Side by Side Comparison of: Brother

No complaints so far after 3 months.

Great

work great not tried printer yet should or does it have toner saver option?

Great Met My expection

LOVE IT

Great product! The copies are so crisp and clear. Price is very reasonable. Will be adding more of these to our inventory!

Well, I received this printer yesterday as a replacement for a 10 year old HP Photosmart printer (which I loathed) and had it hooked up in short order. I run Linux Mint 17 as my sole operating system, however, so as is the norm I had to locate the driver installer and drivers on the Brother support site and follow their instructions to get the printer and scanner operational. I'd been down this road before as I also own a Brother HL-2230 laser printer, so it wasn't much of a chore. Four driver files will be added, but there are certain prerequisites that must be checked before actually installing them. Read the instructions on the site carefully. Recent Mint and Ubuntu releases already seem to accommodate all prerequisites, but earlier versions or different flavors of Linux might need a tweak or two.The printer worked immediately, as did the fax, but the scanner took a bit of research. It turns out that it is necessary to add yourself as a member of the group 'scanner', and/or 'lp'. I did both instead of wasting time determining which was correct for this particular unit. The Simple Scan program then worked perfectly. I haven't yet tried duplex or the multiple sheet feeder, but I will. The only thing I have not yet gotten to work is one function called the Scan Key Tool. All this does is route a scan from the scanner to the computer as either a file, an email, OCR, or an image through Gimp. It does this strictly by pushing a button on the scanner without opening anything on the computer first. This would be useful if the scanner was remotely located, but mine is right below the PC so I don't really care. Still, I'll likely figure it out because, well...Science. Also, I did not mess with the wireless setup, and just used USB. I do use Google Cloud Print with a Chromium setting on the PC, and don't need the printer to link directly to the cloud. The Chromium plugin automatically saw the new printer and added it to my cloud printers. I tested it from my Android tablet and another computer with no issues.The actual printer and scanner quality seems very good. I tried plain paper, and will do photo paper soon. It does borderless printing, which is great. It won't be my primary printer, but I would at times like to print photos. And as far as the fax, my primary house phone is VOIP using Google Voice with an OBI200 adapter. No apparent issues there.All in all, a good quality all-in-one, with excellent Linux support from Brother.

I had been using an HP Photosmart 3210xi USB printer for several years but I came to the conclusion that my current build Windows 7 computer could not use it to print. Scan worked, but the outdated HP drivers and software made me want to look for something modern.I read up on similar price point wireless All-in-One printers and found many comments about Brother's efficient ink costs. I also liked the more compact design versus my old HP, and the fact this Brother MFCJ450 has a focus on business printing (I bought it primarily for grad school). Things I overlooked include a 20-page auto feed for copying (I was emailing myself PDFS to Thunderbird client GMAIL in minutes) and easy access ink, although I am not sure I would feel confident feeding more than 10 pages at a time for the auto feed (auto feeds notoriously jam, we'll see).Setup from box open to software install took me about a half hour. Some steps take awhile, like a 4 minute printer routine startup process, but everything is detailed well through an included quick guide, a thick, full paper manual, which is super rare to find nowadays, and a CD which helps make wireless setup completely painless. I was a bit concerned, however, as setup did not require me to enter a wireless network password on the first try. Hm.I installed the Brother printer app to my Galaxy S5 and printed to the printer with no fuss. The app even has a progress bar on print jobs. I have to say for $85 I am thrilled to never have to worry about cords again, and I see as of May 15, 2015, the price is even better now.That being said, this printer comes with an about 6 foot AC cord. I have it up on the top shelf of a wire rack and so I ordered a 6 foot extension to prepare. If you need more than 6 feet, do the same!::::::::::::::::::::::::Update: May 15, 2015::::::::::::::::::::::::After about 6 months of ownership, I do have a few nitpicks:1) This printer is best for text and essay assignments, and painfully slow for graphics; do not get this printer for the purposes of printing tons of color graphics. One of the reasons is because of the time the machine takes to dry a page. Granted, general word documents are printed quite fast for my liking.2) Sometimes the printer gives up on a page and either restarts the page or forgets about it, leaving you with a half-printed page (usually when you print a big batch of front/back)3) When my Internet modem has to be reset, sometimes I have to reset my Brother printer's WiFi as well, which is not really a Brother issue as much as it is an issue of my Internet provider/modem needing to be reset...I list this issue more for troubleshooting purposes in the case that scanning still works but printing does not4) The printer randomly does maintenance, and it could happen in the middle of the night, seemingly, which could scare you...not to say it scared me, but...it could, hahaEven so, here are some good things, in my opinion:1) After 6 months of ownership and 3 grad school classes (one semester), I had to replace my black ink once. I spent about $19.36 for a high-yield (600 page) LC103 black and that is a little less than half full at the time of this update. To me, that seems pretty efficient.2) After 6 months, my starter color ink is still chugging. I have a warning for yellow and magenta, but cyan is still going (albeit close). That being said, I did not do a whole lot of color printing, both because I have been dissuaded by the above facts regarding slow graphic-printing, but mainly because I do not need to do a whole lot of color printing for grad school. A high yield LC103 color cost me $32.21.3) Scanning is always a science for a small bed scanner (any personal scanner) but once you get the sweet spots, this thing creates PDF books super fast compared to the dinosaur HP I had. I love it. You can either use the bed or the auto feeder. I had to scan a bunch of stuff for fieldwork and the results were always good.4) I love the sounds of the machine. I know that may seem silly, but as a 90s kid this printer makes me think of an arcade. Fun, engaging sounds5) The easy-out, easy-in ink front compartment makes replacing ink a breeze. Some compact printers may have the ink behind two doors, some might be here, or there. This printer design is just really nice. Paper is fairly easy, too. And while it's compact, it's sturdy. The moving parts don't seem to jostle the unit too much, although I suppose it depends on where it rests. Mine is on top of a four and a half foot tall chrome rack.

