Side by Side Comparison of: Brother vs E-Z Ink vs LG

Works very well . Easy to set up. Was going to only give it 4 stars, because its much bigger than you expect. Its big !Recipients say the fax is very clear.

This fax machine is excellent. However, the "deep sleep" mode problem is real. Pasting together several comments that appeared online, I learned the following. 1) The machine will spontaneously go into regular sleep mode when not in use. This saves energy. In regular sleep mode the machine will wake up and received faxes normally. So, that is good. 2) After a certain time (that you can set from the Ecology menu), left to its own devices, the machine will fall into "deep sleep" mode. This mode saves more power than regular sleep mode. However, the machine in deep sleep mode will only wake up and become able to receive faxes if: a) one physically touches a key, b) one lifts the handset, or c) if it received data from a computer or network. This will only happen if the fax machine is used as a printer, attached to a computer or a network. So, if one wants to use it as a stand-alone fax machine or one wants to receive faxes at all times, the deep sleep mode needs to be turned off. This is not an intuitive project.To turn off the Deep Sleep mode you need to do the following: Press Menu. With the up and down arrows select 1. General Setup, press OK. Select 4. Ecology, press OK. Select 2. Sleep Time, press OK. Then, with the two-digit sleep time still on the screen, PRESS TOGETHER the LOW ARROW + START keys. The Deep Sleep menu will appear. You can then choose yes or no with the up and down arrows. Enter OK, then press Stop/Exit to exit the Manu mode.As much as the deep sleep mode is ecologically friendly, it remains incomprehensible why Brother made the access to controlling the Deep Sleep mode so hidden and arcane.The machine makes excellent copies and is a great printer. As to durability and cost of maintenance, remains to be seen.

After dealing with an HP inkjet fax in my restaurant that kept jamming and having dried up ink from, I decided I needed a compact laser that would fit in the allocated area.This fit the bill, except that it was white and every other piece of equipment in the area was black.Once I unboxed the unit, I used masking tape to cover the black areas and any open electronics. Using a simple flat black can of spray paint, I was able to make it all black. Nobody can tell it was painted even when I point it out to them. First problem fixed.I have had the unit for about 7 months and it has performed flawlessly. It even uses the same toner as a wireless Brother printer I have which is a bonus as well. This past week of course, I encountered the DEEP SLEEP curse that so many people speak of. The machine will do half a ring and act weird, but will not receive faxes. After some research and playing around, there is a solution, even though Brother has decided to hide the feature.You ARE able to disable DEEP SLEEP.Go to General Settings, Ecology, Sleep Mode. When it asks you to change the time before sleep, simultaneously press the START and DOWN ARROW buttons. You will now get the hidden option to Disable DEEP SLEEP mode. Disable it and enjoy your fax for many years to come.

I bought this Brother to replace a 1.5 yr old Panasonic unit that was on its last leg. This unit is great, and I am very happy with the purchase. The packaging was excellent and straightforward. The toner cartridges and drums are very easy to install. You have ample warning to purchase replacement toner cartridges once the toner low light comes on. The print quality is excellent, and the speed is fast. Mine does go into deep sleep mode after a few minutes, but any incoming faxes or hitting any button wakes it up immediately, and I have not lost a single fax from anyone. We use this in a very busy restaurant that has numerous fax in orders from customers and delivery services. The environment is far from ideal, but this Brother FAX2840 laughs at everything that's thrown at it and keep on chugging.

We have a small home business about 20-30 pages a day. This works great no problems. I read other reviews about the sleep mode but we haven't had any trouble.

I was using an older HP inkjet fax machine. Not only is the toner cheaper for this Brother, but the faxes look a lot better as well - on both ends. I had an USB cable (not included) and have it hooked up to my computer as well - it makes a dandy black and white printer!

Since purchasing a new Brother DCP-7065DN (sorry Amazon, another vendor had it for less) to replace an older, but still functioning Brother laser printer (HL series that did not offer duplex), I knew we would need to replace the toner. The HL printer's drum was past due for replacement, but the cost was more than half the cost of this printer, so it made more sense to step up to a duplex printer and scanner combo.

Like other printer companies, Brother includes a "starter" toner cartridge that barely covers a ream of paper, so it did not last. Purchasing the higher capacity TN450 over the lower capacity TN420 is a no brainer, considering the difference in yield. I tend to avoid generic toner, never trusting it. Just look at the reviews all over the place for the generic brands. In the long term, I suspect it is cheaper to purchase Brother toner. Amazon had the best price around, considering shipping and sales tax.

