- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 5 reviews Back to product review
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
1.0 stars
"Brother inkjet printers are TERRIBLE"
Pros: phone, answ. machine, PC-fax, scanner work fine
Cons: printer burns through ink, basically unusable
Summary: The printer part of the Brother inkjet printers cleans itself at regular intervals, using up ink from all 4 cartridges each time. This is especially a problem with a printer like the 845CW that is left on all the time because of the answering machine and the fax. After replacing all the printer cartridges on my printer, over a period of a couple of months I used my printer for only black copies and only about 20 or so sheets total, and the printer stopped working because two of the COLOR cartridges were out of ink! I couldn't even print in black again until I replaced the color cartridges. Apparently Brother inkjet printers use all the color cartridges to print black, instead of simply using the black cartridge. I love the other features on this and the other Brother MFC printers, but Brother will not change this horrible design problem with the printer function (I called the customer service # and they were not apologetic at all about this design problem).
Don't buy Brother MFC inkjet printers unless you don't want to use it as a printer. I have since bought a Brother 5250DN laser printer to do my printing (an excellent machine), and continue to the use my MFC for all its non-printer features.
- 3 replies to this review
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Not all Brother inkjet printers are aloke!
I took mine to an authorized service company when my unit quit operating. I had only made 2 color copies and 3 B&W pages. The service department was very familar with this series (had about 5 awaiting service). He checked out my ink carts and indicated that they were empty. This printer had used up all of the supplied ink + two new cartridges. Some of tne new ink cartridges were shipped that were near empty. Brother has been informed of this problem by more than one service company but they refuse to acknowledge the problem. His advice: "you have a very cheap and poor quality machine".
I am rather ticked off that it has cost me $45 in ink for 5 prints. Turn the machine off when not in use to save ink! The new machines use the type LC61 style inks cartridges.
The set-up procedure for this machine is not user friendly (I use it on my MAC). -
I agree 100%. I have an 845CW, and my first mistake was leaving it turned on - who knew?. After only a month or so, and less than 50 b/w printed pages, it indicated it was running out of ink. After doing some research, I discovered that it uses ink even when not in use. After spending $70+ for ink, I decided to leave it turned off ALL the time, except when faxing documents - about once a month. Then all I print is a confirmation page each time. What a waste of money. Several months later, it's now telling me it's running out of CYAN! I'm not spending $1 more on ink for it. I'll get a replacement printer, and this virtually unused POS is going in the recycling trash. As far as I can tell Brother could give them away for free and make a fortune from ink sales. I don't know if their other printers work this way, but I for one will never find out! Stay far, far away.
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I have an MFC-885CW and the faults you mentioned are the same on it. The "automatic cleaning" feature is the downfall of what would otherwise be a great printer. I also called tech support to ask for a way to turn of the "automatic cleaning" feature, and the tech actually laughed at me. I will never, I say again, never buy another product from Brother.