I've had a Brother MFC - 6490 CW printer in heavy use for about 6 years and have never had any issues with it. When my wife needed a printer, I wanted to get her the same model, but unfortunately, Brother no longer makes that model.I contacted customer service and was told that the MFCJ450DW replaces my model so I got this. It's a very fine printer, but it lacks the ability to print in the same giant sizes as the earlier model. (This won't be an issue for people who print letter or legal size documents or photos.)Prior to purchasing the Brother I used a variety of printers including the always well rated Hewlett Packard and had nothing but trouble from all of them. The Brother is the first printer I've owned in over 30 years that is completely trouble free. For this reason I highly recommend it.

This is the first multi-function printing, copying, faxing and scanning machine that I have owned. In the past I have owned a network-capable Brother laser printer and was very happy with that unit in terms of performance, features and overall usability. This brother unit is a good unit at a very good price. All of the documentation and drivers and software work okay and there is no problem with deploying the printer to work. I found a bit odd that this came with no USB cable, so I purchased a USB cable and now am using the printer to have it hardwired to the machine instead of using wifi, which can be problematic with automatic channel or frequency modulation and devices losing their connectivity. For the advanced user this unit should satisfy most needs such as duplex printing or two-sided printing, scanning and basic copying functionality. This is not a network printing device that has a hardwired RJ-45 port. The overall quality of these devices has increased substantially since they first were introduced into the marketplace around 2000. The Brother products have always been superior to other competitor’s products who had a market edge since the days of console computing. Overall the printer itself has a integrated paper/ink platform which makes ordering easy of materials. Some of the plastic components on the printer are a bit flimsy, but overall this is a middle to low-cost unit so it’s expected. This is not really a high-volume printer that can hold over a ream of paper. The paper hopper only holds about 1/6 to 1/7 of a ream of paper and would need frequent re-loading if under heavy use. All ink installed okay and driver and software package installed flawlessly with no issues on Windows 8.1 64-bit Professional edition. Configuration can be set three ways, on the unit itself, with the Brother Utilities software window or using the control panel in Windows. Overall this is another quality Brother product that is a good purchase item for small-time users who occasionally need to print a document or scan a file. If you are looking at high-volume printing you’ll need to spend more money for sure.

I bought this after my old Canon Pixma IP1500 finally died. I have to say for such an inexpensive printer, that was a really good one & lasted a long time. I almost went with a Canon again, but all the reviews I read kept talking about how expensive they were to keep them in ink, so I did some research online & found out that an older model of this Brother Printer was rated at the top for 5 yrs. in a row. I would have never bought a Brother printer otherwise. So, I decided to go for the newer model & am really glad I did! It was really easy to set up wirelessly & I've had no problems with it at all. I print shipping labels everyday for my small business & use an online printer for my photos or prints, so this is mostly a business printer. I haven't set it up for the FAX yet because I really don't need that. So far, I don't have any complaints. I haven't run out of ink yet and it seems to print flawlessly. I would definitely recommend it. It's a good buy! And the price was very reasonable for the quality.

I have used many different types and kinds of printers, but Brother Printer is the whole new animal. Super easy to use and set up, minimal usage of ink (very important), and also super affordable ink (very important). WIFI setup was easy, overall setup was easy, overall I am very impressed and would definitely recommend it. Did I say it also looks very good!!!!

Nice fax machine but it's quite a large unit for a small office set-up. Note that the scanner capability is only available on Model 2940. This model is 2840 and does not allow scanning documents from the computer. Nice looking unit.

Easy to set up, works great. Couldn't ask for more!

The fax machine is great. I was able to send a fax and get a report. Easy to put together and very easy to use the menu. Highly recommended.

Normal

works very well for a brother fax machine

Great product, compact and user friendly.