The toner was easy to install, with simple written instructions and drawings (not the annoying pictographs!). It should last for a year of use in our house (my wife is a teacher, so she tends to print a lot of material for her class). If not, I will follow up.

Brother includes a return shipping label for the old toner, so save all the packaging if you wish to leave it for your postal carrier or drop at the post office. Recommended over the TN420 and generic brands!

My history with the HL-2270DW and the TN-450 cartridges:

Starter Cartridge - 751 pages, changed 12/27/2011
2nd Cartridge - 1,999 pages (total printer count 2,750) Changed 03/29/2012
3rd Cartridge - 2,559 pages (total printer count 5,309) Changed 07/24/2012
4th Cartridge - 2,627 pages (total printer count 7,936) Changed 11/19/2012
5th Cartridge - did not record
6th Cartridge - Approx. 2,300 pages (total printer count 12,585) Changed 08/14/2013 (DRUM IS NOW GIVING WARNING OF 0% LIFE LEFT)
DRUM UNIT REPLACED AT 14,908 PAGES 12/21/2013
7th Cartridge - 2,537 Pages (total printer count 15,122) Changed 01/03/2014

I run them until I notice a problem with the output itself, the low toner message comes on long before they actually run out. You can press the GO button 7 times in quick succession to do this.

As of now I've stopped counting page output, I think the results are reliable enough to form an opinion. My printer is still rocking on just like it did on day one!

Final update: April 23rd. Starter cartridge finally says it's run completely out (though it still seems to print). That's a total of about 200 pages since I first got a message. The 3-times-Go printout shows a total of 730 pages - roughly what the starter cartridge is supposed to have, and I've now installed the hi-capacity cartridge

----- first update
Update. It's now April 11th. I've printed at least another 100 pages and things are still going well. But I've discovered another feature. In addition to the 7-times-Go (described below), there's a 3-times-Go that will print a three page report showing everything you ever wanted to know about your printer, including the amount of toner actually left. (Note that I have a Brother HL-2270DW. The cartridge also fits other machines that may have a different way of getting the same info.)

----- original post
Like others I started getting a 'toner-low' message after maybe 450 or so pages. In looking for a way to trick the printer, I read the manual(!). It said to press the Go button seven times in a row to clear the toner-low lockout, and that once that was cleared the cartridge would continue to print until the toner was actually gone.

Worked like a charm. I'll update this when the thing actually runs completely out.

Understanding this, the way they do it makes sense: really early warning that you should order another cartridge - and a lockout that you can't ignore, keeping you from having a really bad day in the future.

does the job, but lacks function as a good copier and scan machine. However, prints fast and great. fax pretty o.k.

So far good... I used the brother fax-2820 for years, until it went out... bought this 2840 that looks pretty much a like, only faster faxing and coping, and can load a little more paper into feed, documents come out clear, and setup was simple just like the 2820... did not give 4 stars because it's still too early to tell if it will last.

Our previous fax/printer ( same make &model) lasted for 4 +years. It developed a problem with the toner/drum sensors and never came off replace toner/drum mode.This replacement (same make & model, but more expensive $) should hopefully hold out for the next 4+ years.

This fax machine does just what we need it to. Performs great and replaces an old we had that had just worn out. The only negative is the plug in for the phone line is in the back. We use the phone line between several communication devices and need to plug it in to use it and it is unhandy to get to in the back. That's why 4 stars instead of 5. Otherwise, great machine.

I bought this to replace a Brother Intellifax Model 2820 which had developed some problems with the feeding of paper. This model is a bit faster, prints very cleanly and sharply, has a voice receiver option and functions very well. It was a good purchase.

I bought this fax machine because it was a recommended buy from Consumer Reports. It is a good buy and the set-up was easy. The only issue I have is that it goes into a deep sleep and there is no way to prevent it from doing so. I knew this from all the previous reviews I read about this particular fax machine. I would recommend it for sending faxes and have not received any faxes so I don't know if that is an issue.

I tried some knockoff brands but they always fell woefully short of the promised number of pages so I went with the name brand toner and it has done exactly what it promised. I haven't reached the promised number of pages yet, but it also hasn't started giving me poor quality printing or making me regret my purchase. A little more expensive up front, but much cheaper over the entire life than the knockoffs I've tried on Amazon.

We use a lot of toner cartridges for my accounting office audit printers. These printers go out to a client's office for use in doing audits so they are banged around while carrying them around. The printer nor the cartridge has ever failed in three years of service because of rough treatment which says a lot for Brother printers and cartridges. I tried an off-brand cartridge one time and had nothing but issues so I will always buy only Brother cartridges for replacements.

