Printer Reviews

Brother P-Touch labeling system are notorious for wasting expensive marking tape, just read any of the reviews. The lable maker performs as execpted. The problem is the Editor. I have downloaded the lastest version and it still sucks. The editor is is what keeps it from being a serious industral tool. It has all sorts of cutise, but worthless templets and clip art. Two features the Editor needs is a search and replace, and a seral numbering system. When I have several hundred lables to make,it is eaiser to use a Handimark with its seral keys than to use the PT. I give it 2 stars and the Editor 0 stars. If it has those features, they must be well hidden,

Upgraded to Windows 2000 Professional and the printer will not work. Spoke with Brother and they told me it was a Windows 2000 problem, that nothing was wrong with their software, then have thousands installed . . . Brother's Customer Service would not take a "Problem Report" and could offer no advise . . . just it's Windows 2000 fault . . . sorry, this is a wrong answer.

Although the software was a bit klunky I loved this printer. It's no more wasteful of tape than others (which is still too much, I agree) and I was thrilled to be able to compose labels from my keyboard.

Sadly, when I upgraded to Mac OS X 10.3 something went awry and the printer now prints only blank labels. I emailed Brother about this in early November, 2003, and was told that the problem is that Mac OS X changes a lot in each release and they keep finding their driver doesn't work anymore. No idea when it will be fixed; I just checked and there are still no updated drivers available on their website. They can't be trying very hard; I don't know of any other printer having this problem.

So, this is a great product unless you run OS X! Since odds are that even if they get it fixed, when 10.4 comes out it will happen all over again.... :(

I have seen two or three of this model jam on almost every document larger than 10 pages. Mine finally jammed itself into the repair shop.

My wife works as an administrator for a local church. She had problems with her first HP Lazer Jet 1100 and the HP company replaced it immediately under warranty for which she was very pleased. The replacement unit started jamming as paper would run low. It would pull 4 to 6 sheets in at a time. She thought purhaps the paper was damp and changed to another brand, but the machine still jammed while using fresh, top of the line paper products. In all fairness, when the unit did not jam, it printed beautifully and has printed to date, 38,959 copies. But in doing so, it has been very frustrating. Enough to make the Preacher cuss! My wife has retired this model and the church has purchased a new HP Office Jet D145 printer,copier, scanner and fax combination that works great. Although, the new printer is not a Laser Jet and it appears to use ink cartridges like a luxury SUV goes through gas, it is a "Blessing" that HP has discontinued the problematic 1100 model. It is our opinion that HP offers the best products and service. Thank you.

HP's LaserJet 1100a offers the convenience of being a multipurpose printer/copier/scanner. Unlike many of "All-In-One's" the 1100a actually is a LaserJet (meaning it's fast and uses toner) instead of being a glorified multi-function InkJet (meaning slow as heck).

Home/small office users should enjoy the convenience of the 1100a's copying ability. If you need to make large volume copies this product may be a pain as the speed is not there (after it's not a REAL copy machine) so you may still want to visit Kinko's but if your copying requirements are small, this machine can put out copies fast enough. Another good plus on this product is that it can make copies even while the computer is off. It is independent of the computer.

As far as scanning goes, this product is ideal if you are scanning pages. It does not have a flatbed, so I personally would not trust this product with pictures but for OCR functions this is perfectly fine.

In all, if your home/office printing requirements are strictly for black-white documents this product is a fine solution for your needs. It's fast, it prints in good quality, plus it doubles as both a copier and a printer. It's done the job for me very well!!!

Highly Recommended

We've used this at our small business office since November.
I don't think I've ever hated a printer as much.
Although it is pricey, it is way slow. Maybe 40s per page and 10-20s to turn over the page to print the other side. You read that right - if we get more than a page a minute out we are doing good. The only way to get acceptable speed is to go to draft mode and turn off double sided printing. Not what you expect in a $300 printer.

The other thing we hate about it is that the cartridges are now coded so that remanufactured cartridges won't work. (It works by expiration date - a cartridge old enough to have been used up and re-filled gets rejected by the printer. I wonder what happens if you are unfortunate enough to buy a new cartridge that has been stockpiled somewhere.)

Overall, I have to believe there are better choices. Of our three printers, I only use this one when I really want double-sided.

So far I am happy with this printer. I have had another HP for 5+ years and it still works just thought it was time to upgrade to a faster printer (not to mention I now have two networked printers and was cumbersome to keep changing cables to print). Just a copule of small things I have notice: takes 45+ sec from off state to print first page, I have yet to see the print cartridges sold in local stores (Office Depot, Office Max, WalMart), print head and ink are now seperate (supposed to make ink replacement cheaper in long run), in XP (home? which is what I use) do not enable ICF on the ethernet connection or you will not be able to print (not a big deal in most networks with a firewall built into the hub or router unless you take your laptop away from home often).

