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

Great Multi-function printer for the price!
We bought the DCPL5650DN to replace our old multi-function Brother MFC8710 DW. When old Brother multi-function broke, we Initially we bought a another brand of multi-function laser printer (a direct competitor for laser jet printers) directly from the manufacturer for more money than the Brother we ended up with. We had it one day and realized that had none of the features we loved on the old Brother had, which we purchased about 3.5 years earlier. I returned the printer the next day to the manufacturer and ordered another Brother instead.
Here’s the features this Brother multi-function has that other bigger named laser printer company doesn’t have in that same price range:
– Legal-size scanning bed (competitor only had letter-size)
– Direct scan to desktop file with automatic naming and saving of document. (with the competitor I had to scan, go sit at my desk and tell it where to save the file each and every time and then get up- and go scan the next document, go back to my computer & tell it where to save that next document and what to call it, etc. When you are scanning multiple documents at once – it’s takes twice as long. I spent about an hour on the phone with the competitor’s customer service, in another country, before they told me it would not automatically save the file on its own to a pre-determined file without telling it was ok to save and giving the file a name.)
– Can scan a book on the Brother – lid adjusts to thickness of book.
– DPI scanning is adjustable on the Brother
– Faster to start to print or scan and then faster to actually print something out. (the other took several seconds to respond & start; I had to press many more buttons and it was noisier)
– Cost Less Money – Brother was $346 and the bigger competitor was $449.
We initially went with the company known for its laser printers because they were workhorses and lasted for many many years. I will grant you that the Brother printer we replaced was not that old and that was annoying but we had also used a lot of generic toner and drums in it and the business office is always filled with sawdust. In the end, the other company doesn’t make a user focused multi-function product for business use that competes with this Brother.

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.

Two-Week Final Update. I tried and tried and gave it every chance. It wouldn’t stay connected no matter what. What sealed the return deal was I unplugged it one last time to make it connect – buttons nor off switch would do the trick – and it didn’t stay connected long enough for me to get back to my chair and print. This is NOT a printer, at least not one I would ever endorse.

Day 3 8/8/19: Wouldn’t wake up today to print. Had to physically go to it and bring it out of sleep. This is NOT a solution for the long term. If this cannot be fixed it will go back.

Day 1 8/6/19: Functions well. Dash replenishment setup didn’t work. That’s probably a blessing. Too much info being shared and hacked these days anyway. It’s not an important function for me, though the $20 credit would have been nice. Scans look good, though I need to do more testing. I have things setup the way I like them, just waiting for some real world situations rather than test cases.

Will be using this for my home business and will likely get the secondary paper tray. I have a big dog Kyocera Mita that has it all, but just need something smaller with most of the functions it has. No need for faxing anymore so this machine should give me what I need. I have a Brother DSmobile® 920DW scanner that I love but the usb is wonky and I got tired of fixing it so the autofeed scanner on this machine will be a blessing.

Brother left out the install CD, from what I can tell. Can’t find it where it should be and there aren’t any other places they would have put it that I can think of. Great start, have to go download all the software. I’ll update this review as I get to use the machine more.

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.