Category: Network Printers and All-in-ones

Achieving a failover printer setup in your business

Brother HL-2240D compact monochrome laser printer

Brother HL-2240D compact monochrome laser printer – an example of a workflow printer

I have come across situations with small offices such as clinics who run one or more dedicated laser printers that turns out receipts, invoices and other documents as part of the customer-facing business workflow. Some offices may run the printers also for some back-office requirements like preparing reports or balance sheets for that workstation.

But there is the situation where the printer can break down, usually with a mechanical failure like frequent paper jamming. This can happen more frequently as a machine ages and is worked hard in a busy office. It is analogous to that situation most of us experience when a car gets to that point in its life where it frequently lives at the mechanic’s workshop and drills a hole in your pocket because it is always breaking down.

This situation can impair the business’s workflow especially as one has to work out how to rectify a paper jam or, in some cases, reset the machine. As well, no woman would want to ruin their beautifully-done fingernails knocking them on the machine’s internals while removing jammed up paper.

In these situations, it is a good idea to set up a failover printing arrangement where you have other printers that come in to play if the workstation’s primary machine fails. This is easier to achieve if all of the printers accessible to the office or reception area are linked to the network.

For example, you could use a multifunction for this purpose even though each workstation computer has a dedicated laser printer like the Brother HL-2240D or Dell 1130n. The multifunction printer, which is often expected to serve as the main copier and fax machine for the organisation, could be a machine like the Brother MFC-8370DN or HP LaserJet M1536dnf for a monochrome variety or a Brother MFC-9460CDN or HP LaserJet Pro Color M475 Series for a colour variety. Even one of the high-end business inkjets like the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 could do the job just as well.

Some environments that have two or more workstations may prefer to have one workflow printer per workstation. Here, it would be preferable to connect the printers via the network rather than directly to the workstation computers. Here this can allow the other workflow printer to be used as a failover measure.

HP LaserJet M1536dnf monochrome laser multifunction printer

HP LaserJet M1536dnf monochrome laser multifunction printer – an example of a multifunction expected to be a small business’s copier and fax

But what you would have to do is to set up the workstations to use the printer that is local to them as well as this main multifunction printer or other workflow printer. This may be as simple as adding the driver set for the main printer to the computers or it may also require the line-of-business software to be set up to allow the use of two or more printers.

As far as default printers are concerned, you would have to set the primary dedicated printer as the default machine, then have the users select the main multifunction printer as a secondary printer whenever their primary printer fails. This can be done as part of ordering the print job in most software or going to the Printers option in the operating system and setting the multifunction printer as the default while the single-function workflow printer is out of action.

If you run a server-driven printing environment, it may be worth looking at options that allow failover printing so that print jobs that come from one workstation appear at particular printers in an order of availability.

Once you look at this option for setting up multiple printers in your office or reception area, you could then be sure of an arrangement where a printer failure doesn’t impede on your business workflow or affect how your business is perceived by the people your business benefits.

Product Review–Brother HL-6180DW monochrome laser printer

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother HL-6180DW monochrome laser printer which is Brother’s latest entry in to the “office workhorse” laser-printer market.

The printer that I am reviewing here is the top-of-the-line model which has a page throughput of 48 pages per minute, a high-capacity paper tray and wireless networking. There are cheaper variants that have a lesser-capacity paper tray and work more slowly, with the models in this group having different connectivity options having wireless networking, Ethernet networking only or USB direct-connect only. All of them are driven by the same heavy-duty monochrome laser print engine and can print on both sides of the page.

Brother HL-6180DW monochrome network laser printer

Print Paper Trays Connections
B/W 1 x A4 USB 2.0
Laser xerographic Multi-purpose tray Ethernet, 802.11g/n Wi-Fi wireless
Auto-duplex  Optional high-capacity A4 paper tray Wi-Fi Direct, IPv6 ready

Prices

Printer

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$549

Optional Extras:

Optional high-capacity paper tray: AUD$180

Inks and Toners

Standard High-Capacity Extra-Capacity
Price Pages Price Pages Price
Black AUD$115.20 3000 AUD$183.90 8000 AUD$200.40 12000

 

Servicing and Other Parts (Laser Printers)

Price Pages
Drum Kit AUD$171.82 30000

The printer itself

The Brother HL-6180DW is able to connect to a wired Ethernet or 802.11g/n Wi-Fi wireless network. For that matter, it can support Wi-Fi Direct where it effectively becomes its own access point as well as AirPrint driver-free printing for the iOS platform. It still works with Brother’s iPrint&Scan Android app, being able to print Web pages, PDFs and photos from Android or iOS devices. It is also future-proof by being equipped for IPv6 in a dual-stack manner.

As a monochrome laser printer, this printer and the rest of the series are pitched as a “heavy-duty” take of the HL-2240D and similar units that I previously reviewed. These used a separately-replaceable toner and drum setup with the toner cartridge being “nested” in the drum unit that is loaded in to the front of the printer. This still has the advantage of the drum unit being separately replaceable which is more relevant to equipment that is expected to do a lot of work.

But the difference between these units and the other compact units is that the print engines on these models are optimised for heavy-duty printing. Here, you notice the difference with behaviour like the printer sounding like it is doing a normal print run even when working on both sides of the paper.

