Brother MFC-L8690CDW Multi-function LED A4 Colour Laser Printer

This is by far the worst multi-function printer I have ever used. It has only lasted a bit over a year and has burnt out already. Several months after use, the machine began to have errors and only scan on some occassions. I joked that it was temperamental whenever it didn't work. Now just over 1 year old, the machine is completely broken and smoke came out of the machine last night. It is a complete waste of money.

The Brother printer purchased MFC-L8690CDW - coloured laser printer is terrific. Double sided scanning, great quality of print, excellent speed, excellent technical support and the list of good features goes on!I have also owned a Brother MFC-L2700DW laser printer for some years. That printer has been very reliable which precipitated sourcing another Brother Printer. Toner cartridges are not cheap, but it is better to use genuine toner cartridges than alternatives in order that the warranty is not void.

Excellent Value for Money

Purchased this printer as I needed a colour laser printer that was capable of printing and scanned double sided has scan to folder scan to network features. Printer is easy to set up and relatively fast at over 30 pages per minute.Cartridges are also good value for money as the Black prints 6000 pages and the colours print 4000 pages each so your not having to change cartridges every five minutes. Cost for cartridges isn't too bad either.Only down side would be the speed of printing via wifi. While it still does 30ppm it can take around 15-20 seconds to start printing the first page. Once it's going though you wont have any problems.Print quality is superb and I have been able to print flyers and brochures for my business and they look great. Doesn't print ... MorePurchased this printer as I needed a colour laser printer that was capable of printing and scanned double sided has scan to folder scan to network features. Printer is easy to set up and relatively fast at over 30 pages per minute.Cartridges are also good value for money as the Black prints 6000 pages and the colours print 4000 pages each so your not having to change cartridges every five minutes. Cost for cartridges isn't too bad either.Only down side would be the speed of printing via wifi. While it still does 30ppm it can take around 15-20 seconds to start printing the first page. Once it's going though you wont have any problems.Print quality is superb and I have been able to print flyers and brochures for my business and they look great. Doesn't print right to the edge of the page but I didn't expect it to. leaves a 1-2mm border which is normal for a printer.

Incredible how things have improved

The quality, speed and reliability seem excellent. The toners that come with the printer are for 3000 standard pages, which is good. The original toners are expensive but cheaper compatibles are available which should be fine. You can feed in and scan multiple pages at once as long as they are not too thick using the paper feeder on top of the scanner. You can have your standard size paper in the main feeder but only up to 100gm. You can use thicker paper in the multifunction feeder up to 165gm, either a stack if you or you can change what you feed in depending on the job. There is plenty of room when printouts collect in the gap in the middle.I have a wireless setup which was easy but I had to call the helpline because I could not get the application to work that ... MoreThe quality, speed and reliability seem excellent. The toners that come with the printer are for 3000 standard pages, which is good. The original toners are expensive but cheaper compatibles are available which should be fine. You can feed in and scan multiple pages at once as long as they are not too thick using the paper feeder on top of the scanner. You can have your standard size paper in the main feeder but only up to 100gm. You can use thicker paper in the multifunction feeder up to 165gm, either a stack if you or you can change what you feed in depending on the job. There is plenty of room when printouts collect in the gap in the middle.I have a wireless setup which was easy but I had to call the helpline because I could not get the application to work that sits in the taskbar and reports on ink levels, maybe due to windows security settings. Anyway neither could they, but if you check the network address of the printer and type it in to your browser this gives more information, but it also needs a password which they told me was initpass, and is also needed to get into remote setup. The printer is good value and if Brother has a cashback offer on they seem to pay reliably and promptly which makes it even better value.If you want to play around with the printer there is so much you can do which also makes it fun. You can buy card and photo paper for laser printing.

Outstanding!