I needed an all in one printer that I could store in another room. After doing a lot of reading, I landed on this model Brother printer, scanner, copier. I have used all three functions of this product and here is what I have found.Printing:I print to this over a WIFI connection. It was easy to setup and has stayed reliably connected. This is a big deal, I've had other WIFI printers that constantly disconnect and I'd have to go through the trouble of reconnecting. The printer prints out pages at a moderate pace. I don't print too many pages at once, but this handles my needs sufficiently. The print quality has been good. I haven't printed any photos on photo paper, but I have printed documents with some detailed color. Again, I would rate this as sufficient. It's not over the top good, but it works just fine.Scanning:I love the wireless scanning feature. I can scan an item and pick which computer I want it to be scanned to, all from another room. This was a big bonus and I was very happy with this. However, recently the scanning function has been scanning in my documents slightly crooked. No matter how straight I place them on the scanner, or if I feed it through the top feed tray. They still scan in slightly crooked. I haven't figured out why yet, and this is the reason I dropped my rating to four stars.Copying:This handles copying well enough. It's the least used function for me. The times I have needed to make copies, it has worked well. Again, I have mainly copied text documents, so nothing high resolution here.I have also used third party ink since my original OEM ink ran out. I know this isn't recommended by Brother. However, the money savings is far too drastic and I haven't seen any performance issue using other manufactures ink from Amazon. I believe ink is overpriced and Brother wants you to buy their own because they make a pretty penny on it.

At first, I was completely frustrated with this printer. That was until I decided to ignore the installation instructions. They really are not helpful to Mac users and don't seem to make much sense, this is my opinion, of course. The quick install sheet that came taped to the top of the printer was all I really needed. Basically, I plugged it in, it found my wireless signal and I keyed in the password. I went directly to the web address for Mac users, selected my printer and loaded the install, seconds later I was printing from and scanning right to my MacBook Air ( latest version of OS X El Capitan). The only thing the instructions are good for is general setup prior to connecting to your computer or other devices ( i.e.: loading ink cartridges and paper). All you need is the app for your tablet or phone, which is also listed on the aforementioned sheet. I like that I can scan photos and documents to my phone, this is a first for me. I cannot attest to its faxing capabilities, as it is not something I will be using in the near future.Note their free card/creative portion of the site is useless unless you unblock pop-ups from your preferences menu in Safari. The alert only mentions solutions for just about every other browser out there. This is probably a no-brainer but not everyone, obviously including myself, is tech savvy. It really isn't that great anyway and I probably won't ever use it. You could probably make something more polished and creative in Pages. I have enough programs to cover that anyway. If you don't and want to save a buck printing off your own greeting cards/business cards it may be a desirable feature but it will look like it came straight out of the 90's.The design leaves much to be desired, it is huge and takes up a good portion of my dining room table. Also, the plastic is brittle and flimsy. Definitely handle with care, especially when loading paper or lifting the scan bed to connect via USB. It actually rattles my very sturdy solid oak dining table a slight bit. This I found odd. However, it does run quietly for the most part.Cheap ink is a major plus if you go through a lot and I know this will save me money in comparison to other models. I will not be using this for art or photos, sadly. The print quality is terrible. It's very dark and despite the test page showing everything was in order, when using color I saw a few streaks. I can still use it for printing off scrapbook paper designs for my jewelry and copy photo to transparency for other projects, I just need to take into consideration that the colors may not be the desired hue or saturation. I will continue to print my photos at Walgreens, Wal-Mart etc. I was hoping to be able to save some time and money printing off okay quality photos at home, this is disappointing.So, why the four stars? Easy setup is very important, no one wants to spend hours fretting over that and if switching/adding devices or an Internet connection going through a huge hassle every single time. Ink is cheap and easy to find. Mac compatible and easy to use with phones and tablets. As a general purpose printer, copier and scanner, it gets the job done. Prints fairly quickly for low volume users, even in color. Price is right, or was at the time of my purchase. I wouldn't pay close to full price for this but I'm happy to have a functioning printer in my home. As long as I am careful with it, it should last me awhile.

