Brother HL-L6200DW

BY M. DAVID STONE

The Brother HL-L6200DW ($249.99) delivers a balance of speed, paper handling, and running costs that make it a solid pick for any home, micro, or small office that needs a monochrome laser printer for moderate to heavy-duty use. Its weakest point is text quality that’s near the low end of the range for monochrome lasers. But even subpar text on a laser printer is easily good enough for most business use. More important is the overall balance of features that makes this printer worth considering.

What keeps the HL-L6200DW$169.95 at B&H Photo-Video-Pro Audio from being our Editors’ Choice for its category is not that it lacks something, but that there are other printers that offer just a bit more. In particular, Brother’s own HL-6180DW$299.99 at Walmart.com and the Dell B2360dn$189.99 at Dell Small Business—both top picks for small-office monochrome lasers for up to heavy-duty use—match the HL-L6200DW or come close in most key areas, with the Brother HL-6180DW also offering notably better text quality in our tests, and the Dell printer offering faster speed.

Basics and Beyond
That said, the HL-L6200DW’s particular mix of features could still be the better fit for your office. Its paper handling is easily suitable for up to heavy-duty use in a small office or workgroup, with a 520-sheet drawer, 50-sheet multipurpose tray, and duplexer standard. If that’s not enough, you can add up to three optional 250-sheet drawers ($179.99 each) to boost capacity to as much as 1,320 sheets, or up to two 520-sheet drawers ($209.99 each) for a maximum 1,610 sheets, or one of each size drawer for 1,340 sheets.

As is typical for any printer with this high a paper capacity, the HL-L6200DW is big enough so you probably won’t want it sitting on your desk. With the standard capacity, it measures 11.3 by 14.7 by 15.3 inches (HWD), with the height growing by 4.8 inches for each additional 250-sheet drawer, or by 6 inches for each additional 520-sheet drawer. Even with just the standard tray, the height makes the printer imposing enough that you might not want to share a desk with it. However, the footprint ties up a smaller area than many inkjets, so you may want to keep it near your desk if not on it.

Connection choices include USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Direct. If you connect the printer to a network via either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you can also print to it through the cloud, as well as connect to it through an access point on your network to print from a mobile device. If you connect it to a single PC via USB cable instead, you’ll lose the ability to print through the cloud, but can still print from a mobile device by connecting directly to the printer using Wi-Fi Direct.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
At 26 pounds 6 ounces, the HL-L6200DW is light enough for one person to move into place. For my tests, I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system. Setup is standard for the breed.

The speed in our tests was a little slow for the 48 pages-per-minute (ppm) rating, but acceptably fast for the price. I clocked the printer on our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic’s hardware and software), at 12.7ppm. That makes it faster than the Brother HL-6180DW, at 10.7ppm, but significantly slower than the Dell B2360dn, which came in at 15ppm in our tests despite its slower engine, rated at 40ppm.
As another point of reference, the HL-L6200DW was also slower in our tests than the Dell Smart Printer S2810dn$179.99 at Dell, which Dell rates at only 35ppm, but we clocked at 13.4ppm when printing in simplex. Even in its default duplex mode, which adds time to turn over each page to print on the second side, the Dell S2810dn was only slightly slower than the HL-L6200DW, at 11.8ppm.

Output quality for the HL-L6200DW is a mixed bag. Text is subpar, with the quality falling at the bottom of the range for the category in our tests. However, monochrome lasers handle text so well that even the lowest rung on the laser-quality ladder is good enough for almost any business use. As long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts, you shouldn’t have any complaints.

Graphics quality in our tests was typical for a monochrome laser, which makes it good enough for any internal business need. It’s also good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like, unless you have a critical eye. Photo quality is better than typical. The photo output in our tests was basically a match for the high end of newspaper photo quality.

Conclusion
Offices that need somewhat better text quality than the Brother HL-L6200DW delivers should consider the Brother HL-6180DW, the Dell B2360dn, or the Dell S2810dn. All three are roughly matched for text quality, with the Brother HL-6180DW offering the highest paper capacity, and the Dell B2360 offering the fastest speed in our tests. For offices that don’t need the step up in text quality, the HL-L6200DW offers the highest paper capacity in the group, the best photo quality, and faster speed in our tests than the Brother HL-6180DW.