Printer setup experience

Hardware setup

Brother HL-6180DN laser printer control panel detail

Control panel

Something that can confuse some users is the front-door latch being confusingly part of the output retainer tab. This may be of concern when you are setting up the printer and removing all the packaging material or if you have to ask someone who isn’t familiar with the machine to change the toner or rectify a paper jam.

But once I opened the machine’s front service door, it didn’t take long to get the printer up and ready for use. The drum unit, with the toner cartridge. dropped in to the slot without any risk of user confusion, The paper was also easy to load up with a drawer that didn’t feel tacky.

Software setup

As is my practice when reviewing printers, I install the latest driver set from the manufacturer’s Web site rather than working from the CD that came with the equipment. This is to be sure I am not running a driver set that has bugs or isn’t tuned for best performance with current needs because of the desire amongst manufacturers to get the product to market very quickly.

During the installation phase, the driver software discovered the printer very quickly and was able to have the printer ready to go within a few minutes. Like other driver programs used with Brother printers, it still has the same easy-to-use user interface where there is a list of selected options for the print job.

Printer useability and page quality

The Brother HL-6180DW laser printer doesn’t take long to start turning out the print jobs. Here, it took only a second from when I clicked the “Print” button on the computer for it to come to life and have the first page of the document coming out of the output bay. There wasn’t any unnecessary curling or buckling with the paper after a print run because the printer’s fuser unit was effectively at temperature when the job came in. Even the auto-duplex cycle was very quick with it taking around three seconds to print both sides of the page.

There is a confidential-print mode where you can set up a passcode that you enter in to the printer to claim the print job. But, like the other single-function printers with this feature, it requires the user to enter the passcode using the “pick’n’choose” method with the arrow keys and this can cause users to be impatient with this printer.

Brother HL-6180DN laser printer replaceable parts

Separately-replaceable toner cartridge and drum unit that nest in to each other

Like all of the Brother laser printers, the HL-6180DW uses a separately-replaceable toner cartridge and drum unit which slot in to the front of the unit. Here, like the compact HL-2240D and others in that series, this unit requires the drum unit to be removed from the printer before you can replace the toner cartridge. But it is still easy to detach and attach the toner cartridge and drum unit by you pressing a distinct green tab to separate these pieces.

The auto-duplex function was exact with the registration when printing A4. This would be important for desktop publishing, especially if you want to turn out tent cards, door hangers and the like.

When you print colour photos using this printer, the 1200dpi image was brighter than the 600dpi image, thus was also close to what a colour image would look like on those old black-and-white TVs. The printer also turned out some very sharp text from material printed out from the computer.

The Brother HL-6180 laser printer was very reliable with turning out a large auto-duplex print job, thus not being prone to jam up. In fact if it runs out of paper, you don’t need to do anything further to get the job going beyond just putting the paper in the drawer.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

The Brother HL-6180DW and others in this series could benefit from a few useability improvements here. For example, a distinctly-coloured latch release for the front service door could be beneficial here because this is hard to find amongst the document retainer flap on the top of the printer. Here, the confusion can occur if a user had to open up the printer to replace the toner or rectify a paper jam.

As well, there is the absence of a “fuel-gauge” on the display to show how much toner is available. Here, this can be useful if you were to determine whether to always run high-capacity cartridges or know if you were to order extra toner after a large print job.

Similarly the printer could benefit from a USB port to permit walk-up printing of PDF files or use of a USB keypad to improve the useability of the printer’s “secure print” function. This could be delivered as a product differentiator for the high-end models. As well, the HL-5470DW could be able to work with the extra-high-capacity toner cartridge, which could be handy if you were to avoid having to spend heaps of money on toner.

As well, the end-of-job cool-down noise could be reduced by, perhaps, gradually slowing down the fan’s speed through the cooling cycle or running the fan very fast for a few minutes just at the end of a print job.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

The Brother HL-6180DW laser printer is one I would recommend for use as an office’s main laser printer. This would be very important in paper-intense environments like schools or medical and legal practices or for those of us who are doing plenty of monochrome desktop publishing. If you could afford to, you may be at a point where you can use the high-capacity or extra-high-capacity toner cartridges for most of the machine’s working life and use the standard-capacity toner cartridge as a short-term measure if the organisation was short on cash.

If you want to save money but want a heavy-duty laser printer, I would recommend that you could go for the Brother HL-5470DW if you value Wi-Fi connectivity or the HL-5450DN if you are just connecting to an Ethernet or HomePlug network segment. Here, you don’t have the ability to load up a large quantity of paper or use the extra-capacity toner cartridge. But, as I have said before, I would recommend using the high-capacity toner cartridges due to the low cost-per-page and the long time between replacing them.

Brother introduces an inkjet printer that implements landscape paper feed to achieve a compact size

Article

Brother crams all-in-one functionality into a pint-size package for Business Smart series – Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Brother USA

Press Release (PDF)

My Comments

I was reading the Engadget article about this Brother multifunction printer and found that this is another example of improving on the printer’s design. The previous examples I have seen and consider of note include the use of a “capillary” pipe system and front-loading ink cartridges to allow for a compact printer design, the design of A3 multifunction inkjet printers and designing compact colour LED printers that use four colour drums.

Typically a printer or multifunction prints in a portrait manner where the paper is fed in to the machine using the short edge. Then the print head works across that sheet along that edge. This has been the way to go for most printers because it was known not to be likely to jam but makes it hard for manufacturers to design a compact printer system with a reduced footprint.

