Brother

Brother HL-L3280CDW

Color laserTonerBrother Refresh EZ Print

Eight more pages a minute than the HL-L3220CDW, a colour touchscreen instead of a monochrome strip, and Gigabit Ethernet — for about forty-five dollars. It is the better buy of Brother's two entry colour lasers by a wide margin, and 27 ppm in colour is quick enough that a thirty-page deck is not a coffee break. The toner is identical, which means so is the running cost: roughly three cents a black page and nineteen cents for a page that uses all four toners, on genuine TN229XL cartridges bought at Brother's own prices. Those numbers are why this site computes cost per page from the consumable rather than leaving it in a footnote. A colour laser is a fine purchase for documents that must not smear; it is a poor one if the goal was to save money on ink.

Approx. price: ~$344
Cost per mono page: 3.2¢
Cost per colour page: 19¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$666
Print speed, mono: 27 ISO ppm

Best for

Colour decks and handouts that have to survive handling, printed in enough volume to want the speed.

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: ~$666
Cost to own, 200 pages/month for 3 years: ~$807 (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-L3280CDW~$666
~$344 printer + ~$322 supplies
Brother HL-L3220CDW~$621
~$299 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: ~$344
Cost per mono page: 3.2¢
Cost per colour page: 19¢
Cost to own, 5,000 pages: ~$666
Cost to own, 3 years: ~$807
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: 27 ISO ppm
Print speed, colour: 27 ISO ppm
First page out: 13.5 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 · Ethernet
Mobile printing: AirPrint · Mopria
Display: 2.7" colour touchscreen
Dimensions: 15.7 × 15.7 × 10.8 in
Weight: 33.9 lb
Released: 2023

Features

27 ppm in both black and colour
2.7-inch colour touchscreen
Gigabit Ethernet and dual-band Wi-Fi
Automatic two-sided printing
250-sheet tray with a single-sheet manual feed

Auto duplex No ink lock Ethernet

In its favour

27 ppm in colour, eight faster than the 3220 for about forty-five dollars
Colour touchscreen and Gigabit Ethernet rather than a mono LCD and Wi-Fi alone
Permanent, smear-proof output at 2400 × 600 dpi class
Automatic duplex
No supplies lock in firmware

Against it

Roughly 19¢ for a four-toner colour page on genuine cartridges
Nearly 34 lb — it needs a solid surface
Print only: no scanner, no copier
Photos come out looking like good photocopies, not photographs
1,000-page starter cartridges

What owners say

Distilled from owner discussions and long-term published reviews

Between Brother's two entry colour lasers this is the one owners recommend: eight more pages a minute, a colour touchscreen, and Gigabit Ethernet, for a difference of about forty-five dollars. The cheaper HL-L3220CDW exists mainly to make this one look reasonable.

What does not change is what the pages cost. The same TN229XL cartridges feed both, so a four-colour page is close to nineteen cents either way. That is the number worth staring at before buying any colour laser, and it is why the honest recommendation for most households is a mono laser for documents plus a tank printer for colour, rather than one colour laser doing both jobs badly on cost.

What owners like

Eight pages a minute faster than the entry model for about forty-five dollars, which owners describe as an obvious upgrade
Colour touchscreen instead of a monochrome LCD
Gigabit Ethernet alongside dual-band Wi-Fi, which sidesteps the wireless complaints
Permanent, smear-proof colour output that survives handling

Common complaints

Identical toner economics to the cheaper model — roughly nineteen cents for a four-colour page
Nearly 34 lb, and owners underestimate the size
Print only, with no scanner or copier
Drum, belt and waste box are additional consumables that owners are not expecting

Questions that keep coming up

Is the HL-L3280CDW worth the extra over the HL-L3220CDW?

Owners are fairly unanimous that it is. Eight more pages a minute, a colour touchscreen rather than a monochrome strip, and a Gigabit Ethernet port, for around forty-five dollars. The toner, the duplexer, the paper tray and the output quality are the same on both.

How does it compare with a tank printer for colour?

On cost it is not close: roughly nineteen cents a colour page against a little over one cent on a refillable tank all-in-one. Where it wins is permanence and reliability — toner does not smear, does not run, and does not clog if the machine sits unused for months. Which matters more depends entirely on what you print and how often.

Does it scan?

No. It is a print-only colour laser. The MFC-L3780CDW is the multifunction version, with a 50-sheet single-pass duplex scanner, fax and a 3.5-inch touchscreen, at a considerably higher price.

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.