Brother HL-L5100DN

BY TONY HOFFMAN

The Brother HL-L5100DN ($199.99) is a very capable mono laser printer for a micro or small office or a workgroup, and offers very good value for its price. It is lightning fast, prints high-quality text, is capable of heavy-duty printing, has good standard and optional paper capacity, and a low running cost. The HL-L5100DN$159.99 at Amazon lacks the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct found in its near-twin, the Editors’ Choice Brother HL-L5200DW$205.15 at Amazon, but is a top-choice in its own right.

Design and Features
Other than connectivity, the HL-L5100DN has the same feature set as the Brother HL-L5200DW. I discuss the features in detail in the latter printer’s review, linked above, but I’ll present an overview here. The HL-L5100DN measures 10 by 14.7 by 15.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 23.5 pounds. Standard paper capacity is 300 sheets, between a 250-sheet main tray and a 50-sheet multipurpose feeder. Optional trays are available, up to a maximum paper capacity of 1,340 sheets. An auto-duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper is standard. The maximum monthly duty cycle is 50,000 pages.

The HL-L5100DN connects to a PC via a USB cable, or to a network via Ethernet. It lacks Wi-Fi or WiFi Direct connectivity, although you could print to it via Wi-Fi provided that your network has a wireless access point.

Printing Speed
I timed the Brother HL-L5100DN on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 15 pages per minute (ppm), a good speed especially considering its 42ppm speed rating. (While rated speeds are based on text-only printing, our test suite includes text pages, graphics pages, and pages with mixed content). The Editors’ Choice Dell B2360dn$189.99 at Dell, rated at 40ppm, also turned in a 15ppm speed. It was effectively tied with the Brother HL-L5200DW, rated at 42 ppm, which tested at 15.3ppm, with just one second separating their total timings. It was faster than the Brother HL-L6200DW$178.88 at Amazon, which tested at 12.7ppm despite its 48ppm rated speed.

Output Quality
Overall output quality for the HL-L5100DN, based on our testing, was slightly above par, with above-average text, slightly subpar graphics, and average photos. Text should be good enough for any business purpose except for ones requiring tiny fonts.

Graphics are good enough for internal business use and perhaps for PowerPoint handouts, depending on how picky you are. It had trouble differentiating between similar shadings in one illustration, and couldn’t print one page that shows dark text against an even darker background. Photo quality, which I would categorize as newspaper quality, is typical of mono lasers, good enough for printing out images from Web pages or files.

The HL-L5100DN has the same running cost, based on Brother’s price and yield figures for toner and drum, of 1.8 cents per page, which is shared by both the Brother HL-L5200DW and HL-L6200DW. The Dell B2360dn’s running costs are a touch higher at 2 cents per page, while the Canon imageClass LBP151dw’s costs are higher yet, at 3.5 cents per page.

Conclusion
The Brother HL-L5100DN is a strong choice mono laser printer for up to heavy-duty printing in a small or micro office. Among its strengths are blazing speed, good output quality with above-par text, good standard and excellent optional paper capacity, and low running costs. The Editors’ Choice HL-L5200DW is the same printer but with Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct added to the mix. If you don’t need to connect wirelessly, you can still get a highly capable mono laser for less money with the HL-L5100DN.

Brother HL-L2300D

BY M. DAVID STONE

The Brother HL-L2300D monochrome laser printer($119.99) is small enough to sit on your desk without taking up a lot of space and is limited to connecting via USB cable. The combination defines it as a personal printer for any size office. Despite the small form, however, it delivers a level of paper handling that would be suitable for sharing. Add in its fast speed and more-than-acceptable output quality, and it’s an easy pick as our Editors’ Choice low-cost, personal monochrome laser printer.

When it comes to paper handling, the HL-L2300D$79.99 at Amazon delivers a point-for-point match with the Samsung Xpress M2625D$98.99 at Amazon, another top pick. Both models offer a 250-sheet tray, a one-sheet manual feed, and a built-in duplexer (for two-sided printing). This should easily be enough for even heavy-duty use by personal printer standards.