I should say right up front that I am enamored of Brother Printers. I had 2 before purchasing this one. The first one was the 7820N monochrome Laser printer which I purchased in 2006 and used in my Medical Office for 3 years. When I gave up Private practice and joined a Medical Group in 2009, I continued to use it in my home office. So far I have had ZERO problems with that unit. The second one was the MFC-9330CDW model that I bought 2 years ago because The HP model that I was using began to give me trouble not to mention the exorbitant cost of their replacement cartridges. That one has a few quirks but overall the performance of the unit and the cost of the cartridges make it a far superior option than what I was using before. It goes without saying that I have totally given up in HP. They will never see a dime from me again. I use both Brother models in my home office and I am extremely happy with them. About 2 months ago I needed a smaller model for private use while at work because I could not connect my private computer to their network and I need to be able to access my private email while at work. Too many times I get emails with attachments that I need to print, sign, scan and return to the sender ASAP. So naturally I turned to Brother again. I have not had this unit long enough to give a comprehensive review on its performance hence the 4 instead of 5 star rating. The unit came when it was scheduled to arrive. It was easy as pie to set up. It choked a little on the Wi-Fi connection even though the Router was less that 5 feet away but it corrected itself on the second try. The paper tray does not have a stop when you are pulling it out so be careful...not a big deal to me and the stop tab where the printed/copied papers come out is a little flimsy so if you need this model to print/copy 50 pages or so you should think about a larger model such as the MFC-9330CDW mentioned above. Print speed is lightning quick and the colors are life-like, true and vivid. I don't yet know about Cartridge life. Overall I have been very happy with all 3 Brother printers that I own and I do not plan on purchasing any printers from any other manufacturer. I believe that you will not go wrong with this or any other Brother printer.

Firstly, I notice at the time of this writing there is around a 15% negative reviews, most I've read so far are to do with connectivity, and lack of decent customer service. I know this because I too have had this problem connectivity problem, so I went reading for solutions. I received the machine yesterday afternoon as promised by Amazon Prime, and since around 4pm yesterday afternoon I have been trying to connect it to my wifi. 3 hours last night, another 2 hours today. When I went to Brothers website it says Customer service is M-F, 9-5, so I didnt bother to call. I've set up other wireless printers with ease, but not this one. I followed the instructions to a T many times over. I went into my gateway and changed settings, turned off firewalls on the gateway modem and more. Nothing... I was ready to click the refund button on Amazon because I thought not only doesnt it work, but by get expedited shipping if you have to wait days just to get help installing it. So just for grins and last ditch effort I tried customer service. To my shock my call was answered. The CS rep was very nice, and routed right though to a Tech. Here is the information I found out that turned it from a nightmare to a pleasure.This machine will not automatically connect to WPS systems. This includes ATT 2wire uverse modem gateways.So you have to do it manually.Got to networkWlanWizardDetect your network, then when ask about installing to WPS, check # 1 ( 1= No )Press # 2Now , here is that part that if they would have just added some kind of text on the screen, or a section on this in the manual or even online would have made the world of difference. Pressing 2 takes you to a screen with a small flashing cursor in the upper right hand corner. This is where you enter you Gateway Modem Key. Then press ok.. and your done~!!!!!!yes, a simple 2 words on the screen like " enter Key" would have prevented 5 hours of headaches and anger at Brother..As for operations.This printer is quiet compared to all the other printers I have had over the years, and its pretty fast too.The color quality isn't that of a high priced professional printer, but that is not what you buy a $68 dollar printer for. I printed a Pantone color and grey scale chart out and while not commercial color saturation quality, its more than enough for printing photos, business forms, even pamphlets or art work my kids create. I find it, so far, to be perfect for what im doing.If you want to print black and white, under printer properties set your defaults to greyscale . Then it only prints in black and white.

So far so good. I had an odd problem setting this printer up with a regular USB cable. The installation went fine until I was instructed to plug in the cable and then it just stopped. I went through a few tries on the phone with tech support. The young man was very polite but couldn't help me. I even went out and purchased a new cable to rule that out as the problem. Finally I noticed that there were a couple of Windows updates ready to install and decided to see if that might have any bearing on the difficulty. Apparently the missing drivers installed along with the Windows updates; I saw them mentioned on the Windows installation details. After that the printer installation was complete. I was able to set up the various functions on the machine without much trouble. I haven't sent a fax, but print, scan and copy work fine. Seems like a good product for the money. Pretty flimsy, though. Have to be a little careful opening and closing drawers, trays and so on. Everything is built cheap these days, so no surprises there. As far as the installation issue, my personal opinion is that there is way, way too much stupid little stuff that can go wrong with product installations. The average person has no idea whether the problem is "operator error," a hardware problem, a software problem, missing drivers, a communication issue or whatever. Rather frustrating. I am a freelancer, so I need decent office equipment to support my work...but what a waste of time it is that product set ups so often don't go smoothly. I probably spent 2 or 3 hours troubleshooting before I figured it out by trial and error.

I have given this printer 4 out of 5 stars for the following:Pros:Easy setup unlike my previous Canon Pixma. I was able to set it up on the LCD screen and get it connected to my wireless no problem!Decent quality on photo paper, however this printer is more gauged at providing the household a easily accessible printer for documents and more.It has a mobile app (also see below for con) so I can print from my iPad or other mobile devices.Great form factor with the features I needed at a good price.Cons:The print feature on iOS and android is conducted through another application that is required to be on the phone. This app allows you to print from your device, however it is not on the fly. For example you can not print out a web page or form on a site, you first must save the page or form to your device then select it from the Brother App.This is a quality printer, with decently priced ink cartridges and mobile device printing. Despite requiring an application to print from a mobile device, it is (in my opinion) light years beyond Canon's printers.

ok but as usual there are some things that work with pc's and not the mac.

