HP Color Laserjet Pro MFP M476nw

When it works properly, it is an awesome printer. But cross your fingers on how long that will last. Even though the printer says it is connected to the network, it registers as "Offline" on my computer and I cannot print. I've performed all of the troubleshooting tasks, made sure printer and computer are on the same network, and downloaded updated drivers to no avail. The only thing I have not done is connect to the printer via USB; if the wireless does not work, then I no longer need the printer. I'm starting to think these HP printers are designed to last only a couple of years and then go kapoot to keep you buying.

Please Note: This review was written for the M476dw and this item is the M476nw (thanks to Michael Earls for kindly pointing this out in his comment). This unit is the same EXCEPT it has NO AUTO DUPLEX (two sideded) printing or scanning and is about $150 less expensive than the M487dw. When I posted the review I misread the model number: my bad.Except for the initial cost and the lack of duplexing, the ongoing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) point in the review applies the same to this model. Bottom line: after two toner set changes the more fully featured Brother MFC-L8850CDW is already has passed the difference in TCO of this lower cost model.Given the differences I point out above I hope you will find this pretty extensive review is still helpful. The original review is below.In this review I'll compare the HP M476dw and the Brother MFC-L8850CDW. I have been using and living with both.These workgroup multifunction devices are clearly built to compete head-to-head with each other with similar specs and features and price. This has become a very long review so here is the bottom line:The HP M476dw has a lower price but only includes "introductory" toner cartridges, shorting you on toner right out of the box. This gives the higher priced MFC-L8850CDW about a $100 real price advantage. The Brother is faster, especially at printing and will have much lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over the life of the printer.Functionally both are good and solid options for work group printing, scanning, copy and fax. If you have a like HP you will probably like the M476dw it isn't a bad choice but is slower and more expensive to operate than the MFC-L8850CDW.But there is more to consider. For those who want more, read on...I have the HP M476dw and the Brother MFC-L8850CDW multifunction work group printers. Both are targeted at the mid-size workgroup marketplace. Both have similar features, capability and performance. So why would one purchase one or the other?To some degree brand loyalty should be a consideration. If you have a bunch of similar HP Laserjet's they may share a common set of toner cartridges simplifying logistics in the office. A familiar user interface means less time learning how to do common tasks. Brand loyalty matters in purchase decisions.The HP is about $50 (10%) less as of this review. Both HP and Brother have good reputations for features, function, reliability and quality. They have similar performance, but the Brother is a bit faster in most specifications. The HP comes with demi/intro toners and the Brother will full ones making the Brother about a $100 better value.Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):The real difference is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Mostly this is in the toner pricing. I did this comparison with brand-name toner only. HP brand toner for the M476dw is more expensive than the comparable for the MFC-L8850CDW.The HP comes with "introductory" toner cartridges with a capacity of about 1200 pages (half the capacity of a standard cartridge). The Brother comes with full standard toner cartridges (TN331) with 2500 pages black and 1500 pages color. Based on rough pricing of toner this means the Brother is really about a $100 better value! Each full set of toners will set you back a bit more than $400 for the HP M476dw and a bit more than $300 for the Brother MFC-L8850CDW.A full set of HP brand toner cartridges at max capacity includes:HP 312X - Black extended at 4400 pages, Currently $104HP 312A - Cyan at 2700 pages, Currently $112HP 312A - Magenta at 2700 pages, Currently $110HP 312A - Yellow at 2700 pages, Currently $110The HP toners contain the drum for that color. This may be part of why HP toners are expensive.A full set of Brother toner cartridges at max capacityTN336BK - Black at 4000 pages, Currently $60TN336C - Cyan at 3500 pages, Currently $82TN336M - Magenta at 3500 pages, Currently $93TN336Y - Yellow at 3500 pages, Currently $82The Brother has a separate drum unit with a fairly long life of 25,000 pages or a bit over 6 or times the