Almost as important as the paper handling is the small size. The HL-L2300D weighs just 15 pounds, making it easy for one person to move into place, and it measures 7.2 by 14 by 14.2 inches (HWD). That gives it a slightly lower weight and size than the Samsung model, which is always a plus for anything that you plan to share your desk with.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setup is standard for a USB-connected monochrome laser. For my tests, I connected it to a system running Windows Vista. The printer’s engine rating is 27 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing a text document or other file that needs little to no processing. I clocked it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), at 9.3ppm, which is a respectable speed for the price and engine rating, and just a touch slower than the Samsung M2625D’s 9.9pm. The HL-L2300D is essentially tied with the Brother HL-L2340DW$119.98 at Amazon, which is a similar model with Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct added.

Output quality for the HL-L2300D is just a touch below par overall, with text and graphics both a step below the ranges that include the vast majority of monochrome lasers. For text, that still translates to being good enough for virtually any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts. For graphics, it makes the output easily good enough for any internal business needs, but not good enough for most people to consider it suitable for PowerPoint handouts or the like.

Photo quality is typical for a monochrome laser. You can certainly print recognizable images from photos on webpages, for example, but don’t plan on using the printer for anything more demanding than that.

If you want the convenience of being able to print wirelessly from your phone or tablet using a printer that’s connected to a single PC, you should take a look at somewhat more expensive models that support Wi-Fi Direct, like the Brother HL-L2340DW and the Samsung Xpress M2835DWBest Price at Amazon. If you simply want to print from a PC connected via USB cable, however, the HL-L2300D delivers a balance of speed, paper handling, output quality, size, and price that makes it an excellent candidate for a personal monochrome laser printer and our Editors’ Choice in the category.

original article

Brother MFC-L2720DW

BY M. DAVID STONE

Whether you need a monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP) for personal or shared use, the Brother MFC-L2720DW ($249.99) can be a good fit, both literally and figuratively. It’s small enough so it won’t take up much room, and it delivers paper handling and speed suitable for up to moderate-duty use in a micro office. It doesn’t offer quite enough to make it our favorite in its category, but if your needs include Wi-Fi Direct support or the ability to scan to websites and email attachments without a computer, the MFC-L2720DW is worth serious consideration.

Compared with the Canon imageClass MF227dw$155.35 at Amazon, our Editors’ Choice heavy-duty personal or light- to moderate-duty monochrome laser MFP, the MFC-L2720DW$161.67 at Amazon is slower and delivers a touch lower text quality, although the quality is still good enough for most business use. On the other hand, it matches the Canon printer for paper handling, and it offers some features that the Canon printer lacks.

Among the MFC-L2720DW’s more notable extras are the ability to scan and send email directly without needing a PC, and support for Wi-Fi direct, which lets you connect to it from a mobile device even if the printer isn’t on a network. If you can make good use of these features, they can easily make up for the Canon printer’s advantages in text quality and speed.

Paper Handling, Basics, and Extras
As with the Canon MF227DW, the MFC-L2720DW’s suitability for use as a shared printer rests solidly on its paper handling. Both models offer a 250-sheet main tray, a single-sheet manual feed, and a duplexer (for two-sided printing). That should be enough for most micro offices, but if you need more, you’ll have to look elsewhere, since no paper handling upgrades are available in either case.

Both models also offer the same paper handling for scanning, each with a letter-size flatbed and a 35-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF) for up to legal-size paper. Neither ADF can scan or copy in duplex, however. If you need duplex scanning, the Brother MFC-L2740DW$189.99 at Amazon, which is similar to the MFC-L2720DW in most ways, adds duplexing, with its scanner able to scan both sides of the page at the same time.

Basic MFP features for the MFC-L2720DW include the ability to print and fax from, as well as scan to, a PC and the ability to work as a standalone copier and fax machine. Extras include its ability to send scans as email attachments without needing a PC, its support for mobile printing, and its Web-related features.

If you connect the printer to a network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you can connect through an access point on the network to print from and scan to a tablet or smartphone, as well as print though the cloud, assuming the printer is connected to the Internet. Connect to a single PC via USB cable instead, and you won’t be able to print through the cloud, but you can still connect directly to print or scan, thanks to the printer’s Wi-Fi Direct.