I'm building up a new home office installation and required a new printer. I wasn't to going to buy another inkjet. Tired and frustrated with them, may not print every day or every week and don't require photo quality output but I do require a printer that works when I need it to as it's usually something urgent. Messing around with head cleaning and head alignment, pulling my hair out in frustration I'm too old for and far too tired of. So this is the second Brother MFC I've purchased. The last one was a mono laser MFC in 2006 and it's lasted 13 years which I won't complain about and it's still supported on the Brother website, big positive that!Given my experience I bought this, needed colour, scanning, copying and fax is still useful, still a legal document in ... MoreI'm building up a new home office installation and required a new printer. I wasn't to going to buy another inkjet. Tired and frustrated with them, may not print every day or every week and don't require photo quality output but I do require a printer that works when I need it to as it's usually something urgent. Messing around with head cleaning and head alignment, pulling my hair out in frustration I'm too old for and far too tired of. So this is the second Brother MFC I've purchased. The last one was a mono laser MFC in 2006 and it's lasted 13 years which I won't complain about and it's still supported on the Brother website, big positive that!Given my experience I bought this, needed colour, scanning, copying and fax is still useful, still a legal document in the UK and have used, plus duplex and network both wired and wifi are all required. It is heavy, it is big and the photo attached shows this in a temporary position for now, have a place for this but need to make space in the home office sometime soon. It is a commercial machine however the price was excellent and being commercial I know it will last and be supported for many years.Once again thank you Brother.So yes I would recommend and needless to say the print quality and user experience have been excellent!

Requires better support for Android via Lan

I had a MFC2Xxx for colour scanning and black printing and a Xerox colour laser. I got rid of them to buy this to do both functions.1. Single page black printing is a lot slower than expected2. It was easy to setup, except for email addresses, just could not find them.3. Printing to Web takes you to email addresses, but WHY NOT from browser setup?4. Shortcuts on the first page for emailing is a bonus5. Scanning to default PDF is washed out, get rid of this mode6. Can't have both Wifi and Lan connected - Arrgh. Needed Lan for Windows and Wifi for Android.7. There is no way to get Android working using Brother app or Android Printing App. Had to use a third party printing app. But its is all working now.Overall, I am very happy with it.

Review of BROTHER MFC-L8690CDW All-in-One Wireless Laser Colour Printer with Fax

Good Points: Has all the features that I require. So far worked without fail. Good quality print for text and pictures on ordinary paper. I have not tried to print photos.Improvement Points: Manuals, whether supplied or on line, are not very helpful. Particularly, when encounter problems with setting up, which is not straightforward. I could not set it up from a tablet or phone, thought you can print from them, and had to connect a laptop because setting required the use of the supplied CD.Another problem which requires improvement is scanning. It is a bit of a faff because I only managed to scan either by connecting a laptop directly or by emailing to myself. All other options did not work.

Scanner Doesnt Work

Bought this and printer is great. But since Day one it will not scan the first time and would only scan 10 documents not what they claim. Then for the past 3 months try four documents and keeps coming up problem scanning. After restarting the machine. 15 tries later it finally scans it. Worst thing is it is only a couple of months out of extended warranty. How convenient. Not to mention for the price you would expect it to actually work. Will be contacting the company /extra cover regarding the replacement under consumer law as this product clearly has a major failure in a component for its intended use, THE SCANNER

WIFI connection very poor

Scanning and copying are fine. Printing through our wifi network is very slow. We have to constantly reboot the printer as it drops the network connection when it goes to sleep mode. We've reset it, reconnected the network numerous times and no improvement. We're now looking at another brand

Why did I not buy this printer years ago!

Dear PrinterlandRE: Brother MFC-L8690CDWThank You!What an awesome machine!Yes it is a reasonable size but oh my word it works! It does everything I need it to - first time - no hassle.I have a mixed home network of iPads, Macs PC's and phones and everything form a tech savvy son and a technophobic wife - and neither have managed to break it!Months on from purchase it is still on its factory installed toners and it produces our weekly newsletters without blemish fuss free in moments each week.I have calculated that in the time I have had this I would have already spent more on ink refills for the &£50 inkjet machines that I kept buying from supermarkets (Why?!) than on this entire printer.Totally without fuss it is the first printer I have owned that ... MoreDear PrinterlandRE: Brother MFC-L8690CDWThank You!What an awesome machine!Yes it is a reasonable size but oh my word it works! It does everything I need it to - first time - no hassle.I have a mixed home network of iPads, Macs PC's and phones and everything form a tech savvy son and a technophobic wife - and neither have managed to break it!Months on from purchase it is still on its factory installed toners and it produces our weekly newsletters without blemish fuss free in moments each week.I have calculated that in the time I have had this I would have already spent more on ink refills for the &£50 inkjet machines that I kept buying from supermarkets (Why?!) than on this entire printer.Totally without fuss it is the first printer I have owned that does not incite me to swear regularly!Life is too short for any printer not as good as this!