Brother

Brother HL-L3220CDW

Color laserTonerBrother Refresh EZ Print

The cheapest way into colour laser printing in this catalogue, and the entry that makes the site's central point most vividly. Colour output is dry, permanent and identical at page one and page one thousand — a genuine advantage over any inkjet for anything that gets handled or filed. But the four TN229XL cartridges are $96.29 for 3,000 black pages and $123.49 each for 2,300 colour pages, which puts a page using all four toners at roughly nineteen cents. The tank printers at the same purchase price do the same page for a little over one cent. Nineteen pages a minute and a fifteen-second first page are modest for a laser, and there is no Ethernet at this rung. Buy it because you need laser output, not because you were told lasers are cheap.

Approx. price: ~$299
Cost per mono page: 3.2¢
Cost per colour page: 19¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$621
Print speed, mono: 19 ISO ppm

Best for

Colour documents that get handled, filed or highlighted — where inkjet ink would smear — in low enough volume that toner cost stays bearable.

marks an estimate. Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Purchase price plus ink or toner over the pages shown, assuming four mono pages for every colour page. Price is an approximate snapshot from our last catalogue update.

What it costs to own

Black consumable: Brother TN229XL high-yield black toner · 3,000 ISO pages · ~$96.29
Colour consumable: Brother TN229XL high-yield colour toners · 2,300 ISO pages · ~$123.49 each
Cost per mono page: 3.2¢
Cost per colour page: 19¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$621
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$762 (7,200 pages)

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. How this is worked out

Cost to own · 5,000 pages

Brother HL-L3220CDW~$621
~$299 printer + ~$322 supplies
Brother HL-L3280CDW~$666
~$344 printer + ~$322 supplies
Brother MFC-L3780CDW~$891
~$569 printer + ~$322 supplies

purchase priceink or toner. An estimate: purchase price plus 5,000 pages at each printer’s computed cost per page, assuming 4 mono pages for every colour page. Printers whose consumable price we could not source are left out.

Specifications

Manufacturer-published figures. Cost lines are computed from the consumable figures above and are estimates.

Approx. price: ~$299
Cost per mono page: 3.2¢
Cost per colour page: 19¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$621
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$762
Technology: LED
Ink system: Toner
Inks: 4
Black consumable: Brother TN229XL high-yield black toner · 3,000 pages
Colour consumable: Brother TN229XL high-yield colour toners · 2,300 pages
Ink in the box: 1,000 pages
Third-party ink lock: No
Ink subscription: Brother Refresh EZ Print
Print speed, mono: 19 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 19 ISO ppm
First page out: 15 s
Functions: Print
Two-sided printing: Auto
Document feeder: None
Paper capacity: 250 sheets
Max paper size: Legal
Borderless photo: No
Resolution: 2400 × 600 dpi
Connectivity: Wi-Fi
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: Mono LCD
Dimensions: 15.7 × 15.7 × 9.4 in
Weight: 24.7 lb
Released: 2022

Features

19 ppm in both black and colour
Automatic two-sided printing
2400 × 600 dpi class output
Dual-band Wi-Fi with AirPrint and Mopria
250-sheet tray plus a single-sheet manual feed

Auto duplex No ink lock

In its favour

Cheapest entry into colour laser printing in this catalogue
Toner output is dry and permanent the instant it leaves the printer
Automatic duplex and dual-band Wi-Fi included
Prints on the first try after months unused
No firmware lock on third-party toner

Against it

About 19¢ for a page using all four toners — the most expensive colour page here
Colour toner cartridges cost more than the black and last fewer pages
19 ppm and a 15-second first page are slow for a laser
No Ethernet at this rung of the range
Monochrome LCD only

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

People arrive at colour laser because they are tired of colour inkjets clogging, and this is the cheapest door in. The output is genuinely different — dry, permanent, unbothered by a highlighter or a damp envelope — and for anything that gets handled and filed that matters.

Then the toner arrives. Four cartridges at Brother's own prices put a page using all of them at roughly nineteen cents, against a little over one cent on a refillable tank printer of the same purchase price. Owners who discover this after buying are the ones who post about it. There is also a second tier of consumables — drum, belt, waste toner box — that colour lasers need and mono lasers mostly do not, and which nobody budgets for.

Buy it because inkjet output will not survive what you do with it. Do not buy it expecting it to be cheap.

What owners like

The cheapest way into colour laser output, and owners who need permanent, smear-proof colour say nothing else at the price does it
Prints reliably after long idle periods, unlike a colour inkjet, which is the main reason people choose colour laser at home
Automatic duplex and dual-band Wi-Fi at an entry price
Owners printing labels, forms and charts report the output holding up to handling and highlighters

Common complaints

Colour toner is the expense that defines it — four cartridges, and a page using all of them works out near nineteen cents
Slow for a laser at 19 ppm, with a fifteen-second first page
Colour cartridges cost more than the black and last fewer pages, which owners find perverse
No Ethernet at this rung of the range
Owners report needing to replace the drum, belt and waste box eventually, which is a cost nobody budgets for

Questions that keep coming up

Why is colour laser printing so expensive per page?

Four separate toner cartridges, each with its own price, and the colour ones hold fewer pages than the black. At Brother's own prices, a page that uses all four works out around nineteen cents — roughly seventeen times a refillable tank printer's colour page. It is the single biggest cost difference in this whole catalogue.

Is a colour laser better than a colour inkjet for home use?

It depends on what you print. Toner is dry, permanent and does not smear, and a laser prints perfectly after months unused — both are things owners of colour inkjets complain about constantly. But colour laser output is document-grade: photographs come out looking photocopied, and the per-page cost is many times higher.

What other consumables does it need?

Beyond the four toners there is a drum unit, a belt unit and a waste toner box, all with their own lifespans and prices. Owners are often unaware of them until one needs replacing. They last a long time, but they mean the total cost of owning a colour laser is higher than a toner-price calculation suggests.

Computed from the consumable's ISO page yield and its list price. An estimate. Owner notes are a summary of what people who own the machine report, not a test result — there is no lab behind this site.