Brother MFC-L2750DW [L2710DW, L2717DW, L2730DW]  Printer Review

The Brother MFC-L2750DW's build quality is excellent. It's entirely plastic and feels very sturdy overall. You can easily access paper jams through the back panel and the toner cartridge through the front panel. Lifting the scan bed gives better access to the output tray, and the scan bed stays open on its own, so you don't have to hold it. Unfortunately, the power cord isn't removable, making it impossible to replace if damaged.

The Brother MFC-L2750DW is a laser printer, so it doesn't have the same risk of printhead clogging as an inkjet printer does. You'll have to replace the drum unit eventually, but Brother claims it'll last about 12,000 pages. The toner cartridge is easy to install; you simply need to open the front panel. You can access the output tray sheet rollers from the cartridge bay and the input tray rollers by removing the input tray cassette entirely. Unfortunately, the back panel only opens to a maximum of 45°, so you might struggle to get your hand into the opening if you have large hands.

You can see the user's guide here.

The Brother MFC-L2750DW has a decent display. It's a fairly large touchscreen, but it's hard to see at an angle, and it doesn't allow for any tilt or swivel adjustment. The settings menu is easy to navigate; you just need to press hard because the screen isn't very sensitive.

The Brother MFC-L2730DW, MFC-L2750DWXL, and MFC-L2759DW variants have the same touch-sensitive display. However, the Brother MFC-L2690, MFC-L2690DWXL, MFC-L2710DW, and MFC-L2717DW have a 2-line monochrome, non-touch display.

The toner cartridge yields a large number of prints, so you won't need to replace it often unless you print a lot. The posted yield represents a regular TN730 cartridge's yield; the starter cartridge that comes with the printer typically yields fewer prints. You can increase the yield further with high-yield (TN760) and super high-yield (TN770) cartridges. The other variants use the same toner cartridge and yield a similar number of prints. However, if you want a laser printer with an even higher page yield, consider the HP LaserJet Tank MFP 2604sdw, which has a refillable toner reservoir instead of using replaceable cartridges, resulting in an estimated max page yield more than twice that of the Brother.

The Brother MFC-L2690DWXL, MFC-L2717DW, MFC-L2750DWXL, and MFC-L2759DW are variants that include one or more high-yield cartridges in the box instead of a starter toner cartridge. You can see the details in the variants section.

This printer has superb scanning features. It has an automatic document feeder capable of performing duplex scanning in a single pass, saving a lot of time when you need to process long, double-sided documents. When using the OCR (optical character recognition) feature, selecting the 'to OCR' option from the printer saves the scan as a TXT file by default. The TXT file doesn't contain any images or formatting. You can change the settings so that it saves the scan as an HTML or RFT file instead. When scanning from a computer, you have the option to save the file as a searchable PDF. The character recognition works well; mistakes are mostly due to special characters.

The scan quality is outstanding. Text looks clear, and all the fine elements are present, albeit a little faint.

• 1x TN730 starter toner cartridge
• 1x DR730 drum unit
• Telephone cable
• Setup CD
• User guide

The print quality of black-and-white documents is excellent. Text looks very sharp, and fine elements, like the graph's lines in the sample document, are present. There are some lines in the colored areas due to the printing pattern, but they aren't overly distracting.

This printer can only print in black. If you need a color laser printer with similar features, check out the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283fdw.

The Brother MFC-L2750DW's toner cartridge yields a lot of prints and is relatively cheap, making the cost-per-print exceptionally low. However, you need to replace the drum unit separately, which is an added expense not factored into the cost. The drum is usually good for about 12,000 prints, so you won't need to do it too often. There are advantages to having the drum as a separate unit; it's more eco-friendly since you won't replace it as often as the cartridge, and you won't have to throw away a cartridge with toner left if the drum gets damaged. If you prefer a laser printer with the drum unit built into the cartridge, check out the Canon imageCLASS MF445dw.

This printer doesn't take long to warm up and prints very quickly. The other variants perform similarly, with printing speeds of 32 to 36 PPM for black text documents, except for the Brother MFC-L2690DW and MFC-L2690DWXL, which have an advertised speed of 26 PPM. Every variant supports automatic duplex printing.

The Brother MFC-L2750DW has two input trays and supports most common paper sizes up to the standard legal size. The posted maximum paper weight applies to the manual feeder; the input tray supports up to 163 g/m².

This printer can only print in black.

Although the Brother MFC-L2750DW has a high print resolution, images look awful because monochrome laser printers need to use halftones (dotted effect) to produce various shades of gray.

The Brother MFC-L2750DW has great connectivity options. It only lacks support for Bluetooth and external storage devices, like USB thumb drives and SD cards. It has NFC support, so you can simply tap your NFC-enabled device on the printer to connect. Connecting through NFC automatically launches the mobile app if you already have the app installed. The Brother MFC-L2759DW variant also has NFC support. The Brother MFC-L2690DW and MFC-L2690DWXL don't have an Ethernet port.

Brother's iPrint&Scan mobile app is superb. You can use it to print, scan (with the printer or a smartphone camera), and copy. You can also perform maintenance tasks, update the firmware, and buy replacement toner. The app launches automatically when you approach the printer with your NFC-enabled smartphone.

You need to manually install drivers on Windows but not on macOS or Chrome OS. You can download the drivers here. Brother's iPrint&Scan software is available for Windows and Chrome OS (Android version from Google Play Store); however, it isn't necessary to use the printer.