What Brother has done with their latest “Business Smart” inkjet printers, headlined by the MFC-J4510DW is to implement landscape printing. This is where the paper is drawn in by the long edge and the print head moves across the long edge of the page. It has allowed them to design a very shallow machine that doesn’t need to occupy much desk space because the paper is held lengthways within the machine. Another advantage is to avoid the bulky look of paper trays that jut out from the front of the printer, which can be seen to make the machine look ugly.

Of course, the MFC-J4510DW which was cited in the article and the press release has the expectations of a current-specification business printer. These include network connectivity including Wi-Fi, low running costs due to availability of separate-colour cartridges including high-yield cartridges, app-assisted printing from mobile devices and auto-duplex printing which cuts down on paper used, prints documents that are more intuitive to read and opens up desktop-publishing possibilities. It can also print 11”x17” pages as long as the paper is fed in the bypass tray.

There are some limitations like the inability to print without borders when doing auto-duplex printing but I would expect for Brother to iron out these difficulties come the next iteration of this series.

Once these printers are released, it could be a chance for Brother to work further on compact printers that could appeal to particular applications where the narrow footprint is desired.

Product Review–HP OfficeJet 6700 business colour inkjet multifunction printer

Introduction

I am reviewing the Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet 6700 Premium business colour inkjet multifunction printer. This is the successor to the OfficeJet 6500 series of network multifunction colour inkjets pitched as a SOHO or small-business printer and has a similar capability to these printers. They have money-saving functions like a four-cartridge ink system and automatic duplex printing as well as a Super Group 3 colour fax and automatic document feeder.

But this one, like the OfficeJet 6500a, also supports the HP ePrint ecosystem and Apple AirPrint abilities which allows email-to-print as well as app-driven walk-up printing. They also use a different cartridge to their predecessors but which cost similarly and have a similar page yield to these ones.

HP OfficeJet 6700 Premium business inkjet multifunction printer

Print Scan Copy Fax /
E-mail
Paper Trays Connections
Colour Colour Colour Colour 1xA4 USB 2.0
Ink-jet Resolution ID copy Super G3 Ethernet, 802.11g/n WPA2 WPS Wi-Fi
Auto-duplex Automatic document feeder HP ePrint receive

Prices

Printer

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$279

Inks and Toners

High-Capacity
Price Pages
Black AUD$49.12 1000
Cyan AUD$24.26 825
Magenta AUD$24.26 825
Yellow AUD$24.26 825

 

The printer itself

The HP OfficeJet 6700 is the typical size of a SOHO / small-business inkjet multifunction and, like most HP printers offered nowadays, has the paper concealed in a tray that is fully closed. It is not as well-built as the OfficeJet 8600 Series but is still well built as expected for an office printer.

Walk-up functions

HP OfficeJet 6700 Premium control panel detail

The touchscreen control panel

The OfficeJet can become a high-quality colour copier which can also support ID copy abilities. It also can become a colour fax machine which works to Super G3 fax standards.

The USB port on the front of the machine is for walk-up printing of photos held on memory keys or memory-card adaptors. It can support walk-up scanning of documents to the memory key but doesn’t support walk-up printing of PDF or similar documents. As well, it could benefit from working as a print device with PictBridge-enabled cameras.

The ePrint apps allows the printer to work as a “walk-up” stationery or newspaper printer and even has access to the various document repositories like DropBox so you can have documents available to “print on demand”.

Computer functions

The driver software setup was very quick and it didn’t need the printer to be fully awake for the computer to discover it. Even as the installer was loading the software on to my hard disk, the printer was being discovered as a destination device while it was in the dormant mode with just the standby light glowing.

The print driver doesn’t draw too much on the computer’s resources and is able to give a rough preview of how the print job would appear with the current settings. It even provides just the basic setup options with the ability to go to the advanced options by clicking the “Advanced” button. This tactic avoids the need to think of “hope I have set it up correctly” and can benefit those of us who may find the computer difficult to use. Similarly, the scanning function that is part of this driver responds properly to control-panel-initiated scanning and doesn’t take up too much resources.

Like nearly all HP network-capable printers, this printer supports the HP ePrint system which I have covered a lot on HomeNetworking01.info. This has the printer having its own email address so you can send documents to the printer at that address. It also has the ePrint Apps facility so you can turn out newspapers, forms and similar documents.

Print quality and useability

HP OfficeJet 6700 Premium front-load ink cartridges

Front-loading ink cartridges rather than lifting a heavy lid

Like its bigger brother the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 Plus, the HP OfficeJet 6700 has a front-loading arrangement for the ink cartridges. This avoids the need to mess with a heavy lid when you need to change the inks. But the print area isn’t illuminated which may be of concern if you had to identify the location of a paper jam in the print path.

The speed in which a document is printed was very quick where it took only a few seconds to turn out one side of a document. The dwell time that has to occur between printing each side of a double-sided document was around a few seconds and could be capitalised on by slowly retracting the paper in to the duplexer while this occurs rather than pausing then retracting the paper.

Speaking of this, I did a registration test on the auto-duplex function to see whether there was any drifting when a double-sided document was printed. The duplex print of the “Stop The Traffik” download-to-print door-hanger was exact in such a way that you could print then cut out the document exactly. This is a bonus for those of us who do desktop publishing and want to print booklets, door hangers, luggage tags and other documents where an exact lineup between front and back are critical.