I have purchased two of these. One last year and one more recently. The one from last year has still been printing strong. I have not kept count of the pages but it's certainly over a thousand. The low-toner light has been on for months and I've done the reset but to no avail. Which is fine, because it keeps on printing. I do, however, have a complain about the first cartridge. The ink drum has visible lines in it and when printing it causes white vertical lines. Not really an issue because I mostly print text. However, it makes photos look awful. I had tried wiping the laser drum and swiping the wire, but it had no affect on the white lines. I just switched out the toner cartridge for my new one and printed a test page and the new one printed beautifully (for a B/W laser jet that is). No vertical lines with this new cartridge. The ink drum was smooth as well. So it seems very clear that the issue was with that first ink cartridge. It wasn't worth seeking a refund but just be aware, even these legit Brother cartridges aren't without their flaws.

The price is certainly right. I hope the quality improves, as the last "High Yield" I purchased yielded not quite half of what is advertised before a black line was on all documents that came thru the document feeder. No amount of shaking the cartridge, or the corona wire, changed this much. I placed it in another Brother AIO thinking it was the feeder, but nope, same behavior.
Printing a document via my computer had no such problem.
This cartridge is supposed to do 5-7,000 pages, and it yielded 2500 instead. Compared to an inkjet printer, it's still quite a bargain. The manufacturer tried to claim it was using an off-brand until I gave them it's serial number proving Brother (and whatever Chinese plant) produced it.
It's still worth the money at the Amazon price, just hardly "High Yield".

The toner works great, fits perfectly. It comes with a free recycling box to send the old toner back to the manufacture, postage paid. What I didn't like was that the printing capacity appears to be a little short of the advertised amount. We have a small business and do a fair amount of printing so I thought that this would last a lot longer than it did. While I did not count the copies, or keep track of the numbers, in months of work, it was just short of six months. We still use a color printer for some business products so not all printing is done with this cartridge. (The ink jet printer with similar printing costs lasted about the same time.)

The good news is that the price is very competitive so I am very pleased with the product overall. The continuous quality of the printing delivered by the toner is great. This is true even as the printing starts to fade. That is more important than paying a little more for the printing.

Was a bit of a pain to setup, but it is what it is.Many won't have use for a Fax/Print/Scan combo --- but if you do, this will satisfy your needs.

Replacement of drum and rollers frequent never had this with other printers

I could not connect the fax to assure that a non fax communication would not trigger the fax to pick-up gthe line.

Wondering if anyone has had a problem with during multiple page faxing it grabs more then 1 page., sometime several pages as its sending. Finding myself faxing over and over and wants to take,several pages. I was thinking it might be the paper (thin). Is there a feature to adjust paper thicknes

Everything was great except for the very dim display. It was very hard to read which was a disappointment to me.

Somewhat fast fax. Does not print as legible as I would like, but it prints like a fax would. I thought the laser printer would help the resolution but it doesn't. Copies are nice on the machine as a feature; but again, you are better off using a real copier instead. Changing the times in the sleep mode in the menu helps a LOT. It's a serviceable fax machine for a home office or a small office.

I don't know if it's the copier or the toner, but it doesn't appear to like copying a document with blue ink. If we're copying something that has black ink, there isn't any problem, however the image isn't very strong, even when we increase the contrast. We also have an old Brother Intellifax 1360 which doesn't have any problem copying a document with blue ink, and the image is always clearer and darker.

I've purchased at least 4, maybe 5 toner packs over time. My one gripe, and it is an ongoing one, is that the print function defaults to 600 dpi and sets to Graphic quality. There is no way to burn toner faster than to select these two criteria as a default. I have searched and searched and cannot find on my Dell how to override these settings. So this may be part gripe, part question. The printer is dynamite as are the prints, even set at 300 dpi and "text." If someone can change that or tell me how to permanently reset the default to a more economical setting everything would be perfect. Resetting defaults with every print job gets old fast.

I bought this under protest. You see, I like the Brother printer I purchased this for (the Brother HL-2270DW). Originally, it was my intent to refill the cartridge that came with the printer.Brother goes out of their way with the design of the printer such that a refilled cartridge doesn't work. A bunch of research and I found out how to reset the printer, but the refilled cartridge still printed all "gray" across the page. As it turns out, Brother is the only (? unverified) manufacturer that saves old toner into the existing cartridge such that if it is not TOTALLY cleaned out before refill the cartridge will not work. So, in the end it was worth the money to buy a new cartridge that I WILL REFILL once this one is empty now that I know all the facts.

