The Brother MFC-L3710CW ($349.99) is an entry-level all-in-one color laser-class printer designed for small offices and workgroups.
It costs $50 less than the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-L3770CDW, but that price difference means sacrificing a few key features, including automatic two-sided printing, copying, scanning, and faxing, along with Ethernet support and the ability to print from and scan to thumb drives.
Both machines, however, share the same high running costs—a common drawback to entry-level laser-class machines like these.
The MFC-L3710CW offers some strong perks, including good text and photo quality and a sizable automatic document feeder, but you'll likely find the MFC-L3770CDW a better value if your budget can stretch a bit.
Landing in the Lineup
The MFC-L3710CW is part of a seven-machine upgrade to Brother's line of LED (light-emitting diode) printers.
Instead of deploying lasers to etch a page image on to the imaging drum prior to transferring it to the paper, LED printers use an LED array to achieve the same results.
Typically, printer makers deploy LED arrays, rather than full-blown laser mechanisms, because they're smaller and cost less to manufacture, usually allowing for less-expensive, not-so-bulky machines.
However, the MFC-3710CW is neither significantly smaller than its true-laser competitors nor does it list for much less.
It measures 16.3 by 16.1 by 18.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 49.5 pounds.
That's slightly smaller and about 4.4 pounds lighter than its higher-end sibling, yet a bit larger and 1.1 pounds lighter than Canon's entry-level Color imageClass MF634Cdw, another Editors' Choice.
The MFC-3710CW is significantly bigger and heavier than HP's higher-volume (and higher-priced) Color LaserJet Pro MFP M281fdw ($349.99 at HP) .
Even though the MFC-3710CW has a 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF), it does not offer auto-duplex printing, copying, scanning, or faxing.
All the other machines mentioned here so far, however, support at least automatic two-sided printing.
As for paper handling, the MFC-L3710CW holds up to 251 sheets, with 250 in the main cassette and one in the override tray, shown below.
That's on par with the competition mentioned here, with the exception of Canon's heftier MF731Cdw, which holds 300 sheets (expandable to 850).
The MFC-L3770CDW has a 30,000-page monthly duty cycle, which falls toward the lower end of its competition.
The Brother MFC-L3710CW's primary connectivity consists of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, and connecting to a single PC via USB.
Wi-Fi Direct is a peer-to-peer network protocol for connecting your mobile devices to the printer without having them both on the same network or connected to a router.
In addition to Wi-Fi Direct, other mobile connectivity options are Apple AirPrint, Brother iPrint&Scan, Google Cloud Print, and Mopria.
You can also connect to both the business and personal versions of several popular cloud sites, including Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, OneDrive, and others, with Brother's Web Connect feature directly from the control panel.
You can also make configuration changes, monitor status, print reports, and order supplies from the printer's built-in website, shown below.
Entry-Level Print Speed
Brother rates the MFC-L3710CW at 19 pages per minute (ppm), which is 6ppm slower than the company's other LED printers.
I tested it over USB 2.0 from our standard Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC running Windows 10 Professional.
The MFC-L3710CW printed our standard 12-page Microsoft Word test document at the rate of 18ppm, one page shy of its rating and slower than all of its competition mentioned here.
The MFC-L3710CW's score is also quite close to the Brother MFC-J6945DW INKvestment Tank All-In-One Printer's results of 18.3ppm.
The MFC-J6945DW is a business-focused inkjet laser alternative with a wealth of features, excellent print quality, and lower long-terms costs.
(I'll touch more on that in a minute.)
See How We Test Printers
Next, I printed a series of colorful and complex graphics-laden Acrobat, Excel, and PowerPoint business documents, and then combined those scores with the results from printing the previous 12-page text document.
Here, the MFC-L3710CW churned at the rate of 8.2ppm.
That's less than half of its text-document score, but, given the complexity of our color test documents, about what I expected.
Again, though, it was behind the rest of the pack.
The MFC-J6945DW inkjet laser alternative managed 12.2ppm, easily holding its own on this portion of our tests.
While this is in no way a photo printer, I also ran our set of colorful and highly detailed 4-by-6-inch snapshots through the MFC-L3710CW and came up with an average of 26 seconds, which is about what I expect for this test group and this class in general.
Mixed Output Quality
For the most part, the MFC-L3710CW held up well during our print quality testing.
Text came out well-sharpened and easy to read, even at smaller type sizes down to about 5 and 6 points.
Photos, too, looked well-detailed and accurately colored.
The test images were not, of course, as bright and vibrant as those printed on most inkjet AIOs, including the MFC-J6945DW.
Alas, I wasn't thrilled with several of the business graphics the MFC-L3710CW churned out, especially those with dark fills and gradients.
Dark fills, especially large ones, printed with noticeable streaks running through them.
The worst culprits, though, were a few full-page charts with gradient backgrounds that came out with some serious banding from color to color or tint to tint.
These flaws weren't unsightly enough to ruin the prints completely, but they were bad enough to disqualify the output for use in scenarios where you want to put your best foot forward.
Many laser and laser-class models, including Brother's own MFC-L3770CDW, are capable of much higher quality.
Too-Costly Toner
A drawback I've been harping on for years is that these little entry-level laser and laser-class machines cost too much to use, especially compared with many beefier, higher-volume (yet comparably priced) inkjet-laser-alternatives, like the aforementioned Brother MFC-J6945DW.
When you buy the highest-yield toner cartridges for the MFC-L3710CW, for example, monochrome pages will cost you about 2.6 cents each, and color prints will run about 15.5 cents each, whereas the MFC-J6945DW can print the same pages at about 1 cent for monochrome prints and about 5 cents for color.
The MFC-L3710CW is not, by far, a lone wolf when it comes to too-high running costs, though.
The Canon MF634Cdn's best per-page costs, for instance, are about 3.2 cents monochrome 16.4 cents color.
Weighing the Features
With its solid text and photo output and wealth of wireless and mobile connectivity options, the MFC-L3710CW is not a bad little entry-level all-in-one printer.
If your small business has a light printing volume and a strict budget, it's a solid option.
Just keep in mind you'll have to sacrifice the Ethernet connectivity and auto-duplexing that come with the Editors' Choice MFC-L3770CDW.
That upgraded model may cost $50 more, but its richer feature set and better print quality pose a stronger value.
The Bottom Line
The Brother MFC-L3710CW is a solid color laser-class all-in-one printer for budget-conscious small offices.