As I have observed from this, the printer has been very reliable with the basic print job which uses regular office paper. It didn’t matter whether the job was turned out on one side or both sides.

The HP OfficeJet 6700 has a problem with the scanner when it comes to handling bound documents like books. Here, the unit shows up paper-jam error messages relating to the automatic document feeder if the lid is partially open and allowed to rest on the document, usually to allow optimum copying of these documents.

The  HP has shown a problem with loading and handling photo-grade glossy paper and doesn’t even support this paper as far as the driver is concerned. I even noticed that it shown up “out-of-paper” error conditions when it tried to feed the glossy paper where I had set the driver for “other brochure papers”. However, it loses definition in some areas and is weak with some blue colours but is OK with other colours including flesh tones.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

Being a cheaper printer, the HP OfficeJet 6700 has a smaller display which may affect useability with some older people.

The automatic document feeder could be worked on so as to allow the user to partially close the scanner lid when they scan or copy bound documents. As well, like many multifunction printers equipped with this feature, it could be able to handle till rolls and thermal receipts in varying conditions when users scan these as part of receipt reconcilement for tax or expense reimbursement.

Similarly, the HP OfficeJet 6700 could be set up to work reliably with glossy photo paper so as to handle photo printing tasks, which may be asked of in a SOHO environment.

The walk-up printing abilities could be improved with an SD card slot for camera SD cards, PictBridge support and / or the ability to print PDF and XPS files off the memory keys.

As far as connectivity goes, this printer should support IPv6 as this next Internet standard is becoming a “given” amongst business computing hardware and will be a standard for all network and Internet setups. Similarly, the fax could work as a T.37 / T.38 Internet fax endpoint as we move away from the traditional circuit-based telephony setup towards IP-based telephony.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

HP OfficeJet 6700 Premium multifunction printerI would recommend that people purchase the HP OfficeJet 6700 printer as an entry-level printer for small-office / home-office use where photo printing is not important but fax use is important. This is more so if you want to use a business-grade printer in your home because of its high-capacity ink cartridges.

It could also work well as a colour inkjet multifunction printer that you may use in your workplace as a secondary or “particular-user” printer. This may include applications like a reception-desk printer where you want one machine as a fax and ePrint endpoint.

Recent Brother TV commercials–review links for the printers you see on them

Hi everyone!

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer with Wi-Fi and walk-up printing

You may have seen the recent TV commercials for Brother’s printers and may be interested in the printers that are featured on them, especially the ones shown at the end of the ad.

They are:

  • The HL-3045CN colour LED printer which is the lower-spec variant of the HL-3075CW which I have reviewed here
  • The MFC-J6910DW multifunction inkjet printer which can print to and scan from A3 paper
  • The HL-4150CDN colour laser printer which is known for a very-quick auto-duplex function, something you can use for colour short-run flyer printing.

This informatiom may be of use if you want to find out more about these printers after seeing that TV ad.

Product Review–Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer which is an economy colour xerographic printer based on LED technology. I have covered this technology before in an article about the difference between laser and LED printer technologies.

There is a cheaper variant of this printer, known as the Brother HL-3045CN which has USB and Ethernet connection to host computers only and doesn’t have the walk-up printing abilities that this model has. The comments about the print quality would apply to the Brother HL-3045CN as well.

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer

Print Paper Trays Connections
Colour 1 x A4 USB 2.0
LED xerographic Multi-purpose slot Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11g/n Wi-Fi
IPv6 ready

Prices

Printer

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$449

Inks and Toners

Standard
Price Pages
Black AUD$108 2200
Cyan AUD$102 1400
Magenta AUD$102 1400
Yellow AUD$102 1400

It is worth knowing that Officeworks are selling in Australia a pack of each of the above-listed toners for AUD$375.

Servicing and Other Parts (Laser Printers)

Price Pages
Drum Kit AUD$264 15000
Belt Kit AUD$187 50000
Waste Toner Kit 50000

The printer itself

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer control panel detail

The printer’s control panel

The Brother HL-3075CW was very easy to set up. This included establishing it on to the home network via Ethernet and is what I would prefer for any networked printer so as to assure reliable operation. It also is future-proof with inherent support for IPv6.

Walk-up functions

The Brother HL-3075CW has a USB socket on the front for PictBridge printing from cameras or to print PDF and JPEG files from a USB memory key. The PictBridge setup worked as normal with may Canon PowerShot G1X camera, making use of the camera’s user interface properly.

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer walk-up PictBridge USB connection

USB socket for connecting document-filled USB memory keys or PictBridge digital cameras

But when you navigated a directory structure of a USB memory key, the display truncated the file and folder names to a shorter form of the kind you would have expected from earlier MS-DOS versions. It could work better by scrolling the full file or folder name if you wait on that folder name without touching any button, and can make it easier to choose the right file to print.

It also works properly with the Brother iPrint&Scan mobile printing app for the iOS and Android platforms and was ready to print when the photo print job was 85% through on my Samsung Galaxy S Android phone.

Computer functions

Although I install the software from the drivers on Brother’s Web site so I can be sure of the latest drivers, the driver installation procedure went smoothly for my Windows 7 computer. This included the ability to discover the printer quickly and without any ambiguity.