When I ordered the brother printer I also went ahead and ordered an additional "high yield" toner. Well, the printer was telling me the low yield toner (that came with the printer) needed to be replaced and I hadn't even printed 50 pages from the thing. I'm thinking "ok ... no big deal ... I'll just go ahead and put in the high yield container." AGAIN ... I hadn't even printed 50 pages before the printer starting telling me that I was low on toner.

Of course, it's too late to return and now I'm stuck with having to pay another $50 for another toner cartridge.

It's a toner cartridge. However, didn't feel like High Yield. I went through the entire cartridge in one printing. I didn't print more than 1200 pages before it ran out of toner. I also followed the instructions to gently shake it back and forth, forward and back, and then slide the green tab to the other side and back. This got me a dozen more pages, and then it basically stopped printing entirely. Bought another Brother branded high yield toner cartridge at one of the "office" stores, and it gave me about the same. Even the High Yield HP cartridges for similar printers put out more than this. 3 stars because it's toner, 2 stars for the yield, 5 stars for the printer, 1 star for the printing industry taking all my money.

For 9 months it worked well. During month 10 reports of my faxes would state "OK" but my fax recipients have been receiving unclear faxes. I can't return it to AMAZON and so I am left to call Brother to problem solve this issue. If you can't fax a clear fax what use is a $145 fax machine. JUNK!

great for broadcasting lunch specials, but has really small cartridge. Run out from ink in less than 2 months

it only lasted 14 months. it will no longer receive a fax. what a waste!

It worked good for about 2 months but now error messages are coming up constantly and we have called the company 3 times since purchasing. Now they will only send me out a refurbished one to replace. I wish I would have never purchased this. I had a Panasonic fax machine that lasted 6 years. Not Good!

Well - as I've learned, faxes just don't like VOIP. Although I did buy this one and toss out a perfectly good one because it supposedly works with VOIP.... yea, no it doesn't. I now pay $40/month just for a FAX POTS line. Pain, but hey, it faxes....

My old $20 fax machine works better than this one. The machine goes into "deep sleep" mode whenever it isn't in use. A fax may come in, and not be picked up while in this mode. The machine will "click" a few times and you have to go over and make the machine pick it up. Other times, the machine will receive the fax just fine. I called Brother and they told me it is working perfectly and that nothing is wrong with it. Don't buy this fax machine.

My printer never recognized this as being a full toner cartridge. Since putting it into the printer, I always get the toner low warning when I print. I am going to keep printing with it and hope to use it all up, but it is a bummer since its the high yield cartridge and I always get the low toner warning.

The last Brother TN450 toner cartridge lasted about 3 years since I I do not print a lot. I purchased this cartridge in December 2015 and after 3 mos. (past the time to return the cartridge), I was surprised (and very disappointed) to see a Low Toner message when printing. I followed the installation instructions and the drum has 70% remaining. I could see this from a refurbished/refilled unit, but am very disappointed to see this from an authentic Brother toner cartridge.

Decent price, but about half life I started to experience poor print quality along the left side of my pages.

*4/10/16 update* replaced with the AD Products Compatible Replacement for Brother TN450 High Yield Toner Cartridge (Black, 2600 Pages) since pages were not printing properly. Left side of the page would have faded lettering. I verified it was not the drum by testing both toners. I have doubts that this is a true high yield toner and have dropped

Magenta color is not recognized by my printer and it does not have marks from HP on it or numbers so I wonder if it is really from HP. I do not feel it is. Only colors on it which are recognized by HP office Jet 6230 are Black and Blue and the other 3 are not so I have no idea why it is happening but I alrady spnet an 1.5 hours with HP support and they cannot figure it out. My guess is that the some of the toner cartridges are Genuine OEM toners others are not. I have no idea who did it and do not have time or inclinatonto chek it any more. I will make sure not to buy from your company supposedly Genuine OEM HP toners

This replacement toner for my Brother laser printer printed perfectly, but intermittently would cause skips and light print, requiring that I remove the cartridge and shake it several times and reinstall. Couldn't return to Amazon because it took longer than 30 days to determine it wasn't my printer causing the problem, but the cartridge instead.

I contacted Brother, who graciously sent me a replacement which works fine. I have no idea why there were problems with this cartridge. Never had a problem with a Brother brand OEM cartridge in the past. Love my Brother printers!

STAY AWAY FROM THIS CRAP! It died 5 weeks after purchase! What a Piece of crap!

It has stopped working. It has barely been used in the 6 months that we have had it and was incredibly slow when it did work.

This has never sent faxes correctly and I have complained many times to no avail. It prints nice copies but I wanted this mainly for a fax machine. I had to unplug it and am using one I purchased years ago for $9.99 which is a very small basic fax machine. Very disappointing that I paid so much for the Brother that does not send faxed.

