HL-3180CDW
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Brother products have been changing the way people work, and play, for years. Our reliable, high-quality, feature-rich printers, scanners, labelers, and more are hard at work in homes everywhere. Whatever your need, Brother products are always "At your side."
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J. Hansen on Amazon
7 years ago
12/11/2015, 12:37 PM
Quite Impressed!
We have had a color Xerox Phaser 6130N for a long time. It finally gave up the ghost, and we were in need of a new printer. This one came along, and it's worked out great. We have a family of 6, and two kids 9 and 7 that are often doing things for school that require printing. Mostly reports, which it does a fantastic job of. No blurriness like an inkjet, of course. Nice, clear print, but I'd expect nothing less of a laser printer.
Color/photos are quite good too. I use an iPhone 6s+ and have printed several photos to the printer. They look great, even just on regular paper.
Some of the features I like best are:
- Airprint functionality, so I can print from my iPhone/iPad
- Ability to save documents to the cloud. Very helpful when I'm scanning things I may need at another time
- Works with Google Cloud Print (this is great, as my kids use a chromebook)
- Easily copy stuff!
We use a Mac, and the software for scanning has worked fine on El Capitan. Since the printer has wi-fi, it's easy to just sync it all up, and scan without physically hooking up to the printer.
We use it often. Haven't had any problems. Ink levels still going strong, and replacement toner doesn't look too expensive. For a home, this is a great solution for your printing/scanning/copying needs.
Luan Gaines on Amazon
7 years ago
12/09/2015, 07:40 AM
The new face of a home office
The Brother HL-3180 CDW copier/scanner has the best features of a home office printer: fast-printing, holds a 250-sheet paper tray and connects via wireless or USB cable (not included), features a touch-screen display for easy scanning and copying. The two-sided feature saves paper and improves efficiency- but best of all- this printer handles card stock weight as easily as standard copy paper. Though not meant for photo-quality copies, the images are bright and crisp, of high quality, perfect for greeting cards, announcements, flyers, etc. So what I expected to use for standard office tasks has become, instead, a cost-efficient way to print my own cards and still produce a near professional-quality product. This is a bonus and expands the copier/scanner’s appeal for school projects, personal use and office tasks, especially multiple, two-sided documents.
I’ll use someone more technically qualified to set up , because the things I have described only touch the surface of this machine’s capabilities (including copying to cloud services (DROPBOX, GOOGLE DRIVE, EVERNOTE, etc.). There are more features than I am able to appreciate- I welcome the instruction of someone who will walk me through the special features that are not yet familiar to me. This is the perfect blend of home printer convenience with state of the art technology to take advantage of the many options now available, an expansion of services and possibilities beyond the former limitations of home office equipment. I expect to have a few challenges in utilizing all the features, as this is a more elaborate printer than my other one. I am looking forward to getting to know my Brother HL- 3180 copier/scanner better and take full advantage of the options it offers. Merry Christmas to me! Luan Gaines/2015.
Bonnie Brody on Amazon
7 years ago
12/04/2015, 11:55 AM
Versatile Multi-Functional Printer/Scanner/Copier
I've had Brother printers before and they have proved to be reliable and long-lasting. This one is multi-functional. It copies and scans in both color and black and white. It has two-sided printing and the paper tray can handle up to 250 sheets of paper. It is wireless which is always a plus. I found it easy to set up. It comes with customer support and a one year warranty.
Benjamin on Amazon
7 years ago
12/03/2015, 18:09 PM
A Hard-Rock Color Laser Printer, Scanner, and Copier
Brother is a top world leader printer manufacturer. They have a very popular line of MFC (multi functional center they call it), and now this top of the line series of HL printers, which all are laser printers either in color, or in black ink only.