The driver’s user interface still has the same features as all the other Brother print drivers that I have used. This is where it clearly shows you the settings you have implemented for your print job so you are sure of what you are specifying for the print job.

The printer supports a “confidential-print” mode which is similar to what is offered on the Brother HL-4150CDN. It is where the job is turned out only when you enter a password that you set when you submit the job from your computer. It has the same user experience with that “pick ‘n choose” password-entry method where the user uses the arrow keys to select numbers for the password.

Printer speed, quality and reliability

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printer toner cartridges in place

Toner cartridges in place

The Brother HL-3075CW printer took 10 seconds from the “sleep” mode to be ready to print. It didn’t matter whether you touched its control panel so as you could adjust a setting or do a “walk-up” print job; or sent a job from a computer. If you did send a job from your computer, the first page would be finished and in the output tray a few seconds later. Even the printout speed was very quick for both the colour and monochrome print runs, in a imilar manner to what was expected for most of the colour laser printers that I have reviewed..

If you print photos on this printer, they do come out noticeably darker and it doesn’t matter if you use 2400dpi or not. As well, the Brother printer doesn’t yield strong colours for the images. I also noticed the same effect with printing a picture that I took on my digital camera through its PictBridge interface.

Other than that, the documents that this printer turn out are very crisp and have that distinct “laser-quality” look about them.

Limitations and Points of improvement

There are ways in which Brother could improve these economy colour LED printers. One would be to provide an auto-duplex mechanism so as to capitalise on the advantages of this feature such as paper being saved and the flexibility that this offers for desktop publishing.

As well, they could provide optional high-capacity toner cartridges like they have done previously for most of the monochrome laser and LED printer range as well as the high-end colour laser printer range. This feature could make these colour LED printers appealingly efficient to run and suit different operating patterns.

Brother could also improve the way their laser and LED printers, especially the colour models, turn out photos so that the pictures come out with improved contrast and colour saturation. This is because most of us may use the photo-printing capabilities on these printers for printing proof images that are used when you shortlist pictures for your print or online publication.

As well, I would like to see the USB port on these printers able to be used for a USB “Human Interface Device”-compliant numeric keypad which works as a password-entry device for the “confidential-print” feature. Brother could then sell one of these keypads as an optional “deal-making” accessory for their business laser printers.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

Brother HL-3075CW colour LED printerI would position the Brother HL-3045CN as a networked entry-level colour xerographic printer if you don’t place value on the walk-up USB printing feature and the HL-3075CW if you do place value on this function. In some cases, you could use the walk-up USB printing and the wireless network ability as a bargaining chip when you do buy this printer. As well they would work well if you are placing emphasis on them as colour document printers and you don’t intend to print both sides of the page.

HP brings around the OfficeJet 150 mobile multifunction printer

Articles

HP introduces Officejet 150 all-in-one mobile printer, Photosmart 5520 — Engadget

My comments

As most of us know, desktop multifunction printers which have an integrated scanner have been around with us for a long time and are a popular primary-use printer type. They have worked well also as photocopiers and, in an increasing number of cases, fax machines which are more cost-effective than the cheap thermal-transfer plain-paper faxes that some small businesses use,

But this device class hasn’t become of benefit to the mobile user. Some of these users may require a document to be printed out for the customer to sign as part of the workflow such as a quote-acceptance or job-completion handover form. Here they don’t want to have a pile of these documents occupying space in the briefcase or van before they head “back to base” to process and file them.

Typically, these users either had to buy a mobile printer and a mobile scanner if they wanted to be able to print and scan hard-copy documents on the road. Canon previously offered a scanning attachment for their BJC-80 mobile printers but required the user to install the attachment in the printer if they wanted to scan.

But now HP have offered the OfficeJet 150 mobile multifunction printer which I see as a game changer. It can work in a similar manner to the direct-connect multifunction desktop printer and can link with a regular computer via USB or Bluetooth. Of course it has what used to be known as “three-way” power where it can be run from AC, a rechargeable battery pack or your vehicle’s cigar-lighter socket. Infact the unit does come with the rechargeable battery pack as well as the AC adaptor and the car adaptor can be obtained through HP.

There is the ability to perform driverless printing from PictBridge-enabled cameras and selected (non-Apple) smartphones. But if this is to work with most mobile devices, HP could modify the ePrint Home & Biz app to use Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi wireless for the device connection. Similarly this printer doesn’t support Apple’s AirPrint ecosystem for their iOS devices because this technology is pitched at network connectivity as the main link.

On the other hand, HP could develop and supply an “ePrint / AirPrint” kit with an 802.11n Wi-Fi interface that connects to this printer. This could be set to work as a wireless network adaptor for existing Wi-Fi networks or as an access point for quick-set-up arrangements where there isn’t a wireless router in place.

As I have read through the press material on this device, the HP OfficeJet 150, like all mobile inkjet printers that have been released so far, is a two-cartridge colour printer. This means that colour printing can be very costly on these setups because if you run out of one colour, you have to throw away a cartridge that has plenty of the other colours. This class of printer could be improved upon with the use of a four-cartridge colour printing setup in order to provide the same level of economy as a well-bred desktop multifunction inkjet printer.