You can both print from and scan to a variety of websites (including Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and OneDrive) using the 2.7-inch touch screen on the MFP’s front panel. You can also scan to a choice of file formats and save the file to a cloud site or send it as an email attachment without needing a computer. Even better, if you scan to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or searchable PDF format, the printer will automatically use Brother’s servers in the cloud to recognize scanned text as part of the process, which is a particularly impressive feature that can come in handy

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
Setup is typical for the breed. At 12.5 by 16.1 by 15.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 25 pounds 6 ounces, the MFC-L2720DW is light enough for one person to carry, and small enough so it won’t take up a lot of space. For my tests, I connected it using its Ethernet port and installed the software on a system running Windows Vista.

Brother rates the printer at 30 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing text documents with little or no formatting. I timed it on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 9.6ppm, which makes it essentially tied with the Brother MFC-L2740DW. However, it’s significantly slower than the Canon MF227dw’s 13ppm for printing in simplex (one-sided) mode, and its speed for simplex mode is effectively tied with the Canon’s 9.7ppm for printing in duplex.

The MFC-L2720DW’s output quality is good enough for most business needs, but not particularly impressive. Text is at the low end of the range that includes the vast majority of monochrome laser MFPs. That translates to being good enough for almost any business use, but well short of what you’d want for, say, high-quality desktop publishing.

Graphics output is a touch below par, making it easily good enough for any internal business use, but not something you’d want to hand out to a client or customer who you’re trying to impress with a sense of your professionalism. Photo quality is typical for a monochrome laser, making it good enough to print recognizable images from photos on webpages, but not suitable for anything more demanding than that.

If you need an MFP that can copy and scan in duplex, be sure to consider the Brother MFC-L2740DW or the Canon imageClass MF229dw$199.99 at Amazon, which is similar to the Canon MF227DW with a duplexing ADF added. If you don’t need to scan in duplex, take a look at the Canon MF227dw, which offers both faster speed and better text quality than the Brother MFC-L2720DW. However, if you can make good use of the Brother printer’s Wi-Fi Direct support, its ability to scan to Web sites and email attachments without a computer, or its ability to scan to specific file formats complete with text recognition, the MFC-L2720DW should be on your short list.

original article

Brother HL-L2340DW

BY M. DAVID STONE

Small enough to serve as a personal monochrome laser printer, the Brother HL-L2340DW ($139.99) is also a candidate for sharing in a micro office. It offers suitable speed and paper handling for either role, and it supports mobile printing with Wi-Fi Direct as a welcome extra. The lack of an Ethernet connector will rule it out for sharing in many cases, but if you want a printer that connects to your network via Wi-Fi, it’s well worth a look.

Paper handling is one of the HL-L2340DW’s$109.99 at Amazon strong points. Like the Samsung Xpress M2825DW$122.80 at Amazon, which is our Editors’ Choice moderately-priced personal or micro-office monochrome laser, the printer offers a 250-sheet tray, a one-sheet manual feed, and a built-in duplexer for two-sided printing. This should easily be enough for most personal or micro-office use. If you need more capacity, however, you’ll have to look elsewhere, since Brother doesn’t offer any paper handling upgrades for the printer.

More Basics
The HL-L2340DW also earns points for personal or micro-office use for its small size and weight. At just 7.2 by 14 by 14.2 inches (HWD), it can fit on your desk without taking up much room, and at only 15 pounds, one person can easily move it into place. That makes it a touch smaller and lighter than both the Samsung M2825DW and the next-generation replacement in Samsung’s line—the Samsung Xpress M2835DWBest Price at Amazon.

Going a step beyond the basics, the HL-L2340DW also offers mobile printing support. If you connect it to a network, it will let you print through the cloud and print from an iOS or Android tablet or smartphone through your network access point. If you connect it to a single PC via USB cable instead, you won’t be able to print through the cloud, but the built-in Wi-Fi Direct will still let you connect directly to the printer from mobile devices—a feature that can be highly useful even for a personal printer.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
For my tests, I connected the HL-L2340DW to a Windows Vista system. Setup is absolutely standard for a USB-connected monochrome laser.

Brother rates the printer engine at 27 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing a text document or other files that need little to no processing. On our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), I timed it at 8.9ppm, which is a respectable speed for the price and engine rating. In comparison, the Samsung M2835DW managed a somewhat faster 9.7ppm, essentially tying the Samsung M2825DW’s 9.9ppm.

