Brother HL-L2405W Wireless Compact Monochrome Laser Printer

REVIEW: Brother HL-L2405W Wireless Compact Monochrome Laser Printer.

The Brother HL-L2405W replaced model HL-L2305W. Although the HL-L2405W is the new and improved version, Brother did NOT improve the WI-FI set-up connectivity. Reviewers have identified the set-up as their biggest problem / complaint / frustration. If you don’t have patience and some problem solving skills, this could be a BIG problem in setting this laser printer up.

The Brother HL-L2405W has almost no printed instructions on how to set-up the WI-FI connection. Instead, Brother refers their customer to their website for a USER MANUAL. I found the USER MANUAL to be poorly written and difficult to follow. Since the WI-FI set-up connection is one of the most important feature of this wireless laser printer, I found it mind-boggling that Brother couldn’t hire a competent technical writer to write an understandable USER MANUAL for customers who aren’t computer geeks.

Since the Brother USER MANUAL was gibberish to me, I had to watch several YOUTUBE videos on how to set-up the older model HL-L2305W. I have several devices that are WI-FI connected, but connecting the Brother was the most difficult and frustrating that I’ve encountered.

The syncing of my WI-FI router to the Brother HL-L2405W using the WPS button on the router didn’t work for me. Instead, I had to manually enter my WI-FI password which was a slow, archaic, and arduous process. The Brother accepted my WI-FI password, the WI-FI light glowed steady, and I found the Brother on my System Setting “Printers and Scanners”. I thought I was good to go for printing. I was WRONG.

My computer showed the print job was in process, but the Brother wouldn’t print anything. I double checked everything and everything looked good. I was perplexed. I thought I might have gotten a faulty printer so I was prepared to return it back to AMAZON.

As I went through my problem solving process, I remembered a possible fix. Turn off or unplug the router, the computer, and the Brother HL-L2405W; wait a few minutes and turn on or plug in all the devices. This was my last hope to get it to work. As soon as I plugged in the Brother, the printer made the distinctive “start up” sound and I knew it had worked and I could print.

AFTER going through the arduous set-up, once I got it set-up, the Brother printer has worked flawlessly. I even was able to print from my iPad. I don’t print often so this $120 printer is worth the price. I deducted one-star for the pain and suffering inflicted on me in the WI-FI set-up.

NOTE: There is a printer port in the Brother for a printer to computer USB connection. There is no printer cable included. If you decide to use a printer cable, you will have to go the the Brother website and download a driver, but one of the benefits of a wireless connection is that NO driver is necessary so the Brother can print from different WI-FI devices like laptop, iPhone, iPad, etc.

I purchased this printer from the Brother-USA website, to replace my old HP Laserjet 1320. I had done a lot of online research prior and read many reviews. Most people seem to be team Brother over team HP. As an HP loyalist, I decided to give Brother a try. The printer shipped quickly, was well-packaged, and felt light and well-designed. The outer casing is a light plastic, so I’m not sure how durable or prone to cracking it might be. Installation was swift and turnkey. Among the two install options, one requires a USB cable specific to older printers. However, it wasn’t included in the unit. This is unfortunate. I happened to have one, from my old LaserJet, but if my Wi-Fi fails, and I didn’t have this cable, I wouldn’t had been able to print. Brother should had included this cable. Not sure how easy or hard they are to find in this day and age. And now, print quality. I printed a one-page document, as a Word file and as a PDF, to test. Compared to what I was used to from my HP Laserjet, which is also just a basic b x w laser printer, this model had noticeably poorer, subpar printing quality. The fonts have aliased outlines. Where the letter form thins, you can see tiny, adjacent dots instead of a solid or a line. And the ink quality is not consistent from the top to the bottom of a document. Some lines and parts print noticeably darker and inkier, and other lines, more grey. My heart kind of sank. This also prints quite loud, and the sound isn’t pleasant. Not a dealbreaker for me, but the print quality kinda is! This might be fine for reference printing, but I wouldn’t consider this presentation-quality, which is what I hope a laser printer could do, as a baseline. I don’t print frequently, but when I do, I need the quality to be decent and consistent. Maybe I need a buy a mid-range Brother printer, one that has more printer languages installed, before I see quality improvements. I turned off EcoMode and tried all their online troubleshooting steps as well, but the resolution and print quality is still just average and not great. I’d like to return this printer, and I’ve reached out the RMA folks, but the fine print on Brother USA’s site says at best I’m eligible for store credit, not a refund. I wouldn’t call this a brick, but I wish they had spelled out the use case and the print resolution and languages more clearly in their descriptions and specs. Really wanted to like this. Not sure if I need to upgrade to a pricier Brother, or look into an HP or an Epson. I guess most people who love their Brothers are just reference printers, and print quality isn’t as big as a factor for them. Spelling all this out, so someone else out there can be spared buyer’s remorse. Installation was relatively painless, but among the installation

I had the same problem as many other reviewers. This printer was easy to set up (USB connection) and worked perfectly the first day. Now, two weeks later, I turn it on and it won’t connect. I messed around with it for half an hour, steadily working myself into a rage, until I thought to check here. Indeed, you need to find the YouTube video that shows you the SECRET MENU ITEM (wtf???) that turns off the deep sleep option. At least that made it work this time. I will turn it all off and try again tomorrow, and if they thing doesn’t print, I still have time to return it.

As everyone else said, why why WHY would you ship printers that don’t work? Why is everything a worthless piece of trash? Why Brother, why?