What I see of this is an effort to provide tradesmen, travelling salesmen and other similar workers with a lightweight portable device that works with workflows that require heavy use of hard copy and quick-turnaround documents.

Product Review–HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series colour laser printer (M451dn)

Introduction

I previously reviewed the Brother HL-4150CDN high-speed single-pass desktop colour laser printer and have been looking to review colour laser printers with a similar feature set (Ethernet networking, high-speed colour printing, auto-duplex printing) to this model that I reviewed. The first competing model that came along with this basic function set is the HP LaserJet Pro 400 which I am now reviewing. It is known as the M451dn but is also available as the M451dw which has integrated 802.11g/n Wi-Fi wireless connectivity.

It is equipped with the HP ePrint email-to-print function, yet is able to, like other printers in this class, turn out colour print jobs as fast as monochrome print jobs for this class of printer.

Of course it is also very interesting about the way HP are positioning this printer in a very confusing purchase environment as they are promoting their high-end “OfficeJet Pro” business inkjet printers like the OfficeJet Pro 8600 Series as being as cost-effective, if not cheaper, to run as a colour laser printer. This in fact affects how they position and price the LaserJet printers and the consumables available for them.

HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series colour laser printer

Print Fax /
E-mail
Paper Trays Connections
Colour Colour 1 x A4 USB 2.0
Laser xerographic HP ePrint reception only Optional A4 tray Ethernet
Auto-duplex multi-purpose tray IPv6 ready

Prices

Printer

The machine’s standard price: AUD$599

Optional Extras:

High-capacity paper tray: AUD$145

Inks and Toners

Standard High-Capacity
Price Pages Price Pages
Black $119 2200 $147 4000
Cyan $171.45 2200
Magenta $165.54 2200
Yellow $171.45 2200

 

The printer itself

Setup and initial observations

The HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series printer is the first single-pass high-speed colour laser that I have reviewed here that uses the Integrated toner-drum print cartridges rather than a separately-replaceable drum unit. There may be benefits and caveats to this approach such as running costs or design abilities for this class of printer.

Like most of the these colour laser printers, this printer uses a drawer for loading and unloading the colour print cartridges. This makes them easier to replace and the process isn’t very messy as well as avoiding the use of “clamshell” designs with lids that can be hard to open.

The network connectivity works properly for all Ethernet-based wired networks and you could even have it plugged in to a HomePlug powerline network adaptor at the end of one of these networks for a reliable no-new-wires network setup. As well, it is a future-proof network printer with integrated dual–stack support for IPv6.

Walk-up and mobile-device functions

HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series control panel

Control panel

This printer has the ePrint email-to-print functionality which I have given plenty of space to but you need to instantiate and manage this function from a regular computer on the network. It could benefit from having on-off or “reset” functionality managed from the printer’s control-panel menu like on the HP LaserJet Pro M1536.

As well, it can work properly with the HP ePrint Home & Biz mobile app for the mobile platforms as well as having inherent support for Apple’s AirPrint iOS mobile-printing effort.

This printer has a “quick-form” printout functionality so you can print out graph paper, notepaper, music staves and similar ruled paper from the machine’s control panel. It still has the same options that have been available across all HP printers equipped with this feature.

Computer functions

The printer uses the same “Smart Install” feature that the HP LaserJet P1560 and the LaserJet M1212 that I previously reviewed here use. This has the driver held in the printer’s firmware and you install the driver to your computer by pointing to the printer’s Web page or to a virtual drive letter and downloading the software from there. This kind of setup can be augmented through the printer checking for and downloading the latest driver software from HP’s Website at regular intervals so that subsequent users have the latest driver software.

The driver software is still easy to use, using the same “preset” methods as had often been the case with other HP driver programs. Even the printing options for duplex or booklet printing are highlighted with a graphic of how the finished document will come out when printed and how you bind it.

Print speed, quality and reliability

HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series toner cartridges

Integrated print cartridges in the printer tray

The print speed for the HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series printer is the same high speed for colour jobs as it is for monochrome jobs using the same paper.

The auto-duplex function could be more efficient with any multi-page or multi-copy jobs. It doesn’t match the Brother HL-4150CDN on this aspect where the Brother could effectively process two sides of two sheets at once.

As well, this LaserJet printer also exhibits a registration problem on the page’s vertical axis where the back of the page is printed significantly higher than the front. It may be limited to this demonstration sample but can be of concern with some desktop-publishing tasks where the back of the document has to line up with the front, such as “cut-out” or “odd-shape” projects like tags and door-hangers. But it wouldn’t be of importance when you turn out booklets or regular documents because of the various margins allowed in the layouts.

I have performed a 100-page auto-duplex print run using regular paper and this printer has been able to complete the job reliably which means that it could satisfy heavier tasks more easily.

The documents that came out of the HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series colour laser printer were the same ultra-sharp output expected out of a good-quality office colour laser printer. The printer was even able to show up the detail very well in documents that had this.

When it came to printing photos through this laser printer using regular office paper, I was expecting a dark image with poor contrast. But I had seen the HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series turn out images that have the same contrast as a good-quality business inkjet when given plain paper. It tended to be heavier with the green on an image that used a contrasting pale-green and bright-red features while it didn’t run a dominant pink overcast image on a group shot of people. This would appeal to those of us who are turning out quick proofs of photographic material.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

One sore point that I have noticed with the HP LaserJet Pro 400 Series (M451dn) is the consumables, namely the print cartridges. Here, HP could offer high-capacity colour print cartridges as well as the standard colour print cartridges, which they could reduce the price on. They do offer the high-capacity black print cartridge which yields twice the number of pages for approximately AUD$30 extra but the colour cartridges are still of importance especially if you do a lot of “full-bleed” colour or turn out a lot of material in your business’s trade dress.

