Brother HL-5170DN Laser Printer

I would not recommend this printer at all

Strengths: Cheap, print is nice

Weakness: Unreliable, lots of issues

This printer has been used primarily as a light duty printer. It has been repaired twice already in less than a year. It jams frequently, especially during duplex prints. Bought it because it was cheaper than an HP with the same features. The print drum had to be replaced at less than 5000 pages, even though it was supposed to last for 20K pages. With the cost of the drum and a replacement toner...
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This printer has been used primarily as a light duty printer. It has been repaired twice already in less than a year. It jams frequently, especially during duplex prints. Bought it because it was cheaper than an HP with the same features. The print drum had to be replaced at less than 5000 pages, even though it was supposed to last for 20K pages. With the cost of the drum and a replacement toner cartridge already, the HP isn't looking so expensive any more. If you figure in the headaches and frustration, the HP is a bargain. Next time this dies after the warranty has expired, it's going into the dumpster and a shiny new HP will take it's place. I am not an HP zealot and the decision came down to this one or an HP. I wish I would have picked the HP. I would definitely not recommend this printer to anyone, and would suggest spending the extra cash up front and get and HP and avoid a lot of hassles and problems.

By bhize - Apr 18, 2006

A Real Workhorse

Strengths: Fast response time. Sharp and crisp copies. Very reliable. Built well

Weakness: Will only hold 5 or 6 #10 envelopes in its feeder. Drivers could respond better for more consistant response printing copies off of the internet.

We have had this unit in our 2 man Print Broker office for about 5 months. It has been very consistant in it's operation and has given us very few problems. We print out between 50 and 200 copies of various sizes a day. The print quality is excellent. The unit seems to be built well. We have just purchased another one for our home office. We're very pleased with the overall operation of this...
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We have had this unit in our 2 man Print Broker office for about 5 months.
It has been very consistant in it's operation and has given us very few problems. We print out between 50 and 200 copies of various sizes a day. The print quality is excellent. The unit seems to be built well. We have just purchased another one for our home office. We're very pleased with the overall operation of this machine.

By mszplus3 - Aug 22, 2005

An Impressive Laser Printer

Strengths: Crisp text. Efficient duplexing. Multiple trays. Many paper sizes. Fast. Overall flawless operation.

Weakness: Fold-out trays are more delicate than the slide-in trays. Be forewarned. Toner saver is either "on" or "off"; no graduated scale.

Review: Having had two laser printers from Apple over the last 12 years (they never die), my standards are high for laser printing. This Brother 5170DNLT is impressive. Envelopes can be stacked on the multi-purpose tray, and they are perfect every time. I tried 4x6 cards, and they printed beautifully. I bought the extra paper tray, and I highly recommend this addition. I use it to recycle paper...
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Review: Having had two laser printers from Apple over the last 12 years (they never die), my standards are high for laser printing. This Brother 5170DNLT is impressive. Envelopes can be stacked on the multi-purpose tray, and they are perfect every time. I tried 4x6 cards, and they printed beautifully. I bought the extra paper tray, and I highly recommend this addition. I use it to recycle paper which still has one unprinted side. Printing from the various trays goes smoothly. Great alignment. I decided against the HP because it makes you feed in envelopes one-at-a-time and manual feed sheets one-at-a-time. Not so with this printer. A multipurpose tray lets you stack special printing jobs. I’ve had no problems with the feed or with alignment from this tray. The duplex printing is a delight. Text is crisp; the 600 DPI is so good that I will seldom use the HQ1200 DPI. Many sizes/thicknesses of papers are accommodated, including legal. I’ve had this printer just a few days, but I’ve really put it through its paces. I’m very satisfied. My first laser printer cost me $1500. This 5170DNLT was $300 and with more features. Kudos to Brother.

By jmish - Jul 13, 2005

The printer works fine. The only...

Strengths: Easy to setup and use.Works fine on a network.

Weakness: No written manual. It is on the CD that came with the printer.

The printer works fine. The only problem I had was trying to print envelopes. It took me a whiled to figure out how. I am well satisfied with the printer.

By irvgr - Feb 3, 2005

As a home office printer, I am...

Strengths: Duplexer works great. Comes with 32MB of RAM. Postscript support.

Weakness: Doesn't print well on heavily-textured paper.

As a home office printer, I am extremely pleased with this product. For the price, you can't beat the number of features. It comes out of the box with an impressive 32MB of RAM. (Since I sometimes print large, font and photo-heavy documents, I plan on upgrading to the full 160MB of RAM.) Setting it up on my home network took only a few minutes, and it worked without a hitch. The duplexer is a...
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As a home office printer, I am extremely pleased with this product. For the price, you can't beat the number of features. It comes out of the box with an impressive 32MB of RAM. (Since I sometimes print large, font and photo-heavy documents, I plan on upgrading to the full 160MB of RAM.) Setting it up on my home network took only a few minutes, and it worked without a hitch. The duplexer is a marvelous feature. It prints a page, sucks it back in, and prints on the back, saving me time and paper. This printer does not have digital readout, but instead communicates errors with a series of blinky lights, but it does have a 'Job Cancel' button, which is important if you accidently print 40 copies of something. Print quality is reasonlably good, though I have not been able to compare it to other similar printers. It does print on thick paper, though not very well if the paper is heavily textured.

By bubblywink - Sep 11, 2004