Brother Laser Printer All in One Monochrome Reviews

Brother'due south MFC-L2717DW ($199.99) is an entry-level all-in-one (AIO) printer aimed at small or habitation offices or workgroups with moderate press and copying requirements. Information technology as well works well as a personal monochrome laser AIO. A direct competitor to our Editors' Option Canon imageClass MF269dw, some other multifunction monochrome laser, and Epson's EcoTank ET-M3170 Wireless Monochrome All-in-Ane Supertank Printer, an inkjet-based laser alternative that's too a PCMag top pick, the Brother is fast and prints text well. Still, like near entry-level lasers, it'due south somewhat expensive to use, rendering it more than of a depression-volume print and copy solution.

Light and Meaty

Measuring 12.v by 15.7 by 12.5 inches and weighing only 26 pounds, the Brother MFC-L2717DW is almost average in size and weight for an entry-level AIO. Several competing models, including the Catechism MF269dw mentioned above, Lexmark's MB2236adw, and HP's LaserJet Pro MFP M148fdw, are within an inch here or there in size and a few pounds in girth. Epson's ET-M3170 monochrome inkjet is significantly smaller and almost 10 pounds lighter. In whatever instance, they all take up very petty desk space and are easy to get out of the box and unproblematic to move around for cleaning and such.

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The MFC-L2717DW comes with a handy 50-canvass manual-duplexing automatic certificate feeder (ADF) for scanning, copying, and faxing multipage originals. ("Manual duplexing" means you must flip 2-sided pages yourself to scan the 2d sides.) And so do the Canon and Lexmark, while the HP and Epson have only 35-canvass ADFs. The Catechism and Epson ADFs, withal, are auto-duplexing, meaning that they browse the second side of double-sided originals without your aid.

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You can handle scanning, copying, faxing, and most other walk-up tasks, such every bit setting security options or scanning to and printing from the cloud, from the Brother's control panel. It'due south somewhat blowsy-looking and push-busy, made upwards of a two-line monochrome LCD, several navigation and other buttons for setting upwardly and initiating specific tasks, and a 10-key number pad for dialing fax numbers.

Every bit with most business-oriented AIOs, this ane also allows you to operate, monitor, configure, and generate and impress reports from a congenital-in web portal accessible from most browsers, including mobile and remote browsers (when the printer is configured properly).

The MFC-L2717DW'due south paper handling consists of a single 250-sheet tray and an override slot for one-off printing of envelopes, labels, and other media that might otherwise force you to empty and reconfigure the main cassette. This is the same capacity every bit the other machines mentioned here so far, except the HP M148fdw, which holds 260 sheets dissever between a 250-sheet main drawer and a ten-sail override slot.

The Blood brother's maximum monthly duty cycle is xv,000 pages, with a recommended ceiling of 2,000 pages. Catechism hasn't published a maximum book rating for the MF269dw, but virtually of the company'due south other like entry-level models are rated at 15,000 pages maximum. Catechism does, however, specify the recommended monthly print volume at up to 2,500 prints.

The Epson'south maximum rating is iii,000 pages lower than the MFC-L2717DW'southward, and the recommended rating is 1,000 pages fewer, while the Lexmark'southward duty wheel is twice that of the Brother model and the recommended volume is the same. Finally, the HP's maximum rating is five,000 prints more than the Brother's, just its recommended volume is 500 pages fewer.

Brother backs upward the MFC-L2717DW with a two-year limited warranty, extended to three years if you buy the printer at Sam's Club or Costco.

Respectable Connectivity and Software

Standard connectivity is Ethernet, Wi-Fi, connecting to a single PC via USB, and Wi-Fi Direct. (The terminal is a peer-to-peer networking protocol for connecting your handheld devices to the printer without either being role of the same network.) In addition to Wi-Fi Direct, other mobile options consist of Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria, and Blood brother'south iPrint&Scan for both Android and iOS.

In addition to iPrint&Scan and the standard drivers, other bundled software includes Nuance PaperPort SE with OCR for Windows, a popular document management and text conversion utility. Also bachelor for download from Brother's back up site are drivers and software for macOS (10.10 through 10.15) and Linux (rpm and deb).

Scorching Impress Speeds, On-Par Prints

Brother rates the MFC-L2717DW at 36 pages per minute (ppm), which is fast for an under-$200 entry-level laser AIO. When printing our 12-folio Microsoft Word text document (over Ethernet from our standard Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro), it churned at 36.7ppm.

That's the same as the Lexmark MB2236adw, 6.8ppm faster than the Canon MF269dw and HP M148fdw, and a whopping 15.4ppm faster than the Epson ET-M3170. When I combined the results from the 12-page Word document with the scores from press our drove of complex graphics- and photo-laden Acrobat, Excel, and PowerPoint files, the MFC-L2717DW managed an overall speed of xiv.2ppm.

That score trailed the competing laser AIOs mentioned here by 4 to 5 pages per minute and was one.6ppm slower than the Epson inkjet. But so, the Brother isn't exactly ideal for press graphics and photos.

The MFC-L2717DW'south text print quality is about average for a depression-end monochrome light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation AIO. Common fonts came out well-shaped and highly legible, fifty-fifty at very minor point sizes, making text output better than adequate for almost business applications. Business concern graphics such equally charts, graphs, and clip art, on the other hand, printed with some instances of toner distribution flaws, including banding in dark fills and gradients and somewhat blurry grayscale tones. Simple graphics such as light fills and lines came out just fine, but this AIO is non well suited for PowerPoint and other handouts.

Average Entry-Level Running Costs

Compared to their alternatives, including high-volume inkjets and college-volume laser AIOs, entry-level laser printers are typically expensive to use. When you purchase the highest-yield toner cartridge (3,000 pages at a list price of $76.99) for the MFC-L2717DW, each monochrome folio should cost you around 2.six cents. That'southward a tenth of a cent or so cheaper than the Canon and Lexmark and about 0.8 cent lower than the HP M148fdw.

If yous plan on printing anywhere about the Brother's 2,500-page recommended volume, though, you should probably consider something else, such as Epson's ET-M3170 (0.3 cent per folio) or a heavier-duty, higher-volume laser. Our Editors' Choice Brother MFC-L6700DW, for instance, prints at 1.5 cents per page, and if high volume and depression running costs are what you're looking for, check out Epson's WorkForce Pro WF-M5799, another inkjet-based laser alternative that prints at nigh 3-quarters of a cent.

The bespeak is that a penny-per-page difference in cost volition set up yous back $100 for every 10,000 pages y'all print. Information technology makes a lot more sense to pay $100 or $200 more up front end to relieve hundreds over the life of the printer. The more you lot print, the more important the running costs.

An In-Firm Text and Sales Counter Match

Not all printers meet all application requirements. While I can't recommend the MFC-L2717DW for press marketing materials and other visuals, it'south a fast, splendid text printer and copier ideal for sales and other front end-counter applications where speed is disquisitional.

If you lot need good-looking graphics, cheque out one of our Editors' Choice models, such every bit Catechism's MF269dw. For print quality and depression running costs (though not high speed), Epson's inkjet-based ET-M3170 is a skilful choice. If, however, rapid text, times 200 to 300 pages per month, is what you need, the Brother MFC-L2717DW is a good bet, and information technology will probably last a very long time.

Brother MFC-L2717DW

Cons

The Bottom Line

The Brother MFC-L2717DW is a depression-priced, entry-level monochrome AIO with attractive, fast text output, making information technology a decent choice for in-house and sales-counter printing and copying.

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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/brother-mfc-l2717dw

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