This HL-3180CDW is one of the last state of the art technology printer models. This is a digital color printer with convenience copying and scanning. Some of the main features are the flatbed copying and scanning, very fast printing (23 pages per minute, same speed either in color or black!), wi-fi (easy to install and operate using your devices connected to your wi-fi network such as your laptop, tablets, dekstop computers, and smart phones). All these printers nowadays come with the ability to print two-sided, which is actually nice if you, like me, print large documents (so if you are printing a document that is 100 pages long, you will be using only 50 sheets of paper). I have printed regular documents from Microsoft Word, and Excel files and the quality is just outstanding. The Excel document I printed contained several graphs in color, and they look very sharp. I also wanted to print some color pictures on regular paper, and I was truly amazed at the quality of it (please bear in mind this is not a photo printer like the Canon machines, let's say, but if you just want to add pictures on your Word docs for example, or images for your Excel spread sheets, etc., the quality is more than acceptable, it's just excellent!). The printer is very silent, and it takes less than 15 secons for it to wake up (remember that annoyance when you go to your computer, wake it up, send a document to the printer, and it takes 1 or 2 minutes? Well .. this baby will do so in less than 15 seconds, almost as fast as Usain Bolt running the 100 m!). I made some copies, for example my Driver's License, and same thing: fast, reliable, easy, and excellent quality results in seconds. Scanning is also very easy, and I do appreciate the flatbed because I do scan several images from printed books, so the bed is a must for my scanning needs. ALSO, I am an Evernote user, and I do scan a LOT of stuff to be kept in my Evernote application. This printer can directly scan to your Evernote app (also to Dropbox, but I have not tried that yet...). I did scan several business cards and magazine articles and they went to my Evernote app right away, super easy, super convenient. There are so many other things this printer can do in terms of helping you being more productive. The manufacturer has done a very good job at providing all this information right here on this Amazon page. You can also visit their website, where you will find additional information (more or less the same thing it is here though).
This printer comes with a color large LCD display that is actually very user friendly. You can have as many as 250 sheets of paper loaded at a time
I'd say this is a very solid home office printer. I am not sure this can handle the beating of a large company, because there is a recommended monthly print volume of a maximum of 1,500 pages. Most companies easily print that amount in a week ... Brother new machines include 1 year of limited warranty. I have not used the customer service at the time, but I did with another machine I used to have (a MFC) in the past, and I received outstanding customer service over the phone (at the time).
Installation was very easy, common sense applied to state of the art technology and printing in less than 5 minutes (including unboxing). Some reviewers have complained about a cable not being included (cable is NOT needed for installation, just recommended, and once your printer is installed, you do NOT need a cable because this is a wireless printer!) ... it is true, BUT I have so many cables at home, that I am not sure this is even worth mentioning ...
Last words: a hard rock printing color laser printer that also scans and copies, outstanding quality, convenience, and ease of use, a printer that will last you and serve you for years.
C. G. King on Amazon
7 years ago
12/03/2015, 02:39 AM
Cable not included, but I didn't need one for installation
Favorite feature so far is double sided print. It works brilliantly and greatly simplifies my card making. My Christmas cards came out beautifully. The printer is perfectly happy printing on both sides of card stock as well as paper. It's as fast as your internet connection if you're printing wirelessly so for me that isn't always fast since I live out in the sticks and have to use a satellite connection with a JetPack device. But this morning I got a good connection and the printer received the data quickly so my cards came out fast. The printing itself is fast; it's the receiving of data that isn't always.
Now about installation. My son had to bring the printer in, unbox it and put it up on the cabinet for me--it's big and heavy and I'm old He connected it to the power strip, removed the protective strips from the ink cartridges and turned it on. I began 'setup' by looking at the instructions and finding they recommended using a cable, not included, to direct connect to your computer for installation even if you weren't going to rely on that connectivity permanently. Well, not only did I not have the cable, the printer was too far from my computer to connect one anyway, so I just had at it without one. I'd already followed directions on the printer's touch screen to connect it to my JetPack thing as another device. The printer detected the JetPack so all I had to do was select it from the presented list and enter the SSID (Password). It connected, gave me a message saying so and printed a sheet also verifying that as well as another with more verbiage, but since I haven't read that I don't know what it says :).