I've owned my Brother MFCJ450DW for almost a year now, getting it for Christmas last year. The printer prints pretty quickly, with good quality in both black and white and one of the biggest positive features is the inexpensive ink. Some brands charge you so much for ink that its cheaper to get a laser printer! HOWEVER, while I might have given it 4-5 stars when I got it, it has developed a very annoying bug. It will not shut off, it will not connect to the network, it will not print, it will not do anything UNTIL you "reboot" it....you have to unplug it, plug it back in, and let it restart so it starts working again. This is a MAJOR inconvenience for a CLOUD READY printer! If my family wants to print, they want to click their google print option and the paper comes out. It causes stress when everyone is trying to get to school, work, etc. I have to reach around to the end of the cord (its not removable from the back of the printer) and unplug it and then plug back in. ANNOYING!

Multifunction machines should do two things fairly well - print and scan/copy. The added bonus of faxing, etc is for those few people that still need to fax items and/or businesses that still want to receive faxes. If the multifunction printer isn't able to do those two main things well, it is fairly useless and a waste of money.Brother, thankfully, does do both things fairly well. While the print quality isn't the best I've seen, it is far from the worst. Considering the price of ink, uses per container, and that it is not a laser printer, I'd say the overall quality of B/W or color prints is acceptable. If you are looking for professional quality prints, please look elsewhere. Scanning/copying is also done fairly well on this model. Whether you are imaging a single item on the glass or sending stacks of paper through the auto-feed, it does a very nice job capturing the image.If there was a drawback, I'd say it is the software suite designed by Brother. Talk about a nuisance-ware. The software suite will bug you to buy things from Brother; will send you occasional reminders that your ink is getting low (and then send it to you again just to be sure you read it); will lose connection with the printer (if wirelessly connected) and annoy you to reestablish connection; and clutter your system tray with not one, but three different icons just to control one printer. Unacceptable! As soon as I saw how it operated, I uninstalled it. It was a bit annoying to print using Win7 after that, but thankfully, Win10 solved all my issues and now I can print/scan without any issue and without the software suite from Brother.Overall, as with all inkjets, this printer is generally sold for a reasonable price, but they make up for it in "after sale" ink costs. Black ink is fairly reasonable for the amount of pages you get - but the color ink can become quite pricey, quickly. The one bonus on this device is that each color is individually stored - so if you run out of magenta, you can just buy that instead of getting a single ink cartridge, like many of the old inkjets used to require. There are also plenty of non-OEM ink sellers on the internet, but I cannot speak to the quality of their ink, nor how well they work in this printer. Of note - the ink cartridges for this printer have circuit boards attached - likely to tell the printer how to print and how well the cartridge is performing. Keep this in mind if buying non-OEM ink. For the price of this multifunction device, I'd recommend it for home use, but cannot recommend using Brother's software suite, unless you like to be hassled by a company after buying their product.

Software is not compatible with newer mac software. Best if used wirelessly but make sure you have the exact driver installed and compatible with your computer if your internet goes out and you can't connect. This is my main complaint and why I didn't give 4 stars as I'm still having problems with it but able to print from my old macbook. Replacing ink is like refueling a truck, not very ink efficient. Other then that it prints and scans and does what it's supposed to do. You get what you pay for, this is a basic home printer for minimal printing needs.

It has a lot of features, which I really like, and in general, works very well. Excellent price, too.The main problem I have with it, is the feature that I use the most (and bought it primarily for). The duplex printing. I volunteer for a community non-profit, and design and print their flyers and brochures. It does an awesome job of duplexing (2-sided printing). However... for some screwy reason, even if I am printing in 100% greyscale B&W, it drains my colored ink cartridges!The one time I managed to get through to their customer service, the agent barely spoke English. (Not being a native speaker myself, I am pretty tolerant of those who also aren't.) This person had serious comprehension issues, and seemed unable to deviate from scripted responses. I Hate those. The upshot seemed to be, "that's the way it is, suck it up, live with it, and buy more ink.". I didn't start using it right way, so am past the 30-day return mark and stuck with it.

It seemed very nice at first. The ink is nice and cheap. Gotta love that, but after a couple of months, the scanner just crapped out. It was so jacked up that Brother support asked about 2-3 questions and told me that they'd be sending me a refurbished one out and adding a month to my warranty.Other than that, it prints well, the refurbished one scans well ( so far ).When the paper tray is empty, it'd be nice if you got a better message than ( forgive me, I paraphrase here... it's been a couple of days ) Paper can't feed. As it turned out, I was trying to copy multiple pages and was using the Automatic Document Feeder ( ADF ) and it made me think that there was a problem with the ADF. After having already sent one back, I was concerned. If the message would have been a little more specific ( "Hey, chowderhead, you're out of paper", something like that ), it would have been both nice and would have lowered my concern level after already having to send one back.Other than that, it's good...

