Brother MFC L3770CDW is a multi-purpose LED printer, which delivers reliable print copy scan and fax. It is an entry-level model to meet the medium printing need of small business and home office. The Brother machine works fast and responsively with rich connection options. Meanwhile, automatic duplex printing with a 50-sheet ADF increases productivity in your work. Single pass duplex copying, scanning, and faxing improve the office productivity and make it to outstand its counterparts. And, the moderate price and relatively low running cost make your money valuable to get a versatile workhorse in your office.
Stylish appearance
At first sight of this great printer, it looks professional and modern in the workplace. The principal white plastic adorned by some black brings fashionable and simple elements to the environment.
The printer is 16.1" in width by 20.0' depth by 16.3' heigh when it comes to the measurement. This size is compact enough to find a home and small offices. And the machine is a litter heavy with 53.9 pounds, need a strong desk or table to carry it. Similar printer Canon Color imageCLASS MF634Cdw is slightly lighter with 48.4 pounds. It does take more structure parts to get outstanding functionalities, which we will discuss later.
The most visible part is the automatic document feeder at the top, which helps copy scan, and fax multi-page documents easily without manual loading frequently. And the attractive control panel with a 3.7 inches touchscreen display and function buttons makes navigating and operating quickly and happily. But the control panel looks a little dated with buttons compared to HP products, such as HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw. And the board is not adjustable; you can not use it conveniently while sitting. In addition to the input and output paper tray, MFC-L3770CDW offers a 30-sheet paper multi purpose tray for your various printing needs.
Brother MFC L3770CDW is an LED printer
Most of us are familiar with Inkjet and Laser(LaserJet) printers but seldom hear about LED printers. That's why many people mistake Brother MFC-L3770CDW as a color laser printer. Wrong! Brother MFC L3770CDW is an LED printer. To figure it out, we must learn the differences between InkJet, LaserJet, and LED printers.
Inkjet vs. Laser vs. LED
InkJet printing is a technology that originated in the 20th century and was extensively developed more than 70 years ago. HP launched the first InkJet printer back in 1988. The liquid ink is sprayed into microscopic drops by a print head with hundreds of micro-nozzles during the printing. Because of the high-resolution output, InkJet is the best image producer and the only capable printer printing photos on glossy photo papers.
Laser printers use toner powder in toner cartridges to transfer the image on paper with the heat from a fuser unit. The imaging method of LaserJet is electrostatic. The machine shoots a laser beam on the rotating Organic photoconductor to create an invisible holographic image of electrostatic negative charge. The charge attracts a specific amount and colors of positively charged toner to display an overturned actual printing content. At the final step, we get the copy of the digital doc from heating the toner image into the paper.
LED printers are usually in the same category as Laser printers in most vendors' sites because of the similarity in output. Both types of printers use toner cartridges and drum units as consumables. They perform the same image quality at the view of end-users. The only difference between LED and LaserJet image-writing systems is how the electrostatic charge generates. Instead of the laser output scanner system, LED printers use a light-emitting diode(LED) array as the light source. The LED array highlights the whole OPC at once and does not require many parts movements in the process.
With the above knowledge, we should know that the ink and toner are used in Inkjet printers and Laser printers (including LED), respectively.
Advantages of LED printers
The first LED printer came out in the mid-1990s, and the timing and lighting issues limited its' development until recent years. Technology progress brings more opportunities. For instance, Xerox Hi-Q LED technology controls 10,240 LEDs and delivers excellent consistency to produce high-resolution images. That means more detailed printing, including smooth edges of graphics, crip texts, and vivid pictures. Less moving parts result in more mechanical reliability and less running noise. In contrast to a color laser system, one LED array requires less internal real estate than a set of four-color LOSs, translating compact machine footprint.
We believe LED technology is the future. LED printers are in the industry trends of cheaper, smaller, quieter, and more reliable to achieve even better docs output.
That has always been saying, Inkjet printers are best for home use, and Laser ones are for the office. But as technology developed, the lines have been blurred. Some Inkjet printers are fast enough for a busy small business, and you can find a tiny, cheap laser printer for family use. So we should focus on the coordination between actual needs and the features of printers rather than whether a printer is InkJet, laserJet, or LED.
Print speed
The first page comes out in a relatively long time of 24s. It seems it takes time to wake up. But after that, the print speed is fast. MFCL3770CDW offers fast printing of up to 25 pages per minute for both color and black text. Automatic two-sided printing falls to 8 ppm but can still increase productivity when printing many two-sided documents. Copying remains the same speed as printing, about 25 ppm, a capable number to ensure office productivity, especially when copying multiple pages and duplex documents with the ADF.
Scan of the back and white image is as fast as 29 ppm and 22 ppm for color(Colors often take more time). Because of the single pass duplex scanning feature, the scanning speed reaches 58 black and white images per min for multipage documents.