Next I inserted the installation disk into my computer and let it run its course installing stuff. I'm mildly tech savvy, enough to answer the questions presented and later to fumble around in the computer's 'Control Panel' looking at printers and such. The printer wanted to install itself as my default printer, which I didn't want since my laser printer holds that honor, but then the new printer wouldn't come online, so I had to troubleshoot a bit. Once I let it be the default printer it was happy and has worked fine since. I can select the other printer as needed and haven't found that to be a problem. I'm not always connected to the internet so have to have another printing option. If this printer is connected wirelessly rather than a direct cable connect to the computer, it's not available when you are offline. Anyway, I never really read the instructions since the touch screen on the printer works great for checking things out and telling you what's going on, as does the installation disk.
I fiddled around for a while trying things and am really impressed with the options this printer offers. It holds 250 sheets of paper in the bottom tray, allows single item feed from the middle tray and dispenses the print from the top opening, which also opens wide by lifting the top of the printer should you have a paper jam. I haven't had that problem, but it's nice to know I can get in there if needed. The copier function is great. I haven't tried scanning since I have a good scanner that I like. I also haven't tried the FaceBook or OneNote connection abilities, but they are available as are other popular internet apps. Someday I might read the User Guide to learn how that works, but for now I'm delighted with the basic functions. The colors are clear and print with no smudging, black and white printing is great as well. There is a toner saver option which I haven't tried and will see how long the cartridges last normally. I suspect they are not cheap to replace. My old laser printer cartridge isn't either but it lasts so long, I don't mind. In this case there are four cartridges to allow for the colors. They are all that large size like the laser printer cartridge.
Bottom line, I didn't find the printer hard to install and I didn't need a cable for the installation as long as it was connected to my JetPack. I wanted to be able to print from my Surface Pro 3 as well, but will have to figure out how to get the drivers I need installed since that computer doesn't have a drive for the installation disk. The Surface sees the printer, but tells me it needs the proper drivers and doesn't seem inclined to fetch them on its own. No great loss at the moment though since I can send items to OneDrive and print from my regular computer. The printer has worked beautifully and gives superior results
Russell Fanelli on Amazon
7 years ago
11/27/2015, 04:38 AM
Be sure you have a USB Interface Cable before beginning the installation process!
This first review is for readers who want to answer the question, Can I install and use this Brother Printer myself or am I going to need some help? Later I will update this review to discuss the various features of this expensive printer/copier.
The answer is YES. I think that most people who buy this machine, even though they are not "tech savvy," will be able to install and use this printer right out of the box.
First things first. This is a big, heavy machine that weighs about fifty pounds. The FedEx guy had some difficulty getting it into the house.I needed my grandson to lift the machine and bring it to my third floor office.
A Start Here Manual guides the first-time user through the installation process. The Guide is reasonably accurate and well-written. It took me about fifteen minutes to unpack the copier and remove all the protective devices placed in the machine to keep it from being damaged during shipping. Four printing cartridges need to be lifted from the machine and the plastic which protects the cartridges needs to be carefully removed. The cartridges are color coded and fit back easily into the printer.
A CD Rom disc is included in the packaging and is necessary to properly install the printer. I placed the CD Rom into my HP Windows 7 desktop computer and waited for instructions. From this point on, the computer directs the user through the installation process. A cord is provided with the machine to provide power for the printer.
A USB Interface Cable is NOT INCLUDED in the packaging to connect the printer to the computer.
Fortunately for me, I did have available the appropriate USB Cable and was able to attach the printer to my computer. I would have been most upset if this was not the case.
The printer has now been properly set-up and attached to my computer. Does it work? YES. I first took a word document and printed it without problem. Then I took that same document and copied it with the machine -- again without problem. The Word document and the copy were crisp, clear, and perfectly printed.
For my readers, I will come back later and update this review when I have had a chance to use the many features of this Color Printer. I think that most people are going to be able to install and use this printer if they have a USB Cable available and just a bit of tech savvy. From beginning to end, it should take forty minutes or so to get this printer up and running.
For those who buy this machine, please leave me comments about your experience. I am sure other readers of this review will appreciate what you have to say. Thanks.
Update 1: I just printed a message I received that had a beautiful large picture of New England Fall Foliage. Even though I am using inexpensive copy paper, the image that I printed was crisp, clear, and colorful. I compared the printed image with the original on the computer and I am pleased to report that they are quite similar. More tests to follow.