This is not a bad printer, but after living with it for nearly 2 years, the one unhappiness is how often I have to buy ink. I took a calculator to it and I'm spending about .05 for a black-ink text page! So, if you have to race to the store because you suddenly run out of ink, you'll pay around $27 for a black ink cartridge that delivers just 600 copies.So today is the last day I'll buy ink for this machine. I'm going to graduate to an "HP OfficeJet Pro 8610 Wireless All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer (A7F64A)" which apparently prints copies for about .02 a page and has many happy customers.

shipped fast but product kept going into sleep mode and would not get out. Would not recommend this machine

The box was all jacked up and had been retaped several making ot look like i had bought it from a garage sale or something. When it prints, there are lines/streaks where the ink doesnt print straight down the page. The ink pad inside looks to be old which is where the very visible imprint of lines are. And they wouldnt contact me back so i could send it back. And now unfortunately my basement flooded and it got ruined completely.

This is the first time I have ever had to take my wireless router to the local tech guy so that I could connect a device to my network. The error message from Brother said that encryption modes used by my router were not supported by the printer. Brother support said, "Call your internet provider or the router manufacturer". Internet provider said, "call the router manufacturer". Linksys (the router manufacturer) said, "talk to these guys in India who will charge you by the minute". With my head hurting from all of the run-around, I called my local shop (where I had purchased the Linksys router about 9 months ago). They said 'bring it in and we'll figure it out". Here's what they did. The error message said that the printer supported TKIP or AES. My router had TKIP, but not AES. They added AES and now everything works. So, the error message was misleading.The difficulty of setting up the wireless connection was unacceptable to me. Every other device & every other printer in my house simply wanted my password, connects, and works.The wireless connectivity soured the rest of the set up experience. So far, the printing is fine. Still need to test the rest of the functionality. I am hopeful.

Do not buy this printer if you want mobile device capability. It uses an app that is very limited!! it will not allow you to print what is on your device screen, you have to open this brother app, then open email or web, then go through hunting down the web page you want and hope you can find it. If its email, that's even worse because you have to select email and it only allows you to print the email, not any attachments (Which is what MOST people need to print). I spent 3 hours with tech support only to find out these limitations on this device, and it was hell to install on my computer, Driver device software never worked right. Sorry I wasted so much time on this printer that I'm returning if I don't throw it out the window.

I have unfortunately made a long string of bad printer purchases. When my Lexmark failed recently for the 4th time (yet another warranty replacement), I needed a color printer quickly to finish a project. I bought this one because I have a couple of Brother laser printers that actually work every time I want to use them. They have been the best laser printers I've ever had. But alas, I needed a color inkjet to print T-shirt transfers (can't use laser due to heating). First of all, the wireless setup did not work with any of the methods discussed in the manual (Manual entering of IP address, temporary USB cable, flash drive). I ended up calling support and we worked through a 4th method that wasn't covered in the manual for connecting, involving manually entering the SSID and network password using the printer keypads (like texting on an old school phone, pushing the keys a million times). Since I have a very long network password on my router, this took a long time and was quite inconvenient.Once the network was finally set up, it printed a network status page-- and the printer jammed. Keep in mind, this is the very first print on the printer (not a good sign). Upon inspection, it seemed my unit had a bend in the plastic where the paper came out, so that the paper would hit a tab on the inside of the printer and jam up. This would cause it to jam with almost every piece of paper, making it essentially useless to me. I opted to go back to my Lexmark, which for all its faults, at least it reproduced color well. 3 hours on the premium support line with Lexmark, we finally came to a solution for getting Lexmark's crappy drivers to actually work in Windows 7.Pros:-It actually kindof worked a little bit, eventually, black/grayscale prints looked great.-Brother support was not terrible, and once they determined my unit was defective, they were willing to send a replacement within 5 days.Cons:-Wireless setup did not work without a call to support for a 4th and undocumented method of connecting, not covered in manual. I use a Cisco E3000 router and have no issues with connectivity to anything else.-Color reproduction was atrocious (orange comes out brown)-The printer jams every 2nd to 3rd page.-Color prints also had faint print lines in them which were not nearly as apparent on my Lexmark.The bottom line is, if you are in the market for a new inkjet printer, I would steer clear of Brother, who seems to be best at making laserjets. Certainly steer clear of Lexmark, who is getting out of the inkjet business because their competition is just better. Stick with the big three in inkjets: Canon, HP, Epson, and buy one that is > $100 and you'll probably be ok.