The speed is above average to meet most printing needs in the busy home and small offices. Lexmark CX331adwe is an option with up to 26 ppm printing speed if you want a faster one.
Output resolution
The resolution, which reflects the exact pixel numbers in a certain area, is crucial to show the details of an image in both digital and physical documents. The more significant resolution, the more precise the image.
Brother HQ1200 image enhancement technology allows Brother products to make vivid, high-resolution printing. MFCL3770CDW offers 2400 x 600 print resolution both for monochrome and color output. Meanwhile, the copy resolution is 600 x 600, with 400% document enlargement and 25 reductions. Scanning from ADF is 1200 x 600 dpi, and it reaches 1200 x 2400 dpi if you do it from the flatbed. 1200 x 2400 dpi is a high resolution, enough for most physical photos and paintings to show realistic lighting, colors, and details.
Printing performance
Brother MFC-L3770CDW is a LED printer, which delivers the same printing performance as a color Laser printer. It won't be as good as a full-fledged inkjet printer like the Canon Pixma TS8320.
Brother products get a good reputation for presenting perfect text and documents output. This machine produces well-shaped characters even at small fonts. The digital color printing quality of Graphics and charts come out great too. The lines and bars are smooth and solid with vivid colors. The professional text and graphics print quality make it suitable for vital office documents like invoices, contracts, reports, etc.
Similar to color laser printers, Brother MFC-L3770CDW is not suitable for photos. Though the photo printing shows the details because of the high print resolution, images are not sharp with inaccurate and muted colors. As an LED printer, MFCL3770CDW performs poorly on glossy photo papers as the heating toner to paper technology. InkJet printer HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 has better photo quality at a much lower price.
Paper Handling
Though this great printer is designed for home and small offices with no high volume printing needs, MFCL3770CDW has an excellent paper tray capacity. A 250-sheet capacity input paper tray reduces paper reloading frequency, and a 50-sheet automatic document feeder frees your hands when duplex scanning, copying, and faxing. Additionally, a 30-sheet multi purpose tray can handle a variety of paper sizes from 3 x 5 inches up to legal paper. The output paper tray is also with high capacity of 150-sheet, which keeps the printed pages well for a long time when printing.
The AIO supports various media types, including envelopes, labels, business cards, thick paper, glossy photo paper, bond paper, and recycled paper. The monthly duty cycle is 30,000 pages and recommended monthly volume is 1500 pages. This is not a high volume but more than sufficient for small businesses and home offices.
Software and hardware
Connection to a wireless network and print your way
You need to set up a connection and an account before printing. Brother offers versatile internet connection options, including WI FI, Ethernet, NFC, and a single local computer with a USB cable. Near-field communication (NFC) is a touch to connect printing scanning feature, enabling you to connect your mobile device to the printer quickly without a network.
As we mentioned before, the 3.7" color touchscreen can print from and scan to popular cloud services, such as Google Cloud Print, Google Drive, Apple Airprint, Brother iPrint&Scan, DropBox, OneNote, Box, Evernote, OneDrive, etc.
In a WI FI, the smart Brother iPrint&Scan App supports wireless printing of most file types from your mobile devices, including tablets, mobile phone, laptop computers. You can also access the printer's setting and monitor the toner level from it.
Brother MFC L3770CDW driver
You can download the driver software for this printer from the Brother support center, including drivers, utilities, management tool, and firmware update tool. Please be noted, the drivers and software are different for different operating systems. The supported operating systems are Microsoft Windows server, Mac OS, Linux, and iOS and Android for mobile devices. The next step is to choose the correct OS version for your desktop computer. For instance, the supported Microsoft Windows servers include 16 versions, such as Windows 8.1, Windows XP, Windows 2008 R2, Windows 2012 R2. Find and download Windows version Brother MFC-L3770CDW driver.
The consumables
We should check the consumable cost besides the machine price before buying a printer, or the ink and toner replacements will cost you a hand and leg in the long run.
Brother MFC L3770CDW toner replacement
Brother MFC-L3770CDW uses Brother toner cartridges with a drum unit as consumables, including two original Brother models for toner cartridges, Brother TN227 and TN223, plus the drum unit DR223CL. Both toner cartridge models are four colors, including black cyan magenta and yellow, with different names of TN223BK, TN223C, TN223M, and TN223Y. Brother Genuine TN223 has the standard page yield of 1,300 color pages and 1,400 black ones. So Black toner TN223BK produces 100 pages more than yellow toner TN223Y. Similarly, the high yield toner cartridge Brother TN227 brings a significant number of 3,000 for black and 2,300 for color ones. The model numbers are TN227BK, TN223C, TN223M, and TN223Y for black cyan magenta and yellow.