Unfortunately, the HL-L2340DW’s output quality is a touch below par overall. Text quality is good enough for any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts, but it’s a step below the range that includes the majority of monochrome laser printers.

Graphics quality is also a step below the level that most of the competition delivers. It’s good enough for any internal business use, but few people would consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like. Photo quality is typical for a monochrome laser, but that’s a low bar. The output is good enough to print recognizable images from webpages, but not suitable for anything more demanding than that.

If you need better-looking output or an Ethernet connector, you should consider the Samsung M2825DW or the Samsung M2835DW. The Brother HL-L2340DW still has a lot going for it, with mobile printing support, ample paper handling, nearly the same speed as the Samsung models, and a somewhat lower price. If you don’t need a wired connection to a network, and you care more about cost than output quality, it may be the printer you want.

original article

Brother HL-L2380DW

BY M. DAVID STONE

Even though the Brother HL-L2380DW monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP) ($199.99) can scan and copy, Brother groups it on its website with single-function printers. The company treats it that way because it lacks an automatic document feeder (ADF), which limits its copying and scanning to manually placing pages on its letter-size flatbed. Whether you think of it as an MFP or as a single-function printer with convenience features, however, it’s of most interest if your primary need is printing, but you can also make use of its extremely light-duty copy and scan capability.

Much like the Canon imageClass MF212w$109.00 at WalMart that I recently reviewed, the HL-L2380DW$138.00 at Amazon can be a particularly good fit as a personal printer but can also serve as a shared printer in a micro office. The lack of an ADF in both cases helps make the printers small enough to keep on your desk without feeling like they’re towering over you. Both also include a 250-sheet paper tray and one-sheet manual feed, giving them ample paper capacity for either role. The HL-L2380DW adds a duplexer for two-sided printing.

Mobile Devices and the Cloud
In addition to printing, scanning, and copying, the HL-L2380DW offers support for both mobile printing and scanning and the ability to connect to selected cloud sites. If you connect the printer to a network, using either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you can connect to, and both print from and scan to, a tablet or smartphone through an access point on the network. If the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud. Connect the printer to a PC via USB cable instead, and you won’t be able to print through the cloud, but you can still use Wi-Fi Direct to connect directly to the printer for printing and scanning.

Choices on the touch-screen menu include Web-connection options for both scanning to and printing from a selection of websites (including Box, Google Drive, Evernote, and OneDrive). Other choices let you scan to specific file formats—including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—and either save the file to a cloud site or send it as an email attachment. Brother handles the conversion to the file format you want with its own online server.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
The HL-L2380DW is bigger and heavier than the Canon MF212w, but still small enough, at 10.5 by 16.1 by 15.7 inches (HWD), to put on your desk. It’s also light enough, at 21 pounds 10 ounces, for one person to move it into place. For my tests, I connected it to a network by Ethernet and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system. Setup was typical for the breed.

Brother rates the HL-L2380DW at 32 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing text documents or other files that need little to no processing. On our business applications suite, I timed it (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 9.5ppm.

That qualifies it to be of acceptable speed for the price and engine rating. However, it’s notably slower than the 12.2ppm I measured for the Canon MF212w and the nearly identical 12.3ppm for the Canon imageClass MF216n$119.99 at Amazon, which is our Editors’ Choice MFP for personal use or for light-duty use in a micro office.

The HL-L2380DW’s output quality is similarly acceptable but unimpressive. Text, which is generally the most important kind of output for a monochrome printer, is slightly below par for a laser MFP, even though it’s good enough for most business use. As long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts, you shouldn’t have a problem with it.

Graphics output is on par with the vast majority of monochrome lasers, making it easily good enough for any internal business need. Depending on how critical an eye you have, you may or may not consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like. Photo quality is good enough to print recognizable images from photos on Web pages, but not suitable for anything more demanding than that.

