Brother Workhorse MFC-L8395CDW Digital Color All-in-One Printer with Wireless Networking and Duplex Print, Scan, and Copy
$499.98
Available in stock
Category: Office Electronics
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John Hagood –
Very good VERY HEAVY
Product very good as described prints very well. Package and printer are much havier than normal
C. Hawks –
If connecting with WiFi Expect to RECONFIG EVERY TIME IT GOES TO SLEEP!
We purchased this AIO printer to replace an HP AIO printer that is failing, based on the positive reviews here and elsewhere. It seems like a decent printer except one incredibly ridiculous design flaw that tech support admits is indeed the way it is designed. Apparently the folks delivering positive feedback are not connecting the printer through WiFi (i.e. they’re using Ethernet or USB,) unless it’s fake/paid feedback.Interestingly enough, in the feedback entry section here on Amazon, there’s a star rating metric just for the item that killed this device for our use: Sleep Mode – The problem’s THAT prevalent!We have to have our printer in a room where there is no Ethernet drop and there no reasonable way to install one, so WiFi connectivity was a primary reason we selected this printer. BUT… as it turns out, if you don’t print to it continuously and it goes into “Deep Sleep” mode – roughly an hour(?), it completely loses its WiFi configuration – meaning it does NOT remember what SSID it was last connected to, and you have to physically go to the printer, and walk through the menus to re-select a WiFi SSID, enter its passkey and reconnect it in order to begin printing again. EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!Brother’s support is absurd.If you want to chat or talk with a human on the phone, when you navigate to the support page and enter your device’s model number (which in my case was NEVER found so I entered a different model just to get past the field) it just returns you to the same exact page with NO way to start a chat session and no phone number to call. I had to Google their support phone number, as it seems it’s nowhere to be found on their site. SERIOUSLY!Once I did call them, every time the wait time was an hour or more. And every time I elected to get in the call-back queue without losing my place in line, the IVR/phone system would tell me to look out for a phone number starting with an 877 area code and to answer that call. Then an hour or so later, they would call me back but from a completely different number and area code – that Verizon has on its spam list, so my phone either would indicate “Known spam” while ringing (and of course I’d ignore it) or the phone wouldn’t even ring at all, sending the call immediately to voicemail. They NEVER called me from an 877 number… it was normally a (599) 555- number (! Would YOU answer that?! I thought 555 was reserved for TV/movies as a fake prefix) This happened several times, and I had to continuously call back and wait an additional hour or more. Absurd!I now truly think Brother knows this is going to happen and uses it so that they can avoid speaking with customers about problems with their products. Anyway, on my 4th attempt to speak with a human, I decided to wait the full time. The first time I did this, they hung up/disconnected the call while waiting to speaking to a human after being on hold for 45 min. The next time (an hour, 9 min on hold) when I actually did get a person on the line and after we went thru the obligatory Level 1 script, the support tech finally VERIFIED THAT THE PRINTER IS INDEED DESIGNED TO FORGET ITS WIFI NETWORK CONFIGURATION AFTER GOING INTO DEEP SLEEP, SO THAT YOU HAVE TO PHYSICALLY GO TO THE PRINTER AND RECONFIGURE WIFI IN ORDER TO HAVE A WORKING PRINTER AGAIN.Yes, it’s DESIGNED this way!! WTF?!There is NO WAY to turn off Deep Sleep mode, nor adjust/extend the time it takes to enter the mode.This is ridiculous, absurd, atrocious and unacceptable. How on earth can Brother feel this is OK/a reasonable design in today’s mostly wireless world??The print quality seems reasonably good, WHEN it prints/works. It’s nowhere near the stated 31 PPM performance they claim but I’m willing to accept that. (It’s more like an anecdotal 18-20 PPM in B&W, slower in color) What is untenable is having a printer that literally forgets entirely how to connect to the network it was just connected to every hour or so. I get disconnecting in low power mode if Wake-On-LAN signals are respected, and even if not that, at least keep the SSID/Passkey in memory to use and auto-reconnect…But in this printer’s case, Wake-On-LAN isn’t even a possibility because the printer completely resets its WiFi config to null EVERY SINGLE TIME it enters Deep Sleep. You might as well be using an old school copying machine where you have to physically be standing at the device, starting from ground zero to enter all needed functions every time you want to use the device. Better yet, for my old-schoolers out there, a mimeograph machine… at least then you get that romantic smell and purple color.Ridiculous!I WILL BE RETURNING THIS PRINTER AND PURCHASING ANOTHER BRAND.Brother, you just lost a customer probably for life and across all devices. If you’re willing to design something this intentionally dysfunctional, then honestly, I don’t trust you to create ANY product that’ll meet my needs. Not even a label maker anymore. I’m done with you.In the words of Me Phi Me – “Not my brother, Brother.”
JudiMWC4 –
Solid purchase for a small CPA firm.
Works as advertised. Wish it would “wake up” a little quicker after going into sleep mode.