perfectly crisp though, don't get me wrong).
- It's got auto-duplexing, so you don't waste half (the blank back-side) of your paper when you don't need to and don't have to waste time manually flipping the paper with printers that only do manual-duplexing. Saves space, time, and money.
- Easy to set-up via the included CD, assuming you're not totally clue-less with computers. You'll need a USB cable to go between your computer and the printer, or an ethernet cable to go between your router and the printer, to set up the wireless for the first time. No, there's no LCD screen or any way to set it up without your computer, but you can't expect things like that in this price bracket.
- It's cheap. Only printer in the ~$150 price range I could find that's laser with wireless and auto-duplexing.
The only reasons I docked one star from the rating:
- No third-party toner is available yet. Brother made new toner cartridges for these 2200-series models, and finding even that toner is tough. So, there's no ultra-cheap third-party toner available yet (that I can find), but even with the Brother toner cartridges it runs about 3.5 cents per page with the regular cartridge or about 2.5 cents if you get the high-yield. Still pretty good.
- OfficeDepot is the only place you can seem to find this printer anywhere at the moment. I dunno if they got it early, if this model is delayed or discontinued before it's even really come out and I'm a bit afraid I'll end up having a printer I can't find toner/service for at all.
But, assuming I'm supposed to have it, this is the perfect home/home-office/small-business laser printer. Highly recommended (once you can actually find it)!
By J. Chang (Philadelphia, PA United States)
I bought this from the local Staples because it was in stock and the same price. But it's a royal pain in the butt to set up for wireless (I highly recommend the USB option) and once it was set up, the duplexer mangled 4 out of every 5 sheets. The main reason I got this printer was because of the built in duplexer, and so this was really disappointing. I am going to return it to Staples and perhaps get another one to see if the duplexer was a one-time issue. But now I'm worried that the duplexer will crap out after my return period ends, which would annoy me no end.