If you’re considering the Brother HL-L2380DW, be sure to take a look at the Canon MF216n and Canon MF212w as well. Both Canon printers offer faster speed and better text quality than the HL-L2380DW, with the Canon MF216n adding an ADF. However, the HL-L2380DW has some advantages over both Canon printers as well, including Wi-Fi Direct, mobile scanning along with mobile printing, printing through the cloud, and the ability to print to and scan from specific websites. If you can make good use of the HL-L2380DW’s Web-related features or its mobile printing and scanning, it can easily be the right choice.

original article

Brother HL-L2360DW

BY M. DAVID STONE

Despite being small enough to fit comfortably on your desk, the Brother HL-L2360DW monochrome laser printer ($149.99) offers speed and paper handling suitable for most micro offices. Its output quality was somewhat below par in our tests, but it’s still good enough for most business use. The combination makes it a reasonable choice as either a heavy-duty personal printer or as a light- to moderate-duty shared printer in a micro or small office.

Paper handling is one of the HL-L2360DW’s$99.99 at Best Buy strengths, and a key area where the printer offers a point-for-point match with the Samsung Xpress M2825DW $140.45 at Amazon, our Editors’ Choice for low-cost personal or micro-office mono lasers. Both printers offer a 250-sheet input tray, a one-sheet manual feed, a duplexer (for two-sided printing). If you need a higher paper capacity, you’ll have to look elsewhere, but, with either printer, this should be enough for most micro offices.

Connection options for the HL-L2360DW include Ethernet and Wi-Fi, which makes it easy to share the printer in a micro office, plus Wi-Fi Direct, which lets you connect directly to the printer from a mobile device, even if you connect the printer to a single PC by USB cable. Brother’s free mobile print app lets you print from iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and Windows mobile devices either directly, using Wi-Fi Direct, or through your Wi-Fi access point. If the network is connected to the Internet, you can print through the cloud.

Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
At 7.2 by 14.0 by 14.2 inches (HWD), the HL-L2360DW takes up less desktop space than most inkjets, and at only 15 pounds, it’s light enough for one person to move into place easily. Setting it up on a network is standard fare. For my tests I connected it by Ethernet and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.

On our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) I clocked the printer at 9.6 pages per minute (ppm). That qualifies as a reasonable speed for both the price and the 32-ppm rating. It’s also essentially tied with the Samsung M2825DW. However, it’s well short of impressive. By comparison, the Brother HL-2270DW$139.99 at Amazon, which the Samsung printer replaced as our Editors’ Choice, came in at 11.7ppm. The Canon imageClass LBP6200d$169.00 at PCNation.com clocked in at 11.1ppm in its default duplex mode and at 14.5ppm in simplex (one-sided) mode.

Unfortunately, the HL-L2360DW’s output quality doesn’t hold up against the competition. Text quality is good enough for most business use, but it’s below par for a monochrome laser. The saving grace is that even subpar text for a laser is better than you’ll get from most inkjets. I wouldn’t consider this printer for high-quality desktop publishing, but for typical business use, unless you have an unusual need for small fonts, it should work for you.

Graphics output is at the low end of a fairly tight range that includes virtually all monochrome lasers. It’s good enough for any internal business need, but not for something you’ll want to hand out to a client or customer when you’re trying to make a good impression. Photo quality is typical for its ilk. That translates to being good enough to print recognizable images from photos in Web pages, or roughly equivalent to newspaper quality.

If you want speed, the Canon LBP6200d can be an attractive choice, but its only connection option is USB, which limits it to personal, rather than shared, use. If you need better output quality than the Brother HL-L2360DW offers, take a close look at the Samsung M2825DW, which delivers higher-quality text and graphics as part of a balance of features that makes it our preferred pick. If you don’t need particularly high-quality output, however, the HL-L2360DW matches the Samsung printer for speed, paper handling, connection options, and mobile printing support, making it a reasonable, though not particularly compelling, choice.

original article

Brother MFC-2740DW

by 

I’ve had the privilege of receiving a new Brother MFC-2740DW Laser Printer, part of Brother’s new line of monochrome laser printers released last month. The MFC-2740DW is a printer, copier, scanner and fax machine (35-page capacity document feeder) all rolled up in a small package. The color scanner connects to destinations such as FTP and Microsoft Sharepoint, and the 2.7” color touch screen display with Web Connect lets you scan to popular cloud services including Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, Onedrive, Onenote, and various others.

Design

This particular all-in-one model looks bulky and heavy, but when I lifted it out of the box and slipped it into the corner of my desk under my shelf, I realized how compact and lightweight it is. When printing, the collection tray that would usually lie jutting out into empty space is actually inside the structure of the device, preserving space. The parts of the printer are easily navigable compared to some older models, making potential paper jams easily fixed.

