Rating: 
Summary: A Great Mac and PC Printer (network too, optionally!)
Review: I love this. I added the network card and 128Mb memory, and now it is on my ethernet network, and all three pcs and my mac can print to it easily!It was a PIP to set up, and worked great! As for the Mac, it DOES do job layouts for me (see Dec 30 reviewer), so I don't know if that only works because I have a network. The only real feature I couldn't get on the mac that I could on the pc was "watermarking". Again, this printer is FABULOUS so far, and I've only had it a week. We'll see if I still feel that way after I use up a few toner cartridges. Ok - now it's May 2002, and I STILL love this printer! Another update - January 2003 - and this works like a charm! And ink usage from the toner seems great too. I really recommend this printer.
Rating:
Summary: Just What I Had Hoped!
Review: I own a small newspaper that publishes every other week. I was looking for something to do black and white which was clear and quick to keep up with the workload. I was also in desperate need of something that printed out quality black and white photos and quality graphic images for use in the paper. I was hoping to get a quality grayscale. This printer is all of the above. The installation was very easy and it got better from there. If you are looking for a high quality printer for an excellent price, then this is the one to purchase. Thank you for a great product!
Rating:
Summary: B/W Photo Printing
Review: I purchased this printer to print old B/W photos for a family scrapbook. Each of the 10 copies of the scrapbook is 200+ pages (both sides). I bought this printer because of its good ratings for grayscale and its inexpensive initial cost for automatic duplexing. This project would have been considerably more expensive using inkjet or getting them printed at a copy store. I am very pleased with the quality of the photo printing, the cost per page, and the printing speed. I installed an extra 128 MB ram, and never had a problem printing the entire photo intensive scrapbook. This printer could easily be used for office use in a small workgroup.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Value For The Money
Review: I recently purchased the Brother HL-1650 to replace an old Brother 8e (which was an outstanding workhorse for a good 12 years). While it's much too early to evaluate the 1650's long term reliability, I can say that when it comes to product features the printer is an excellent value for the money... especially given the fact that the street price is now under $400. Where else could I have gotten a 16ppm, 8 meg, duplex printer for that price? Beats me. And the tone saver feature will undoubtedly save me money over time. I also want to comment on some reviews that I read here and elsewhere. First, the 1650 does indeed have a multi-page printing feature which enables one to print anywhere from one to 25 pages side-by-side on a single sheet of paper. So I'm not sure what the reviewer "cwasche" was refering to (unless it's some sort of a Mac vs. PC phenomenon). You just have to make sure that you select the proper printing mode in the properites panel. Similarly, I read one review that reported greyish vs. black print. Should this occur just make sure you don't have the toner saving mode on. In the "off" mode I've found the print to be dark and sharp. Finally, I should note that the setup was about as easy as it can get. I'm also using the parallel port (vs. the USB) connection. Should you use the parallel port connection be sure to use an IEEE 1284 bi-directional cable as instructed. Hope this review helps someone.
Rating:
Summary: Great printer!