My volume of printing has increased recently and I needed to purchase a printer which was more cost efficient. After shopping for months, I came across an excellent review of the costs of printing in PC mag. They reported the cost of the HP 1100 to be similar to laser printers and I was skeptical. HP has achieved this efficiency by placing the print heads separate from the ink and having four ink cartridges, yellow, magenta, cyan and black. You only replace what you use and you don't have to replace the print heads with every ink. I didn't want to buy a laser printer because of the warm up time and because I print pictures. This printer prints standard quality very quickly, but it does spool up longer than other inkjet printers I have owned. The duplex feature saves paper by printing on two sides automatically; however, printing time goes up because the printer needs to wait for the ink to dry before printing the second side. This printer is on my home network with three computers and Windows XP and 98 and I have had no problems yet. Setup was faultless, although lengthy. My relatives have invested in other brands of printers and although the print quality is fine they have spent endless hours troubleshooting. Except for the usual Windows type frustrations (while slogging through system upgrades, switching to networking, switching to USB, hard-drive crashes, cable changes and driver updates) my other HP inkjet printers have performed as advertised and even performed well on systems they were not designed for. While this printer is much more substantial than my other new inkjet printers, many parts are only plastic and I'm afraid it will not last under hard use. This printer would probably be fine for heavy home use or sharing in light business use but probably too light weight for higher volume types of printing such as newsletters and brochure production.

Of all the products I have ever bought for my computer this is the ABSOLUTE WORST. I bought my Epson 880 printer less than a year ago, and it had worked perfectly until the day that I made the great mistake of placing a cartridge of that [STUFF] into it. Two weeks later the colours that I printed began to change, the red would not come out, and today I got the diagnose from the Epson Service Center that the heads of my printer are damaged beyond repair. Don't ever buy that Rhinotek ink.

Maybe it's just me but whenever I've tried non-Epson inks they've been terrible. Rhinotek tended to really over-saturate the paper with ink and smelled bad. It took a long time to dry and the cartridge did not last nearly as long as Epson. Also tried their color cartridge and the colors were quite different than Epson's and not as accurate. I'm willing to pay a bit more for a better (Epson) ink.

The price (...) was great. But the ink smells when it's wet. I don't remember the Epson-brand cartridges having this kind of smell.

This printer was shipped with a Compaq desktop and monitor with xp home edition. I bought a set so they would work well together. Wrong! I have worked for three days and the printer still will not install right. Goes in as a foreign language and the driver appears not to work with xp. All the support help has not fixed it so far. Compaq should not send sets with xp together when they will not work. The printer is very flimsy and cheaply built. I may never know how it prints. Stick th HP.

The only reason I even tried this printer is because it came bundled with the new Presario I got preloaded with XP. XP of course wanted nothing to do with the printer, and even when I did finally get everything working, I found that the image quality is noticeably poorer than my trusty old Cannon. And, as long as we're at it, it's slow... the purported 5 page per minute speed is pure fantasy if you're printing anything other than straight text.

We used to have a HP printer and it was a piece of junk. This printer is incredible!!! It prints beautiful clear pictures and the color is very vivid. It prints black ink very quickly but color images take a little longer. The color pictures are definately worth the wait though. It's a fabulous printer!!!! My husband and I love it! We will NEVER buy HP again!

I purchased a 450 CBi so I could use the Bluetooth technolagy with my HP ipac 2215. The printer is clearly advertised as having Bluetooth connectivity. Upon receiving the printer the information included indicates that a HP Bluetooth printer card is required priced at $97.00. After spending 3 hours on line and on phone I find the item can't be bought. HP's last instructions were to search on google for it. I did only to find only one reseller listing the item. They were out of stock.

I heavily use the HP 450CBi daily. Usually print 75 to 100 pages of Docs per day. Battery life is good. Print quality is good. Print speed is acceptable for a portable. Durability is questionable. I keep it clean and in its own protective case. I am on my THIRD HP450CBi printer in 9 months! Paper jambs, multiple sheets feeding, print carriage movement obstructed. I have tried many different types of paper based on quality, brand, thickness of paper, inkjet, multipurpose, etc. all with similar results. When number 3 gives out I think I go for a cheap disposable desk type model and plug into a 12V/110V power inverter in my vehicle. No Bluetooth as advertised. Forget IR. Just plug in a USB cable. Good Luck!

I bought this printer to go with my HP Pavilion ze5200 laptop the summer before heading off to college. I knew that in college, I'd be mobile and on the run, so I was looking for a good quality printer that was small enough to fit in a dorm, but wouldn't crap out on me as I was printing a ten page paper half an hour before it was due.

It's been about nine months since I bought the 450Cbi, and I've had a really good experience. It's small enough to fit compactly on my little dorm-room desk, and every time someone walks into my room they say, "Oh! What a cute printer!" It's small and lightweight enough to throw in my backpack along with my laptop as I go to the library or student center to study, and the fact that it can be battery-powered is just awesome--I can be sitting outside in the middle of the quad, with no outlets in sight, tapping away happily on my laptop with my printer chugging out my papers beside me. The quality is fantastic, both photo and simple black-and-white, and one black ink cartridge lasted me eight months, which is amazing considering all the papers a college student has to type.