Installation & Wireless

Installation was quick and easy. The software is accessible on the company’s website and, once it is downloaded onto your system, adding the printer to the queue takes only the click of a button. The wireless in the device is pretty seamless. It takes a few seconds for the signal to connect after you click the “print” button, but no more than 20 maximum. Printing, scanning and faxing processes are quick, simple and frustration-free.

Toner

The ink situation in this particular printer is a dream come true. Not only does one toner cartridge print significantly more pages than the average home printer, each cartage costs about $20-$30 less than the average ink cartridge at $40-$50, depending on the retailer.

Verdict

I’ve spent a lot of time getting into fights with printers in my house, my dorm rooms, libraries, and especially in offices. This printer is easy to set up, convenient to use, and pretty much offers everything a large office printer can offer, including double-sided printing, making it the perfect choice for a home office. The Brother Printer MFC-2740DW Wireless Monochrome Printer with Scanner, Copier and Fax retails at $299.99.

original article

Brother HL-L8250CDN

BY M. DAVID STONE

While the Brother HL-L8250CDN ($349.99) matched the Editors’ Choice Xerox Phaser 6500/DN $252.98 at Amazon in our speed tests, and it offers better paper handling, its output quality can’t match the 6500/DN. But if you’re looking for a colorlaser printer for a micro or small office or workgroup, its speed and paper handling are enough to make it worth considering as your office workhorse.

Setup and Speed
The HL-L8250CDN is a little too big to share a desk with comfortably. It measures 12.3 by 16.1 by 19.1-inches (HWD), and it weighs enough, at 34.8 pounds, that you might need some help moving it into place.

Setup is typical for color lasers. I connected the printer to a wired network for my tests and installed the driver on a system running Windows Vista. One key difference between it and the Xerox 6500/DN is that the HL-L8250CDN installs to print in simplex (one-sided) mode rather than duplex by default. That gives it a faster speed than the Xerox printer on our official tests, but only because printing in duplex takes longer.

Brother rates the printer at 30 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing a text document or other file that needs little to no processing. On our business applications suite, (using QualityLogic’shardware and software for timing) I clocked it at 6.6ppm, making it significantly faster than the Xerox 6500/DN’s official speed of 5.4ppm. However there’s a metaphorical asterisk that goes next to the Xerox printer’s speed.

In my unofficial tests with the Xerox printer in simplex mode, it came in at 6.5ppm, which means the two printers are actually tied for speed. (A 0.1ppm difference in our tests isn’t significant.) As another point of reference, both printers are a bit faster than the Samsung CLP-415NW$263.00 at Amazon, at 6ppm.

Output Quality
The HL-L8250CDN’s output quality overall is best described as good enough for most business use, but far short of impressive. Text quality is typical for a color laser, although it’s at the bottom of a very tight range where most color lasers fall. It’s not quite suitable for high-quality desktop publishing, but you shouldn’t have a problem with it for anything else, including printing with smaller fonts than most business documents use.

Graphics quality is a touch below what’s typical for a color laser, which still makes it easily good enough for any internal business use. Most people would consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts and the like as well.

Photo quality is good enough to print recognizable photos from Web pages and such, but most photos in my tests had obvious quality issues, including banding, posterization (shading changing suddenly where it should change gradually), and visible dithering in the form of both graininess and dithering patterns.

Also worth nothing: If you connect the printer to a network, you can print through the cloud and from mobile devices over a Wi-Fi access point on your network.

If you need good quality for photos and graphics as well as for text, you’re better off with either the Editors’ Choice Samsung CLP-415 for light to moderate use, or the Editors’ Choice Xerox 6500/DN for more heavy-duty printing complete with duplexing. That said, if what you need is a medium- to heavy-duty workhorse color laser, but graphics and photo quality aren’t crucial, the Brother HL-L8250CDN’s speed and capable paper handling make it worth considering.

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Brother HL-3140CW

tr-recommendedWhat is the Brother HL-3140CW?

Colour laser printers have traditionally been overpriced and under specced, compared with their mono-only counterparts. Brother’s HL-3140CW isn’t a colour laser printer, though, but a colour LED printer. This is part of the reason it’s neither overpriced, nor under specced.