By the way, these toner cartridge also can work with other printers, such as Brother HL-L3290CDW, Brother HL-L3210CW, Brother HL-L3230CDW, and Brother MFC-L3710CW. So, they are also called Brother HL-L3290CDW toner, Brother HL-L3210CW toner, Brother HL-L3230CDW toner, Brother MFC-L3710CW toner.
The secret of actual printing cost in home offices
The Brother machine comes with a set of the starter toner cartridge with less than standard page yield. You should find toner replacements when the printer displays an alarm of low volume toner. Now you will find out how expensive the original Brother brand supplements are. A single Brother genuine black toner TN223BK costs $57.5 in the Brother Store on Amazon. With the simple formula for real printing cost, we can calculate the cost per page for black and white print is $0.041. It is an acceptable running cost for a small print volume. On the other hand, Each TN223 color ($72.5) is slightly more costly, with a $0.056 cost per print. The color cost per page reaches $0.208, which can highly exceed your office budgets in the office with a high monthly print volume.
High yield toner cartridge TN227 is a more affordable option in the busy office in the long run. Despite a higher toner price, the cost per page is lower. For instance, yellow toner TN227Y priced $96.5 on Amazon costs you $0.042 per print, just 75% as TN223Y. High yield black toner TN227BK is even as low as 60%.
Still, cost a lot with Brother TN227 cartridges for your Brother MFC-L3770CDW printer? With our high yield compatible Brother MFC-L3770CDW toner cartridges, you can save money without sacrificing quality.
Get excellent price-performance with True Image.
Besides the expensive Brother brand consumables, you can choose compatible ink and toner as replacements. Brother does not produce a compatible toner cartridge, but it works in the Brother printers the same as the original Brother toners. Usually, using the compatible replacement toner cartridges will void your printer warranty from Brother. The critical point is to find a trustworthy toner Brand, which will offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee, including the damage of printers. On the other hand, when the printing cost exceeds the machine's itself too much, is it so important to care about the printer warranty? Just think about it, a set of TN227 Brother toner cartridges with the price of $364.5 is just $65 cheaper than the printer itself ($430).
True Image TN227BK with the same 3000 pages toner life is $30, which is just 40% of the Brother genuine. The cost of the whole set of black cyan magenta yellow falls to 33%. That means you can print three times pages as Brother toner cartridges with the same money if choosing True Image.
Shop with confidence on the True Image website.
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Our laser toner is from an ISO-certified manufacturer, which experienced veterans found. You can save money without sacrificing quality if you use our products. Free shipping on orders is available in the whole continental USA territory. 100% satisfaction guarantee customer service covers the defective laser toner and the printer damage caused by our products. We keep our clients' privacy confidential to avoid "sell my personal information" issues. So sign up for your account with desired service now.
Consumable troubleshooting
Brother MFC L3770CDW toner reset
There is a frequently happened headache problem to Brother printers. Even with a brand new toner cartridge, Brother printers may incorrectly stop working and give you a message to change the toner. The common issue forces Brother to build a toner reset feature into the system itself. The Brother MFC L3770CDW toner reset procedure is simple with just several steps.
When the machine is on, open the front cover of the printer. Then Press Back and cancel x buttons simultaneously. Thirdly, press the back button again to get the reset menu of four-color toner cartridges: black cyan magenta yellow with standard capacity or high-capacity ( HC = High Capacity, STD = Standard Capacity). Now, you can scroll through the menu to select and reset the specific toner. The counter is reset after pressing yes and getting an Accepted message from the display screen. Repeat the operation if you want to reset the toner of different colors. Finally, Close the cover.
Brother printer gives you a "No Toner" error message? See another blog Brother Printer Says No Toner After Replacing Toner - Troubleshooting to learn how to fix it.
How to clean the Corona Wires
Corona Wires are the parts in the drum unit to charge the drum and paper in the form of static electricity, which plays a vital role in the imaging process. The corona wires need cleaning sometimes, and it is elementary.
Open the top cover of the printer until it locks in the open position. Then remove the toner cartridge and drum unit from the machine on disposable paper. Then slide the green tab in the drum from one side to another repeatedly to clean the corona wire.
Suggestions
Brother MFC L3770CDW is a multifunctional LED printer, which offers a similar performance as a LaserJet printer. It has excellent features to increase productivity, which only includes includs fast duplex print, ADF, but also single pass duplex copy scan and fax. The premium paper Handling and text print quality meet the doc needs of most busy SOHO businesses. While the digital color printing quality is good, MFCL3770CDW is a mediocre family printer because of the bad photo quality.
If you want better color accuracy and to print off of a USB thumb drive, the M255dw is a better choice. On the other hand, the cheaper sibling Brother HL-L3270CDW Laser performs the same while printing but is $150 more affordable without the scanner.