life of high-yield toner cartridges. The Brother DR331CL drum unit is available on Amazon as well as a rebuilt drum unit at a lower price.Pretty much figure replacing the drum is less than half the price of replacing the toners. A possible useful way of thinking of this is with 6 full sets of toners divided into the approximate $150 price of a drum unit would leave us with an added cost per *FULL* toner set change of about $25 for the brother. On a per toner basis figure about $6.Depending on use there may be additional life in the drum unit at 25,000 pages. There are a number of sources describing how to reset the drum counter in Brother MFC printers so additional value may be available if desired.This isn't the whole TCO picture but it's the bulk of ongoing costs.Software install, ScanningOver the decades HP has grown the software suite they installed with the printer drivers to the point of being huge - not even fitting on a CD!! I was pleased to see the package for the M476dw is significantly more compact and focused than the time I installed another HP multifunction about 2 years ago. It is still a big install, but not so huge as in the past. It provides for setup and operation of the printer, scanner and fax from our PC's.One thing I find particularly annoying is the incessant nag window to validate your toner cartridges. I hate checking in with some central site whenever I change toner or inkjet ink so I don't want to do it. It did not accept my "decline" choice and kept coming back.To scan from the M476dw console the install needs to setup scan to share. This means a shared folder and windows file sharing must be enabled which might be a security concern for some with laptops that travel to other (public?) networks. Once setup scan to network share is easy. The PC scanner control software controls don't provide much control (even the advanced controls) which I consider a negative for me. To be fair the automatic functions work well with a wide variety of printed material and photos, but not all - particularly real (as in from film) photos on matte photographic paper.I have liked the lightweight Brother suite which includes PaperPort with OCR for scanned document management. It also includes a firmware updating capability which I like as Brother does seem to keep improving their firmware. Installation is quick and use is intuitive. The control center provides a lot of control.With the driver installation on the Brother your PC is automatically registered with the multifunction for scan to PC from the MFC console. A small service listens for the scanner to initiate a scan and does not require setting up windows file sharing on the destination, but the Brother can use a network share if you want. Initiating a scan from the MFC-L8850CDW is simple and it is easy to select the destination. The photograph that gave me headaches on the HP scanned perfectly on the Brother.Both the M476dw and MFC-L8850CDW have auto-duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) scanners which can feed up to 50 sheets. These can scan both sides of a sheet of paper automagically. Both seem to just work really well and I noticed no big difference so far. Duplex scanning is one of those things I didn't appreciate until I had it. If you scan your bills this is a big timesaver!The M476dw has a letter size scanner glass (8.5X11) while the MFC-L8850CDW has a legal size scanner glass (8.5X14). While this may not affect the ADF size limits it will limit scanning one page of a legal pad on the HP. Both have comparable optical resolution of 1200x1200 for the HP and 1200x2400 for the Brother.Printing:The M476dw and MFC-L8850CDW both provide speedy duplex color printing. Both provide outstanding paper handling. The output hopper for both holds up to 150 sheets and the "special tray" (fold-out) holds up to 50 sheets. Fewer thick media like envelopes. The HP main tray will hold half a ream at 250 sheets and the Brother will top out at 300 sheets.The HP prints up to 21ppm in both color and B&W. First page out is spec'd at 16.5 seconds. I find it's closer to 20 seconds most of the time from standby. It's duty cycle rated at 40,000 pages a month. Appropriate for a 20 to 50 person workgroup.The Brother is rated at 31ppm - about 50% faster than the HP and that relative difference seems close to real-world. The time to first print is rated at 15 seconds, but again seems longer to me - more like 18 seconds. The monthly duty cycle is rated at 60,000 pages/month - 50% more than the HP.Output quality of both is very good indeed. Both are quite good in my opinion, but I think the HP has an edge with photo printing. If you are a real estate agent or in a business where laser printer photo quality is very important the HP will