Brother DCP-1612W Mono Laser Printer - All-in-One, Wireless

Printer still going strong, great product, software a bit slow dut otherwise great stuff

We do low volume of home printing and rarely want colour so this cheap and cheerful laser printer does the job. Good quality printing, can sit for weeks without being used and still happy. Good copier with scaling (we do a lot of walking and like to take copies of walk book guides with us rather than the actual book, and books are funny sizes). Easy to set up and link to multiple computers and unlike other printers, the connection is stable. The scanning software is a bit quirky and dated - Canon scanning software was far better 10 years ago, but once you work out its foibles you can get multi-page PDFs and good colour scans - and it is a pretty quick scanner compared with other budget printers I've had in the past. Refills are reasonably priced if you shop around. Unlike ink jets. I've also had good results with compatibles on lasers.

Points to note PROS 1. Good Print Quality - even the smallest fonts are well defined; no banding or streaking. 2. Small footprint CONS 1. No option for a cream colour. Still, it hides the toner dirt! 2. No instruction, only an outdated CD (no Win 10 drivers in 2021, really?) . Only an A3 on how to connect USB or wireless using the WPS button on your router. The path of least resistance as anything more complicated, like SSID and password, will require typing it on the printers 3 buttons of up/down and OK buttons. Painful and hopefully a one-time exercise. 3. Expensive when the build quality, injection moulding is compared to previous Brother printers. Feel like it should have been £50 less. But I guess they make a loss on them to claw back in toner. 4. Noisy (ok, this might be personal preference, but I mean when compared to previous Brother printers and other consumer laser printers I've used). It will probably make someone ask "What's it doing?" as it implies its struggling or about to blow up. Its noise you might associate with a milling machine. No brushless motors here. My washing machine is quieter on medium spin. I could probably sand the chair legs on its motor. 5. No high-capacity paper tray. 100 pages exposed to the air (like an inkjet style of paper loading). Make sure you recess printer 5" from the edge of a table, otherwise you may accidentally catch the tray with your body as you walk past. 6. Toner cartridges are then smaller TN1050's so won't last as long as you may have previously been used to, but shouldn't break the bank either. 7. The hardware scan-to-print has been replaced on this model with a 'SCAN to PC' which means the need for the PC to be on. But as neither the SCAN button nor the Brother Control Centre was able to work the scanner without windows 10 errors, I was not able to use it. I can't say anything about speed, it takes 12 seconds from the microswitch click to seeing the first page and feels about as fast as others in this group. My overall impression is I could live with it, but it doesn't seem to have the build quality, looks and quietness of previous brother models and I miss the paper being inside a drawer that can't be seen. But in terms of Quality, the output is good, though I suspect the smaller cartridges won't last long. Shame I couldn't get the scanning to work. I'll play around with MS 2006 drivers instead of the Brother Sept 2019 ones and see if I can get W10 to talk to it, before it turns into W11!

Only had the printer a handful of months which isn't long enough to vouch for its long time usability, Setting up the printer was pretty easy for me I had to connect it to my wifi network using the the manual input setting method from the printer network settings panel, setting up the software for my tablet from Google play store was easy and setting up the software for my ethernet connected PC to my wifi router was simple too, didn't encounter any issues apart from the WPS button on the printer couldn't connect to my wifi network hence I did it manually by entering my wifi credentials.

I cannot think of anything good to say! Avoid this awful printer. Wifi? Only if you only have 2.4GHz, and only if you have one access point. Got 5Ghz switched on? You will have to switch it off before the printer will connect to 2.4GHz. Got a Wifi extender or a 2nd access point? You have to turn all of them off too before the printer can connect. Once connected switch any of those back on and the printer will disconnect. So either reconfigured your wirless network everytime you want to print or buy a usb cable. The paper sticks out of the front gathering dust and catching the clothing of passers by. Printed output falls on the floor unless you extend the flimsy bit of plastic that is stored under the top cover. Opening the top cover and closing it again usually renders the printer needing a restart “top cover open!” before you can print. Slamming the lid down as hard as you can might work after three or more tries. Click print and go and make a cup of tea or sit there wondering why nothing is happening. If I want a quick photo copy I walk to postoffice, quicker and less hassel!

Absolutely brillian! highly recommend this over HP printers any day!!!

Great connectivity, easy setup, good function, quality product, perfect size, low noise levels,

When I received my new printer I was pleased to see that it came with a CD/ROM installation disc. But, the disc did not mention Windows 10, and when I tried to install the software the CD would not work. I followed the instructions and removed all plugs and re-inserted them, rebooted the computer, and it still did nothing. I then went to support.brother.com to look for the software installation to try to do it manually, but when I input DCP1612 it said 'No results'. Then I remembered that when I had attempted to download the manual I had searched in support.brother.com, but had come up with 'No results'. I decided to have a look at the brother.com site and, after a bit of searching, I found the manual and downloaded it. Next I looked for the software installation in brother.com, and found it, thank goodness. From then on it was reasonably straight forward and it utilised some sort of Wizard (all a bit beyond my technical understanding!), though the instructions that came up on my screen bore no similarities to the instructions in the manual. It actually installed software for DCP1610, not DCP1612, but, it worked and finally I was up and running. I have yet to try to do whatever it takes to install with WiFi connection so I could print from my iPad. I have just found an interesting manual 'Mobile Print/Scan Guide (Apple Devices)', so I might manage to do that one day! I found that when I was searching for the 'Software and Network User's Guide'.