I concede that I have not been using this device very long and my opinion may improve, but the machine and I are off to a very rocky start. I had been using a Canon MX860 for years, but it recently needed repairs which could not be accommodated before an impending deadline, so I bought this machine intending to keep the Canon as a back-up once it is repaired. I'm afraid that the Canon will be back in the starting line-up. The first impression the Brother makes is chintzy- the build quality on this machine is extremely poor. The plastic is thin and alarming flexible- like a kid's toy you might buy at the Dollar Store. Despite 4 hours, several of which were spend on hold, I remain unable to get a wireless connection. (Customer service assures me it is my router's fault, but my router works fine with all the other wireless device I have.) I finally gave up and connected with a USB cable. Once connected, the machine prints slowly and has a small paper tray. It objects strenuously to letterhead, and although it will print on it, when I tried to print letters longer than one page, I was forced to print pages individually to prevent the machine from sucking up several pages of letterhead at a time. In order to print envelopes, I have to remove the paper from the tray and insert an envelope. On the Canon, there was a separate slot for envelopes and removing the paper to load an envelope was not required. Perhaps this machine has virtues which only reveal themselves over time, i.e. ink efficiency, but after a few hours of use, any virtues remain hidden. It is inexpensive, but considering it will spend the remainder of its life in a box in the basement, it wasn't a bargain.

Update: I had to come back and revise this review. Everything I said previously is true, and I adored this printer, while it lasted. I bought this in mid-late 2014, and it's already having major problems. The most recent is that printing any sort of document (no matter how small) takes sooooo long. One halfsheet of paper with minimal coloring took, I kid not, 7 minutes to complete printing. I'm going to fiddle with it a bit, maybe install a new ink cartridge I have lying about. However, a year is far too short a lifespan for this printer. I've had 20 dollar near-disposeable printers last me at least 2-3 years before conking out. It's been a few months since my last update, and this printer has pretty much bit the dust. The color side works just fine, but the black portion just went kaput. Streaks, areas with no ink. It prints as if the ink cartridge is low or out, even with a brand new cartridge installed. Whenever I set the machine to clean the printer head, it works fine for that day and then goes back to the awful streaks a day later. I can't afford the ink to keep cleaning it before each use. What's odd is that the streaks and gaps are always in the exact same area (when printing the same document). Considering that, I don't think the cartridge is at fault. There's something with that printer head and, unfortunately, I'm no printer technician....so I guess it's time to buy a new one. Maybe this time I'll go with an HP, though I really did love the fact that Brother ink could be replaced by individual color, unlike the HP ones which pairs all the colors in a single cartridge, which seems like such a waste.For years I've stuck with the most basic of printers. Those fax/scan/bells and whistle printers were just not for me, I told myself. Then when my last printer (a 35 dollar HP) died on me, I started hunting around for its replacement. I had originally planned on going basic again, but I was dissatisfied with HP ink cartridges and how they required a new cartridge even if only one color went out. Plus, I use to be able to refill the HP cartridges, but with my last HP printer, it wouldn't register the ink. So I started researching printers that specifically had separate cartridges for each color. Brother and Epson were the two brands that kept coming up in my search. Well, I have a brother laser printer at my job that is a little workhorse...I mean that thing has been chugging along for years with nary a glitch. So I bit the bullet and purchased the MFCJ450DW.I'll be honest, the wireless setup was not the easiest in the world, especially with the security setup I had. My SSID (which I only learned what that acronym stood for during the setup...I'm not a computer wizard...just a gal who reads directions well) wasn't recognized. When I manually configured it using what I knew was the name for my connection, the passkey wouldn't work. The only way I could get the thing to connect was by dropping my security down to open, make the connection with the passkey, then switch it back up to WPA2 after the fact. Took me a while of trial and error and reading up online for this to work, even with the setup wizard on the printer. I even tried the USB option, but it wouldn't register printer this way for some reason.However, now that the wireless is up and running, I couldn't be happier. Love that it holds multiple sheets of paper in a tray (keeps it from flopping forward or gathering dust). Love that it can print on both sides of the paper without having to manually flip it...and that it will flip it long end or short end. Love that the ink cartridges are separate and that I found an Amazon market seller who sells compatible cartridges (very professional looking too...nicely boxed and no leaks or poorly constructed casings like with some generic ink companies) for a ridiculously low price. Love that it's really nicely constructed with a good heft to the scanner/copier and quality of scans. I swear, it really is comparable to the machines we have in our front office, yet it fits into a small corner of my room. Very, very impressive machine and well worth the price.12-29-14 - I have since used the scanner and found it to be excellent as well. I had to scan several items to make a Yearbook presentation and even the most subtle of watermarks and the barest color variations from the original came through. Photos came out on photopaper with absolute crispness and without any of the visible, horizontal lines from my other printer.