probably be a better choice.Copying and FAXing:Copying is pretty much just a built-in scan to print. The copier is easy and intuitive on both. We don't do a lot of copying but it's nice to have that available.Fax setup and operation looks intuitive and straightforward with both but we do not send or receive faxes. I've setup other recent model HP and Brother multifunction units with FAX capability and on both it was easy. I've no reason to expect different here, but have not had that experience with the M476dw.Control Panel and Use:The HP has a straightforward and intuitive and relatively large LCD touchscreen control panel. I found it simple to use and responsive. The Brother is comparable and also intuitive and easy to use.Connectivity:Both the HP M476dw and the Brother MFC-L8850CDW have a plethora of connectivity options. I tried setting up the wireless on both and which was very easy and worked well with our wireless N network and AES2 encryption. We mainly use wired networking here so after trying out the wifi we shut it off and use wired connections - also flawless.I have an iPhone so I tried using airprint to both and it worked perfectly and intuitively. HP and Brother both have proprietary apps to provide additional mobile functionality including mobile scanning. Both support printing from USB and wireless direct printing. The Brother also supports Google cloud print.The M476dw has Near Field printing where you can tap a mobile device on the printer and print automagically. I think this may currently be a android only feature. It's very cool but there are a lot of other options too.There are a lot of ways to print and/or scan that I'll probably never use. More mobile oriented individuals or organizations will likely appreciate the diversity. From a security standpoint, if you are not using a service, turn it off. Printers can be hacked, so a little caution can go a long way.The Physical Package:The HP M476dw is heavy, weighing in at 64lbs. The Brother MFC-L8850CDW is a little heaver at 68lbs. Be sure they are on a sturdy surface and be careful if lifting!!The HP M476dw is a smaller desktop width but deeper than the Brother. The HP has dimensions of 16.5"W, 27.3"D, 19.1"H. The Brother is 19.3"W, 20.7"D, 20.9"H. Both are greatest dimension measurements. These are both pretty big multifunction units.Brand and Reputation:Brand and reputation matter. HP has a long history going back to the LaserJet 4 and early DeskJet printers and built a reputation for rock-solid products. There was a time where their mid business to consumer printer quality and reliability fell off. They were doing something referred to as "value engineering". That's reducing the cost to make it. This is usually to increase profit, lower price, build in obsolesce. I know at least one LaserJet 4 that is still going strong after 20+ years. The HP printing reputation carried on pretty well but I noticed and began to switch my clients to Brother when they started winning awards for their laser printing quality.Today I think HP has recognized the threat Brother has posed and is building better printing and multifunction products and again is ascendant in the marketplace. I like the idea of a US based company (even if they are made all over the world) being a first choice. But that's me.Bottom Line:The HP M476dw is a capable printer with similar capabilities to the Brother MFC-L8850CDW. The real cost of the HP is higher right out of the box and the difference in toner cost means the more you print the the more money you'll save with the Brother. Printing is also quite noticeably slower on the M476dw, but other specs are similar. From a cost perspective the Brother MFC-L8850CDW clearly wins.If you and your organization have HP printing in place, the M476dw is a capable and strong choice that should fit right in. If you have the need for printing color photos the HP seems to have an edge over the Brother. The user interface and driver controls should seem natural and intuitive in a HP shop and gives value in time for training/learning. Brand loyalty has value.Otherwise the Brother MFC-L8850CDW is faster and much cheaper to run. In my experience Brother makes a solid and reliable product which is also intuitive to use. They are clearly aiming at HP and as they say - active competition is a consumer win.Because the HP M476 is a great printer, but has a higher cost of ownership than it's direct Brother competitor I can only give it 4 stars.Hope this is helpful.

We tried to use the HP with a computer running Windows 8.1. After 3 chat sessions and as many phone calls we were still unable to print using a USB connection. HP updated drivers, firmwAre and configuration to no avail. We returned the HP and bought Brother which worked flawlessly