Brother HL-3140CW – Design and Features

Aimed at the small, or possibly home office, it’s surprisingly compact, and its mid-grey and white colour scheme helps it to look discreet. Paper outputs to its top surface and there’s a flip-up paper stop to prevent it over-running.

Also set into the top surface is a simple control panel with eight buttons including a power button which is surprisingly small and easy to overlook. The printer has a two-line LCD panel set quite deep into the control panel and without a backlight, though we didn’t have any trouble reading messages on it.

At the bottom of the panel a large recessed handle makes it easy to open the 250-sheet main paper tray, a much more sensible capacity than many colour lasers offer. Above this there’s a flip-down panel offering a single feed for envelopes or special media.

Brother HL-3140CW – Connections and Installation

The Brother HL-3140CW has a single USB socket at the rear, but is also wireless compatible and using WPS setup can be linked to a wireless network without a temporary USB link.

Lifting the top panel reveals the consumables. Each drum cartridge has a clip-in toner cartridge and you can use between 7 and 10 toners before needing to change the drum. There’s a transfer belt and waste toner unit, too, though fortunately, these only have to be replaced after 50,000 pages.

Software installation is straightforward as the main application is the driver, though you do get Web access to the Brother CreativeCenter and to a trial version of its OmniJoin videoconferencing; Brother is heavily into videoconferencing.

Summary

Our Score

9/10

Brother HL-3140CW – Performance and Verdict

Brother HL-3140CW – Print Speeds

Brother claims a top speed of 18ppm for the HL-3140CW in both black and colour print. We didn’t get to that speed under test, though our 20ppm black text document produced a speed of 14.5ppm, which is not far off. The five-page test produced 9.1ppm.

These speeds are good, with similar printers, such as the more expensive Canon i-SENSYS LBP7110Cw giving 11.5ppm and 7.5ppm, respectively.

Unusually, the colour graphics speed matched the mono text speed at 9.1ppm and this is quite quick for this class of printer. A 15 x 10cm photo on A4 took 22s to complete, which is also quick. The printer is claimed to work with iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices, though we couldn’t get the Brother Android App, iPrint & Scan, to find it. This turned out to be a firmware issue and was resolved with an upgrade.

Brother HL-3140CW – Print Quality and Costs

The print quality is well up to the standards you would expect from a mid-range laser printer; we’d challenge you to tell the output from a beam sculpted original. Colour graphics are strong and smooth, though we did notice some haloing from black and colour misregistration. The photo print looked surprisingly natural, though there was some mild banding visible.

The costs are divided between the toner and drum, and the belt and waste unit, if you print over 50,000 pages. They work out at 3.0p for black pages and 12.4p for colour. These are about average for a low-cost colour laser or LED machine.

There’s a popular misconception that laser print is cheaper than inkjet, but in the £100 – £200 price range, this isn’t true, particularly for colour. It probably comes from the fact that inkjet consumables are lower capacity and need replacing more frequently than toner.

Should I buy a Brother HL-3140CW?
If you want a colour laser-quality printer, then Yes. This machine represents tremendous value for money at the £119 price we found online. That’s from a reputable source which is likely to maintain stocks, too.

Compare it with the Canon i-SENSYS LBP7110Cw, at around £160 or the HP LaserJet Pro 200 Color M251nw at around £170 and it’s faster than both and costs about the same to run. But it’s £40-£50 cheaper.

Unless you have a particular aversion to LED printers – and the difference is only a matrix of bright LEDs rather than a laser beam setting the image on the drum – there’s no reason we can see for not choosing the less expensive Brother option.

SEE ALSO: Best printers round-up

Verdict

The Brother HL-3140CW is a really good value colour LED printer. It’s neat, quick and doesn’t cost that much to run, particularly when compared with early colour LEDs from Dell and Xerox, where colour pages came close to 20p each. With an asking price of under £120, there’s little reason to buy a mono-only laser, when you could have this machine and print colour, too.

Summary

Our Score

9/10

Brother HL-3140CW – Print Speeds and Costs Table

Brother HL-3140CW - Print Speeds and Costs

Scores In Detail

Features

8/10

Print Quality

8/10

Print Speed

9/10

Value 10/10

Our Score

9/10
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