Review: I've been using an old DEClaser 1152 for a while now, and while it has been a good printer, it is just too slow. When it couldn't print my tax forms from TurboTax, I knew it was time to get a new printer. After reading several reviews and comparing prices and features, I decided to go with the Brother HL-1650. I received it today, and within a couple of minutes I had it installed and running under RedHat Linux 7.2. I was suprised to find a specific driver for this printer under the printer configuration tool. The driver seemed to be very complete, and even had an option for duplex printing. In no time flat, I was printing several large PDF and PostScript files. This printer is a speed demon compared to my old DEClaser! The printing quality is very good, even at 300dpi, and the duplexer works flawlessly. I rebooted my laptop into Windows 98, and installed the driver from the CD-ROM. After printing a test page, I decided to print the tax forms that were the bane of my old printer. In no time (well about a minute), I had all eight duplex pages. I am very satisfied with this printer so far, and as long as it keeps working as well as it has today, I'd recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Great value, user friendly, useful features
Review: I've owned HP, and I've owned Lexmark. One can get cowed by the dominance of those companies in the marketplace, but I think that is too bad; consumers may limit themselves to bad choices when they don't look to other brands like Brother. I had a Lexmark that printed great -- but died *well* before its claimed life expectancy. So, I did not want to repeat that mistake. I wanted automatic duplex printing, and that requires at least a couple hundred dollars extra -- or more -- in any other brand, including HP, Xerox, etc. And just look at the price of upgrade parts on those guys! Brother has been around for a long time, and I felt it was worth giving them a try because the value was so much better. I've only had my 1650 for a few days but I feel very good about it. The setup was incredibly easy (used the parallel cable in Win98). And the included CD-ROM has animation that visually shows you every step of the printer set up! Of the printers I was considering, the Brother is the only one with a backlit LCD display with menus for features and settings (all of which are also controllable by software on the PC). The ergonomics are very good and the printer driver interfaces with my regular software just fine. The duplexing works great. It comes out of "sleep" mode pretty fast, while between print jobs it saves a lot of electricity. I haven't tried labels or anything but I put some fairly heavy cover stock through it, using the manual tray and rear exit tray, and had no problems at all. So far I have no complaints about the print quality. I'm not sure if it will match the Lexmark Optra R+ that it's replacing -- but this printer cost *half* as much as that one did, and the toner is also much cheaper. For text it's great, and the blacks are totally solid. I think that the inexpensive memory upgrade I've ordered for the Brother will improve the grayscale output even more, but I'm mostly looking for business use and this looks ideal. So far I've gotten all I could want: larger input capacity than I had before, auto duplexing, good quality, good speed, and a good selection of reasonably-priced upgrade options, like adding a second input drawer, networking, IRDA memory, and so on. And when I called Brother (toll-free!) for pre-sales information, I reached a person with virtually no hold time.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT printer!!!
Review: It was the absolute easiest thing I have ever installed on a computer. I literally just had to hook it up and turn on my computer and it did the rest (Windows XP). As for printing, it has been supurb. I do taxes on the side and I made it through tax season perfectly AND I am still on the original toner cartridge! It has definitely paid for itself already! Do not hesitate to buy for home office use!
Rating:
Summary: GREAT printer!!!
Review: It was the absolute easiest thing I have ever installed on a computer. I literally just had to hook it up and turn on my computer and it did the rest (Windows XP). As for printing, it has been supurb. I do taxes on the side and I made it through tax season perfectly AND I am still on the original toner cartridge! It has definitely paid for itself already! Do not hesitate to buy for home office use!
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed Mac Addict...
Review: My background: I'm a mac addict law student and need a laser printer for my legal work and class outlines. I shopped around a lot for a new laser printer. I was going to buy an HP but my budget was $450. Unfortunately, I did not like the design of the low cost HP laser printers. The paper tray is kindly flimsy and it sticks out...not good with a 3 year old! So I decided to try a Brother. I just recieved my printer and was so excited to test it. I was very disappointed to find that it does not have a job layout option (which would allow me to print 2 pages side by side on the same paper). And that was the main reason I wanted a laser printer. Plus Brother is not fully mac compatable (some of the options can only be used with a PC). Other than that, the printer is great. The quality is excellent and it has an automatic duplex printing function. So, if you don't need the job layout function, I would highly reccommend this printer. It was such a deal! If you buy this product, keep in mind that it DOES NOT include a cable. Buy one ahead of time.
Rating:
Summary: An exceptional value!
Review: The previous two reviews pretty much cover this printer. I simply was so impressed by the quality and function of this that I wanted to add my 2 cents. I have always had HPs in the past, but my last hp laser died at a page count of just over 1200 pages. Looking around my office, I have 2 very old fax machines--both Brother and both working--so I decided it might not be taking that much of a chance to buy a laser from them. I also explored the newsgroups, and everything said was very positive. Upon arrival, I found everything about this printer to be exceptional, and I'm pretty picky. The drivers are first-class and the build quality is high. I'm not going to go on about this, but suffice it to say that I couldn't be more pleased. I feel it's the best value in any computer hardware I've purchased this year. I would not hesitate to purchase it again, and I hope your experience with it is as positive as mine.
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