Brother MFC-L3780CDW: Cost Per Page and Where It Ranks
The Brother MFC-L3780CDW is a color laser all-in-one — print, copy, scan and fax, with auto-duplexing, Wi-Fi and a touchscreen — rated at 31 pages per minute and selling for $500. Running it costs $4.15 per 100 pages in black and $20.26 per 100 pages in color. The black rate traces to a $96 TN229XLBK cartridge good for 3,000 pages, with a $188 drum rated for 20,000 pages adding its own wear to every page that comes out.
That running cost puts the MFC-L3780CDW in a five-way tie for 9th of 13 color laser printers InkTax tracks on both black and color cost per page — a tie that sits at the bottom of the class on both counts. Zoom out, though, and the picture softens: across all 97 printers InkTax tracks on black cost per page, it lands 53rd, solidly mid-pack once every machine counts, not just color lasers.
The running-cost floor among color laser printers belongs to the Canon Color imageCLASS LBP674Cdw II, at $2.86 per 100 pages in black and $17.26 per 100 pages in color. That machine costs $681 up front, well above the Brother's $500, and drops copy, scan and fax for print-only.
A closer functional match comes from the Canon Color imageCLASS MF662Cdw: print, copy and scan, no fax, with its own touchscreen, for $430. It undercuts the Brother on both counts — cheaper to buy and cheaper to run, at $3.60 per 100 pages in black and $19.56 per 100 pages in color.
For anyone printing heavy color volumes, the Canon PIXMA G3270 is the sharper cut: an inkjet tank printer at $249 with print, copy and scan, running just $0.38 per 100 pages in black and $0.97 per 100 pages in color — a fraction of the Brother's toner costs. It rates only 11 pages per minute against the Brother's 31, and it skips auto-duplex, Ethernet and a touchscreen.