The printer is capable of 14 pages per minute and a 600dpi resolution - not spectacular by today's standards but good enough. Print quality is very good but does deteriorate noticeably as the drum unit wears out; more on that later. This being the 'N' version it has network support built in as well as parallel and USB connectivity.
Design and Styling
The printer is quite conventional in design, having a paper tray for 250 sheets of letter or A4 sized paper at the bottom, a single sheet manual feed slot on the front and a 250 sheet output tray at the top. The front half of the printer folds down to allow access to change the toner. There is also a large door at the rear of the printer to clear the odd inevitable paper jam. The printer is compact and the beige styling unobtrusive. The printer has a footprint of roughly 2 sheets of A4 paper placed side by side.
Cost of Printing
The printer is cheaper to run than some lasers because it uses a separate imaging drum and toner unit. In a lot of laser printers when you replace an empty toner cartridge you are also replacing the imaging drum, making a new toner cartridge quite expensive. Instead of changing the whole thing, in this printer the toner reservoir is detached from the drum and replaced separately when it’s empty. Kyocera is another manufacturer which does things this way to reduce printing costs.
The drum unit eventually needs replacing (after approximately 10,000 pages in theory) - this is indicated by a yellow drum light on the front of the printer, however you might find you need to replace the drum before this if print quality is really important to you - areas of solid black become very grainy and uneven when the drum is nearing the end of its life.
Problems
The printer worked well for a long time but then developed a problem feeding paper from the tray. Brother suggested that the problem might be with worn feed rollers, replacements were dispatched and once fitted the problem was solved. Brother provided the replacements free of charge even though the printer was slightly out of warranty. Very nice of them but I'd rather the printer hadn't needed spares at all!
Optional Extras
There is the option of fitting an additional paper tray, which sits underneath the printer and connects via a short lead to a port on the rear. This is definitely a useful option if you print on more than one type of paper regularly.
Conclusion
A capable basic no-frills laser printer, with lower cost printing than some of its rivals. Looking a little dated now when compared with newer models which offer faster print speeds and features such as automatic duplex (double sided) printing.
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