Worked fine the first 2 weeks, then it started giving me trouble. Its been a little over at month now and the faxes receive only after 3 attempts and it's already giving me toner low message. The toner was rated for 2600 pages and I haven't even hit 1000 pages yet. It also gets jammed about once every 4 faxes received.

Fax still NOT working properly. More than 10 hours on the phone with Brother and AT&T - can either send or receive a fax. Unable to send & receive. A geek came to my home - spent about 2.5 hours & gave up - paid @ $150 - still not working properly. IMHO a real POS.

I bought a brother printer and it turned out to be excellent. But this intellifax its a nightmare. Why ?Buy it. I cannot say much because Amazon won't publish my review. The experience was a nightmare.Thank God I bought a Canopy protection plan. They work 24/7 and there phone number is easy to find on the warranty.Canopy send me a UPS shipping label and they will reimburse me . Everybody else let me down.Alfred

Purchased in March 2016, installed around May, in December, after less than 500 printed pages left side of the printed pages became more and more faint. Shaking, and cleaning primary corona wire did not help. I suspected the printer, so I went to Staples and bought the same exact cartridge (TN-450). After installation of the new cartridge, verified that the printer prints perfectly well and the problem was with the cartridge I bought from Amazon. 500 pages make 1/5 of the expected volume, so I give it one star. Money wasted, too late to return.

Zero Stars for junk. Installed this "High Yield" official Brother branded cartridge in a printer located in our 2nd home.
This was in March 2016, and it worked well for the first 20 pages or so. We left this home about 20 days later and just now returned in August 2016, unfortunately well past the warranty period. Then the ink coverage across the pages is now so bad...
leaving huge areas of print too light to read... that we will need to discard the cartridge.
Yes, this is an official Brother product, with the factory sealing tape still in place ... warning that if we remove it, the warranty will be voided.
Not much risk in that....!

This cost a little less than the legit product by Brother. The item says that it comes in the retail box, but it doesn't. it came in a box with some tissue paper, no retail packaging. When I plugged it into my printer, the printer continued to tell me that I needed a new toner cartridge. I had to spend time looking around the internet for a fix. I did eventually get the printer to recognize this cartridge, but at this price its not worth the trouble.

After getting it working I have white vertical streaks on the paper. I followed Brother's guide to remove these streaks but it didn't help. VERY unhappy with this toner.

I just received this today, hoping to print about 800 flyers for an upcoming convention. This brand new, "high yield" toner cartridge only printed a little more than 500 pages before I got "Toner Empty" messages. And this is not merely Brother's warning message jumping the gun, the print jobs have deteriorated so bad you can no longer even see the text.

I thought buying a Brother laser printer was going to save me a lot of money vs. going to Staples, but it's actually going to end up costing me a lot more. What a waste.

I have owned various Brother printers for more than 20 years, and I have liked them. In addition, I have previously had no problem with the cartridges.

But I have now utilized several different cartridges for my current Brother printer, and I find that lack of quality control has created three (3) separate problems:

1. Burning the Edge of Paper With An Accompanying Smell of Burning:

My second cartridge caused the printer to burn the edge of the paper and to leave burn marks all the way down the page. Each time I tried it with a single sheet of paper, the same thing happened. Luckily, I was only copying a single sheet.

Naturally, I stopped using the cartridge. (By the way, I contacted the Company about this problem. Brother verified that the cartridge was authentic - then elected to ignore what may well be a safety problem.)

2 Emission of VOC Fumes:

My present cartridge is my third one. The problem is that it emits fumes. I had read that "some" laser printers give off dangerous VOC fumes, but I never detected any problem with this. The Brother cartridge is the first one that I can readily smell, and the fumes are strong.

I am now minimizing the problem by turning the printer off when not in use - since I recognize this as a health hazard.

3. Constant Messages to Buy-A-New-Cartridge & Occasional Interference With Computer Operation

A Brother representative advised me that Brother gives a cartridge-low message once the cartridge is 30% from being empty. In the pop-up, I was warned of low capacity and invited to buy a new cartridge.

Since this cartridge yields 2,600 sheets, I received more than 100 pop-up messages of low capacity. Specifically, the messages started when the cartridge was still good for 780 sheets. This was annoying to say the least, and the representative reported that there's no way to turn this feature off.

A worse problem is that on a number of occasions, Brother was able to interfere with the operation of my computer. At times, once the message popped up, I couldn't get an internet connection – since I did not click on the "buy" button. I would have to turn off the printer to get it back up. This is, of course, outrageous.

If it were not for this multitude of cartridge-problems, I would like my Brother printer and cartridge. But next time, I'll look for another brand.