Not item in photo.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY WITH BROTHER PRODUCTS. I feel this is putting it lightly. We bought this product after seeing quality reviews and considering the cost. It was solely for use in our home as a simple wireless printer with the occasional copy being made on it. Since day one this product has not printed properly no matter what source is sending it the message to print - constant lines of the document or image missing and the printer regularly feeds 2 pieces of paper though so the job gets printed over two pages instead of one. Since day one the printer has made prints such as the attached photographs. The quality of printing is absolutely horrible. We contacted Brother customer service several times regarding the problems and we were given the hustle around the office on the phone with their staff. Each time ultimately we were told they would send new ink which should fix the problems...we're still waiting for any one of those three alleged shipments of new ink. Never again will I purchase a product with the Brother name, and I suggest no one else make that mistake themselves.

This was my first wireless printer (finally!) and boy did I love being able to send print jobs to the printer remotely. However, within a couple weeks, some of the documents I would send would spool endlessly (the printer would say "receiving data"....for days, literally!) and never print. The only solution was to unplug the printer and start over again. It doesn't seem to object to printing Word docs, but it didn't like printing out PDF docs from my laptop (but would take them from my iphone--weird) or printing documents opened from my email or websites (would just say "receiving data" and never print). I got so sick of the unpredictability that I sent it back within the 30 day return period. Also, I was never able to figure out how to scan documents and send them to my laptop wirelessly (I tried installing the relevant print drivers, but no luck). Two other beefs: 1) From certain applications, the printer interface does not provide the option to reduce the print quality, so I would have to print with full ink, 2) There are 3 individual color ink cartridges (I prefer the all-in-one's because separate ones means more ink cartridges that I have to buy, change, and when the ink is not full in one cartridge, the whole printer pitches a fit). Just bought an HP Envy 4500--hope I have better luck with it.

If I could give this less than 1 star, I would. Hands down, the worst printer I've ever owned. I bought if for very light-duty and in 7 months, it has printed, maybe 10 sheets without incident. The rest of the time is spent fixing paper jams. I am using standard copy paper and it is fight every single time. I can't imagine how much paper I've wasted in the process. This machine is a total lemon!

I ordered this printer in December of 2014, and set up was not as easy as everyone said. But, after doing it over at least 2 more times it finally found my home network. It worked great for two weeks, and then it lost the wifi connection. After installing the thing again it lasted two days and lost it again, at which time I decided to just hook it straight with the usb. That worked fine for another month, and then my computer couldn't find the printer at all. Can't complain about the printing, which looked good and was fairly fast and quiet, but if it can't communicate with my computer or keep a wifi connection then what good is it? I took it out in May and put my old Kodak back in and it worked fine, but I noticed it was almost out of ink and was not printing very well. So, in desperation I tried reinstalling the Brother again and this time the install wouldn't work at all - - even with the usb still wouldn't install the driver. So, I give up. Back in goes the old Kodak, and I'm glad I kept it for scanning at least, until I get a new printer.This Brother is the biggest piece of junk out there - - when an old ink-eating Kodak will install and work on my computer and this one doesn't, that says volumes about the Brother. Guess it's going to Goodwill and I'll be in the market for something more simple. Not saying everyone will have this much difficulty installing this printer, but I did and I know when to move on.

When this printer works, I love it. The ink lasts an amazingly long time compared to my old, cheap Epson printer, and I love that has special functions like double sided printing and scanning directly to pdf.When it doesn't work, however, it's a complete nightmare. After about 2 months of owning it, the printer disconnects from the network constantly. I'd say about every two times I want to print, the printer and computer cannot find each other, at which point I have to spend about 15-60 min trying the different install/connect options with the CD it came with, until it finally connects. One time, the printer was not able to connect (I didn't bother trying to fix it this time, as the document was not very important), and magically connected itself an hour later and printed my document.Starting yesterday (after about 5 months of owning it?) I started getting the error "UNABLE TO PRINT 6F" and was unable to power the machine off via the power button. There was no paper jam, and it was printing perfectly just minutes before I got this error. The only thing I can think of is that I accidentally pushed the stack of paper into the bottom feed a little too far? But if that's the case, the machine is way too sensitive and/or fragile. When I try resetting the printer, sometimes the message will switch to "UNABLE TO PRINT AF" and sometimes it stays the same. Either way, I can't print anything.The user's guide was unhelpful in solving this issue, though I tried everything suggested under the vague "Unable to print XX" section. I've searched Google high and low, tried many solution attempts (even the ones that seem unlikely to have any affect), and nothing has worked. The cheapest quote I could get to fix the printer was $75, not including parts if needed. Seeing as it costs $79.95 new, and didn't even work properly (connetion-wise) for me prior to getting this error, I won't be taking it in to get fixed, and am not going to purchase a new Brother printer.I really wish I could have given this printer a better review, because it has great functionality. But if I can't access those functions consistently or reliably, it's really not very useful to me.

Absolutely the worst one yet! At least the HPs and Epsons just drank gallons of ink. This "thing" won't even print, so ink usage isn't a problem. Seems to live in "Offline" mode. Can't change this status on either of two machines without it automatically reverting back to Offline. Looking like a balcony ballistic.