Fabulous. I will never buy another brand home printer as long as I live. Most home printers are a ripoff geared at making home printing a subscription service. (I’m looking at you … I shouldn’t say the name … rhymes with Snewlet-Nackered …) And then, amid a sea of duds from companies that hate their customers, a prince appears … Brother.

I purchased this Brother printer to replace a three-in-one Brother laser device was more than fourteen years old and still running on the toner I bought it with–I guess I’ll give it away, because it’s still great. Not kidding. Eventually, it got to the point I’d have to do some driver jujitsu on my Mac to keep it going, though Windows computers worked just great. Besides, I wanted wireless, which wasn’t even a market option when I got the old guy.

Anyhow, this printer is everything one would expect from Brother: reasonably priced, reasonably sized, incredibly reliable, and so inexpensive to operate that paper will be your biggest cost. It requires nothing. No maintenance. Never jams. Never goes offline. The installation software wasn’t a model of user-friendliness, but it worked just fine. And once this thing is up, it’s up. You’ll never have to think about it, but it’ll be a permanent feature of your home that you can print instantaneously, wirelessly, from anywhere, from any device, and a perfect black-and-white print will be there waiting.

This printer constantly goes into DEEP SLEEP MODE on its own making it impossible for you to get it out of that mode without calling their 800 number. The wait time to speak to someone on their 800 number is several hours. They ask you if you want a call back, THEY NEVER CALL. You call again and sit on the phone for several hours and then many times get a nasty CS rep who acts like they’re doing you a favor for a brand new printer you print 2 pages 5 times per week. They tell me they can’t stop it from going into DEEP SLEEP Mode which makes it impossible to do anything. I’m 3 hours into another call now and no one is picking up and they told me its a 30 minutes wait. THEIR CS IS ATROCIOUS. DO NOT BUY A BROTHER PRINTER unless you want to know that its sleeping peacefully and you need someone from Brother to take you through a 30 minute process to wake it up. DO NOT BUY !!! GARBAGE. Oh, I asked for a supervisor one time aftter the nasty CS agent was so despicable. They call back from an unknown number – do you answer unknown calls? i don’t nor does anyone I know when you have no idea who is calling. HORRIBLE COMPANY, HORRIBLE PRODUCTS and ATROCIOUS HORRIZBLE CS REPS!!

This is a downgrade from my last Brother printer that lasted years and years. After the drum finally gave out and the cost to replace was almost as much as a new printer, I just got a new one. Thought this was the same as what I had. Looks identical. Seems like it when I read the description.

This printer does not print double sided. Oh it says it does, sure but for some reason on this model it is a “manual” proess. This means it spits out a paper and you have to physically take it off of the tray and flip it around the right way and reinsert it for every single page you print.

I print dozens of papers and all double sided every day. This will DOUBLE my use of paper, space with stacks of paper on my desk, and time spent trying to print. Save yourself headache and make sure to find a model that does double sided quickly and easily like my last Brother did. I’m not sure if I can return, but I am certainly going to try because I cannot use this. It is not efficient at all if you print a lot double sided. It will cost you paper, space and time.

Easiest thing ever. now we can print anytime from our iPhone or MacBook!! The printer is hooked up to our wifi and is in “deep sleep” mode and at anytime we want to print we hit print on our phone and in 8 seconds it’s printed. I can’t even believe it. The years we lived in the dark ages with canon and other ink jet printers that took 30 min to print one page and would only print via a desktop being directly plugged in via usb and usually needing to run a cleaning cycle first and would need paper manually added. But the Brother has its own paper tray and needs no cords and just works! Spread the good news and get this for yourself. You won’t regret it!

This does what I basically needed to do. Print on Wifi (laptops, android phone, desktop, tablet). There are three ways to connect it so it can print. 1. Using a printer cable to computer with their software (printer cable not included) 2) WPS (use touch screen on printer then need to hit WPS button on router). 3) Wifi (use touch screen on printer then select wifi then put in password). I had to use option 3 since my router doesn’t have WPS (some don’t for security reasons). Using what I read in the comments here after putting my Wi-Fi password in the printer still didn’t connect UNTIL I UNPLUGGED THE PRINTER THEN put the plug back in. Then it worked flawlessly. This printer model is great, if the printer is in deep sleep then you may need to wait a few seconds before using it or JUST HIT THE “GO” button to wake it up so it can print. You need to add or select this printer on whatever device you wish to use. This printer will be attached to your Wi-Fi so whatever your device uses the same wi-fi then it can communicate. Otherwise you need to use the printer cable to have them communicate. Why did I get this instead of the $50 more expensive model? I don’t care for auto printing on both sides of the paper which it main difference. My last brother toner ink alone lasted use for 4+ year, the toner ink saves a lot of money. The YouTube video for how to set up is 4 min 26 secs video, search “How to Wireless Setup Your Brother Printer” – by Printer Insider

Great printer, great price.

Pretty easy to setup. I didnt have any issues, but my parents…well…maybe Iphone setup is slightly different? Dont know. They didnt have as easy of a time.

The only draw back I have with the printer so far is that the initial power draw to spool up the system is IMMENSE. If you put this printer on a breaker that is actively used or or near capacity, it will trip the breaker. I put this on a 15amp circuit, but I have two computers running on that circuit, and it it trips it everytime. So I estimate this thing pulls 8 Amps during its wakeup phase, with peak over 12amps.

This is a solid economical entry level printer. It connected seamlessly with our home network. Prints are crisp, clear, and quick. I am mildly disappointed with the clarity of online information and instructions. The machine claimed to be duplex capable (print both sides) which is true but you must manually turn over the document and feed to print the 2nd side. Similarly, a firmware update’s instructions are vague and apparently only work if the machine is hardwired to your computer during the update.