The printer could use high-capacity flash memory, preferably the SDHC cards, for holding job queues, especially if it is  expected to be a business workhorse. As well, a feature that a lot of competing dedicated colour laser printers do offer is a USB socket for “walk-up” printing from USB memory keys or digital cameras.

But, as I have explained previously, I would definitely like to see improvements with the automatic duplexer especially in its throughput and its front-back vertical-registration behaviour.

Similarly, I would like to see a menu option available from the printer’s control panel that allows you to turn the ePrint feature on an off from that particular control surface. This would allow you to stop the ePrint service overnight when you close up your premises or suspend use if it if you find that it could be misused. It could also benefit from a “confidential print” option where you have to enter a code at the printer to print out the job.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

If you value ePrint email-to-print, prefer an integrated-print-cartridge laser-printer design and have moderate workload expectations, I would recommend you purchase this unit and run it with the high-capacity black print cartridges. Otherwise, I would go for the Brother HL-4150CDN if you are valuing a cost-effective heavy-duty printing machine that excels on double-sided printing throughput.

Troubleshooting a network printer that you can’t print to

Dell 1130n compact monochrome laser printerYou may find that you cannot use your printer or multifunction from your computer via the network yet find that it can perform standalone tasks such as copying and faxing for example. It is even though the printer used to print from the computer via the same network connection just before the problem surfaced.

In the case of multifunction printers, you may not be able to start a scanning job destined for your computer from the machine’s control surface or, at worst, scan to your computer at all. This is although you previously were able to scan that way before. It can also affect computer-based faxing for fax-equipped multifunction printers.

This is a situation I have ran in to myself with my computer and my inkjet multifunction printer on many occasions. But I have also assisted a small company whom I deal with regularly that faced similar problems with two of their colour laser printers that are connected to their business’s network.

There are two main problems that can cause you not to print to your network printer even though you could previously print to the same machine.

Driver software and operating-system problems

If the fault occurs with one particular computer rather than all computers and devices that use the same printer driver software, the driver software or its configuration may be balky.

This may happen if you have continuously added and removed many printers from the same computer, something I have encountered as I install and remove many different review-sample printers from my desktop PC through the course of adding content to this Website.

Check and reinstall the driver software

In some cases, this problem can be caused by faulty driver software and you may have to download the latest driver software from the manufacturer’s Website. It is infact a process I encourage people to do when installing new hardware because the software supplied on the CD in the device’s carton may he “rushed out” in a bid to get the device to market quickly.

Check the state of the operating system’s print functionality

Similarly, it may be worth rebooting the computer because the print spooler (the software that manages the printing function) in the operating system may have stalled. On the other hand, you may have to manually start the print spooler. In Windows 7, this would be found by searching for “Services” in the Start Menu’s Search option, whereupon you look in the list for “Print Spooler” and make sure that’s started.

Network interface not working

If this happens with all of the computers in the network, it may be due to the printer itself losing connection with the network. This may also affect other network functions like IP-based faxing, HP ePrint or other Web-based features.

Check for faults with the network

Check for obvious faults with the network connection like faulty Ethernet leads, infrastructure equipment like a router, switch or HomePlug bridge turned off or not functioning or, in the case of Wi-Fi setups, the quality of the wireless signal.

In some cases, you may have to turn the network-infrastructure device off at the AC power for a few seconds because it may have “frozen” due to something like a power surge. Use the network-status option on the printer’s control panel menu to check that it can “see” the network after you check these factors.

Reset the printer’s network connection

Sometimes, you may have to force a network reset on the printer. This can be done through an option that is, again, found on the same setup menu on the printer’s control panel. On the other hand, you may have to simply unplug the machine from the AC power, waiting a few minutes, then plug it back in.

Conclusion

Once you know how to tackle these printer problems, you may then be able to see longer service life from your equipment.

Product Review–Brother DCP-J925DW multifunction printer

Introduction

I am reviewing the Brother DCP-J925DW multifunction printer which is part of Brother’s newest run of A4 inkjet all-in-one printers that are destined for the home and home office. There are variants of this model that have integrated fax functionality.

Brother DCP-J925DW multi-function printer

Print Scan Copy Paper Trays Connections
Colour Colour Colour 1 x A4, 1 x 4×6” photo USB 2.0
Piezoelectric Ink-jet 2400 dpi Resolution Optimised book copy CD print 802.11g/n wireless,
Ethernet
Auto-duplex Automatic Document Feeder

Prices

Printer

Recommended Retail Price: AUD$179

Inks and Toners

Standard High-Capacity
Price Pages Price Pages
Black AUD$28.95 300 AUD$39.95 600
Cyan AUD$16.95 300 AUD$23.95 600
Magenta AUD$16.95 300 AUD$23.95 600
Yellow AUD$16.95 300 AUD$23.95 600

There is a pack of the high-capacity ink cartridges available for AUD$109.95.

