Brother DCP-L5650DN All-in-One Monochrome Laser Printer

I don’t really know what has happened to the demand for printed output overall. I do know that in my world, providing services to lawyers, I rarely send anyone a print document. Where once I submitted four copies of everything, I now send a PDF or Word document.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped producing (and consuming) printed documents. I still use a good deal of paper.
For example, one of the first tasks I’m putting the Brother DCPL5650DN Business Laser Multi-Function device to is printing out the 724 page user’s guide and 81 page quick-start manuals.
I am a manual reader and beyond the basics of installing and connecting the unit, you will benefit from reading the manuals: this unit is extremely versatile. It prints, it copies, it scans – it does not fax. You can print, copy or scan in full-duplex mode using the automatic document feeder, which is a tremendous asset. The 70 page capacity Automatic Document Feeder is reliable – in my admittedly limited testing so far, it isn’t very finicky: it will handle slightly off-center documents and feeds dependably.
It has a USB slot so you can read from a flash drive or write to it for scans and PDF output.
There is a 250 page paper tray and the unit can be expanded with additional trays to hold over 1,300 sheets. There is also a 50 sheet document tray for dealing with envelopes and special media.
The paper paths are relatively straight-forward which should keep jams to a minimum. (No promises there, though.)
You can also output directly to some cloud services, though this option is not as flexible as I would like.
This is a very capable device and I strongly urge you to read at least the quick-start guide. Even with the color LCD display, having a basic understanding of what the unit can do and how to it will save you a lot of frustration.
I have used many Brother products over many years. I have always found them to be dependable and customer support ot be excellent.
Now the negatives. This unit is very much on the large size. It is not on the noisy side, however. It has no inherent WiFi connectivity (though it does support wireless communication with mobile devices).
My next task is to print out the 724 page manual and review it. One reason the manual is so large is because it covers 9 different Brother models, many of which have features this model doesn’t such as fax and color printing.
On the whole, this promises to be a reliable workhorse for my monochrome printing and scanning needs.

Jerry

I use this printer at my place of employment, and, aside from the Blatant Toner Scam, it works well,
BUT!
After long enough, the printer will REFUSE to print, claiming toner is low.
I ended up hacking the printer and got ANOTHER MONTH’S worth of printing out of the toner cartridge.
What a scam.
I hacked the printer into basically tricking it into reading a higher toner level than there actually is.
DESPITE THIS, the “toner level” on the stats readout continues to deplete.
I’m happy to bad mouth Brother for their BS toner scam.

Received a non-working printer. Made the mistake of calling Brother Tech Support thinking it could be easily fixed. Should have immediately sent it back to Amazon. Spent 2 hours on the phone doing the same thing over and over, and providing the same information over and over. Finally, the tech agreed that the printer was dead. Remember, this printer had never been used. Not one sheet of paper had passed through the machine. Brother’s solution? Brother sent me a refurbished printer even after I told them that I paid for a new printer not a used one, and that I should get a new replacement printer. On top of all this was the time wasted talking with tech support. The grinding noise from the printer was so loud, you could not speak while it was trying to work. It was obvious the printer was defective, the person at tech support was defective, and Brother as a company is defective. Never again.
******UPDATE*******
Received a survey from Brother. Even though I listed everything that was wrong, I got no reply. Don’t bother with Brother. This company obviously doesn’t care about the quality of their products or customer support

This Brother machine is well built and makes great prints at a reasonable price. If you don’t need a fax function this is a good machine for just printing, scanning and copying. The display and menus are well laid out and are intuitive. Cost per copy is reasonable.

It was relatively quick unpack and setup. Including download of software, it took about a half hour. Family members quickly added the Brother DCPL5650DN. I couldn’t have been more pleased. It is fast (after the initial page) and print quality is great.

It took another hour to get the printer registered. I finally had to call Brother to get it done. I didn’t remember my pass word and couldn’t get it reset by submitting a request online.

A couple of things to keep in mind. You can’t connect it to a landline to use as a FAX. There’s no FAX capability. Secondly, there is no built-in wifi, so you have to connect it by wire to your router or Airport Time Capsule or whatever. If you need a FAX and/or wifi, buy the

I did a lot of investigating before I chose my DCP-L5650DN. It had all the features I needed and some I am still discovering after 3 years! Awesome product.

Great office Copier with fast printing and good work horse.

Excellent small workgoup printer. Simultaneous 2-sided scanning — very fast. Scanning to any SMB server is supported. Works with Samba on my linux servers. However no wifi and no fax.