For the negative stuff: As other people have said, it has a problem with paper jamming. I've had several times where the paper has jammed, and I've had to work like the devil to un-jam it. However, nothing has broken, and all in all, it's held up beautifully considering how much I put it through, always lugging it from one side of the campus to the other. My infrared printing did suddenly stop working on me for some reason--my laptop will detect the beam and begin to print, but an error will pop up and refuse to print anything that's not a Notepad file. As well, I was also disappointed that though the printer is advertised as being wireless, it doesn't actually come with a Bluetooth card. No matter though, a parallel port cable is short, compact, and has worked perfectly fine for me. I do think that it is a little overpriced--I paid $250 for it--but for me, it's been a great a little printer and I don't regret my choise to buy it.

Brother is a gigantic international corporation that does not offer a recycling program for its cartridges. Had I known this, I would not have purchased this item. Recycling companies do not take them either.

Brother machines are competitive in price but when they break down during the first three months, the service is horrible. They put you through the ringer trying to make the fix over the phone as if you have all day to stay on the line and try to fix it with them. Eventually you give up and ask for a service center but a stall is involved, so that it will be claimed you are out of warranty. The supervisors are worse. They want you to give up and fix it at your own expense. I only wish their products to my enimies.

We purchased this machine for our business about 4 months ago and have decided to order two more. The low cost of this machine and optional second paper tray put this machine [amt] lower than anything close to it. We have 2 other older bother laser machines which are still going strong and have been happy with the low opertion cost expected from brother. The addition of the second paper tray's and the larger memory is what pushed us to upgrade to 2 more 4750's. Nice job Brother!

The product is advertized as new oem brother product. upon installing new drum the starter paper that ejects upon start-up was not present and the print quality was worse that the unit being replaced. a series of black dots are now present in right hand column. Very dissappointed. I've installed one replacement prior to this and experienced none of the problems stated above. It wasn't worth the savings. I'll need to purchase new unit at brick & mortar store.

CompUSA has this same product for $128.07 as of June 14, 2004. I've had my Brother MFC 4550+ since 1998. My drums go fast even though I only use the machine primarily for faxing, not printing or copying.

Brother's separate drum/toner cartridge arrangement makes for a longer life of the toner output equipment overall. Having been the owner of laser printers and inkjet printers for many years, I can say that Brother's solution is very nice. Here's why. In the arrangement used by HP, for example where the toner cartridge and drum are combined, if the drum is scratched, or otherwise damaged, the cartridge is ruined. That's the end; it must be replaced. In this arrangement, however, it is possible to fix the drum. Should a splotch appear, it's possible to wipe it off and even vacuum out the drum, if necessary. Sometimes when a cartridge is about to run out of toner, for example, it burps out a little extra toner. Because you can separate the drum from the cartridge, it's possible to clean this up instead of just throwing out the whole cartridge before it's really worn out. Another advantage along the same lines is being able to remove pieces of paper that get stuck inside the drum should a paper jam occur. Now as far as the economics of laser printer versus inkjet printer go, just figure it out for yourself. Do the math and come up with the best compromise of print yield, resolution, etc. In terms of comparing the cost of combined drum/toner cartridges versus the cost of separate drum/cartridges, I found that there was little difference on a per-print basis. Add to that the convenience of recovering from problems described at the beginning of my comments, and I am forced to conclude that the Brother solution is the best.

I carefully followed the directions and refilled my inkjet cartridge and then reinstalled it. I was never able to get it to work properly as I got terrible print quality. I gave up on it after a full day of trying to get it to work and got a new HP cartridge.

I followed all of the instructions and very carefully added the colored ink to my cartridge, but could never get it working in my printer. I'm very disappointed and had to trash this one and order a new HP cartridge.

If your refilled cartridge fails to work, place the print head in a shallow dish of water with one drop of detergent. Let it soak over night, and then wipe the head dry and install. The soak will remove dried ink deposits that cause the failure. Run the "clean head" option on the printer after installation.

A lot of paper jams. Eats ink like water. Printer does not work after 12 months. Colors run. Paper comes out with waves from the wet ink. Slow. Makes a lot of noise.

Buy a bottle of soda and chew on the glass. You'll have a better time!

I've been using this printer for three years now; it is an excellent printer. I have never had any major problems, a few paper jams, but nothing unbearable. I've been looking for a new printer to replace it and I have found many other printers just as good and some better for a lot less money. If your going to buy this printer you may think about looking at some lower priced ones because you may be able to save money and get a better printer.

I purchased a 712c HP injet printer so long ago I can't tell you when it was but it has been an outstanding printer. Never have any problems with it no matter what Windows(95, 98 or Me)I have used. You can print great colored pictures on it. I have a digital camera and it prints great 5x7 pictures and smaller ones. They look like I have had them developed. My only draw back right now is that I print a lot of pictures or picture cards so the printing speed is to slow for me for color printing. I wish HP would take trade-ins for a new Printer because this printer is in the same shape it was in when I purchased it and have not ever had to have it worked on. I just print a lot of pictures so I need a faster printer.