The printer itself

The Brother DCP-J925DW is housed a a relatively shallow chassis with a shallow automatic-document-feeder lid that has a swirl-type pattern. This has been made possible through the use of Brother’s “capillary” system with the ink cartridges mounted up front rather than on the printhead.

Brother DCP-J925DW multi-function printer front-loading ink cartridges

Front-loading ink cartridges

The printer has a single tray but there is a mezzanine tray that is used for 4×6” snapshot paper so you can print out photos as snapshots, a different method to what HP has done for some of their high-end Photosmart printers where these have totally separate paper trays. It also has a DVD/CD printing mechanism so you can print on to inkjet-printable optical discs.

Setup

This printer can connect to your network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet and the Wi-Fi setup experience was surprisingly easy. It needs the time to be set in order to work with the Web-connected printer functionality, but Brother could implement an NTP-based clock setup option rather than requiring the user to set the time, just asking the user for their time zone and whether their time zone observes daylight-saving time.

Brother DCP-J925DW multifunction printer - sockets under lid

You have to lift the lid to plug the printer in to the Ethernet network or USB-connected computer

Like other Brother inkjet printers, this printer has the the inks loaded in the front and obviates the need to lift a heavy lid to replace the cartridges. But, like the MFC-J6910DW that I previously reviewed, it requires you to open the lid to find the USB and Ethernet sockets if you need to connect it directly to the host or to an Ethernet network.

Brother DCP-J925DW multifunction printer touchscreen

Touchscreen control panel

The control panel for this printer is primarily a touchscreen LCD but there are two start buttons and a cancel button as well as an on-off button. Compared to the HP touchscreen printers, this provides for surefire “start” and “stop” controls on the printer for those of us used to the traditional buttons. The screen may be found to be too small for some activities like choosing pictures to print and may be hard to read for those of us with limited sight.

Walk-up functions

The automatic document feeder is one of those types that draws the document under and ejects it out the top. This can be confusing to operate because most of these printers require you to feed the document in on a top shelf and they will eject the document underneath.

The Brother DCP-J925DW can copy as expected with one-touch ease but also has an option for improved book copying which may please those of us who copy a lot of material out of books and other bound documents. Think of copying those recipes that friends need out of those cookbooks as you “cook up a storm”.

Brother DCP-J925DW multi-function printer with paper loaded

Printer loaded with input and output documents

There is also the ability to print from directly-connected digital cameras or camera memory cards with the functionality that is expected of that feature.

The printer also works properly with the Brother iPrint&Scan mobile app so can print images and PDFs held on your smartphone. It can also scan to your smartphone with the phone saving the images as JPEGs.

The WebConnect online services that Brother provided allows for “hot-seat” use by multiple people and work with the popular social networks and photo-sharing services. As far as Facebook is concerned, it only offers uploading of images to the user’s Photo Albums from the scanner or camera card.

Computer functions

The Brother DCP-925DW’s software installed properly but couldn’t determine by itself which network adaptor it is connected. You had to determine whether you were using a wired or wireless connection which can be confusing if your printer was connected via Ethernet and the computer was connected via Wi-Fi or vice versa.

In, use, the driver showed the same level of useability as the software supplied with other Brother printers that I reviewed. This included highlighting the options that are in force and even using the “pages” graphics to show the kind of duplex or booklet printing that was in force when you used these features.

Useability and Print Quality

The Brother DCP-J925DW printer is quick at turning out documents but takes a very long time at turning out A4 photos on the glossy paper. This may be helped with an increase in memory and processor speed.

As well, it can print on both sides of the page very accurately with a minimum time penalty, which can be of a bonus if you rely on auto-duplex printing as a desktop-publishing tool, not just to be “green”. This was exemplified by my printing out a “download-to-print” door-hanger flyer from the Stop The Traffik anti-human-trafficking website that was pitched at hotels as a guest-awareness measure about this problem.

There is a high-pitch tone from the printhead when the Brother printer is pausing during a job and this may annoy some people, but would be expected of piezo inkjets because of the way they work.

When the Brother DCP—J925DW prints out photos, the pictures turn out darker and more defined compared to its HP and Canon home-use peers that I have reviewed. There is also a strong yellow component in these photos compared to the Brother A3 printers that I reviewed but this yellow is similar also to the same HP inkjets.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

As I have said before, the Brother DCP-J925DW could benefit from a faster processor and more memory so it can handle larger or more detailed print jobs more effectively.

The touchscreen control panel could be made larger so it is easier to read, in a similar vein to the touchscreen control panels on the recent HP multifunction printers. This would make the printer easier to use for older people or those of us with poor eyesight.

The automatic document feeder could be improved in its useability by indicating where the original document should sit under and preferably in a contrasted colour. This can help with newer users who have upgraded from other multi-function printers that use the orthodox automatic-document feeder.

The Web-connected functionality could support a few more features like email-to-print or the ability to print from Facebook image collections. It, like the other Brother printers, could also benefit from UPnP Printer functionality so as to support network printing from digital cameras and interactive-TV applications.

Conclusion and Placement Notes

I would position the Brother DCP-J925DW as a cost-effective general-purpose home-use printer for the connected home as an alternative to the HP Photosmart 7510 if you don’t worry about fax or ePrint capabilities. It can also work as a secondary printer that could do supplementary work to the main laser or inkjet multifunction printer, such as in a study or rumpus room.