... Not that I'm fussy or anything!
After a lot of indecision, and going round in circles comparing printers I plumped for the Brother HL-2030. It also has its bigger 'brothers' (sorry pun unintended at time of writing) the HL-2040 and HL-2070, but I didn't think the 2040 offered much more ... Read review
Advantages: Affordable, good quality, Disadvantages: USB connection only
...printers I plumped for the Brother HL-2030. It also has its bigger 'brothers' (sorry pun unintended at time of writing) the HL-2040 and HL-2070, but I didn't think the 2040 offered much more for the money, and whilst I would have ideally liked a network printer it was out of my budget.
So - to the main point of this review - what is it like???
*** Appearance ***
It comes packaged well, in a sturdy box, ... ...printer itself is I think very attractive, in a plain (grey) get-on-with-the-job way. It is very small, official dimensions list it as being W 371mm, D 361mm, H 166mm. And it has an integrated paper tray holding 250 sheets. All this make it a compact, and lightweight device able to take its place on the desktop without being an eye-sore, or tucked on a shelf/under a desk.
Both my partner and I had been using the Dell all-in-one printer than came with her computer for some time. It was ok. It obviously printed in colour and had a scanner. However, I was becoming pretty annoyed at how much ink it used up when only printing in black and white. You see, this printer, in all its infinite wisdom only had one ink cartridge - of the 3 colours - and so used them all to print in black and white.
As I was expecting my need for printing in black and white to increase - final year university, so lots of reports, lecture notes, and research from the internet - and since the costs at the uni were so expensive I decided to investigate laser printers.
What I was after was a good quality, cheap printer which wouldn't be obtrusive. That is one that isn't too loud, and isn't overly sized, and looks good. I also wanted one that printed in good quality, and didn't take ages to spool. Not that I'm fussy or anything!
After a lot of indecision, and going round in circles comparing printers I plumped for the Brother HL-2030. It also has its bigger 'brothers' (sorry pun unintended at time of writing) the HL-2040 and HL-2070, but I didn't think the 2040 offered much more for the money, and whilst I would have ideally liked a network printer it was out of my budget.
So - to the main point of this review - what is it like???
*** Appearance ***
It comes packaged well, in a sturdy box, with the instructions, and driver CDs easily accessible. The printer itself is I think very attractive, in a plain (grey) get-on-with-the-job way. It is very small, official dimensions list it as being W 371mm, D 361mm, H 166mm. And it has an integrated paper tray holding 250 sheets. All this make it a compact, and lightweight device able to take its place on the desktop without being an eye-sore, or tucked on a shelf/under a desk.
*** Installation ***
The printer comes with two sets of driver CDs. One for Windows Vista, and one for Windows XP and earlier. At the time my computer was running XP, and so I inserted the CD and followed the instructions as per the CD. It even tells you when to connect the USB cable to your PC. All in all I was up and running in no time. It was the same situation when installing it on my partner's computer using Windows Vista, follow the instructions and voila! However, at Christmas I got a new PC, with Windows Vista 64-bit. On installing the software from the CD as per the Vista installation disk it didn't seem to detect the printer properly. I had to go to Brother's website and download an updated driver. Having done this everything was back to normal - the printer was connected as it had been on my XP PC. It is just one of those things that comes with having a 64-bit operating system (as I am finding out every now and again).
*** Application ***
So, my printer is now installed and ready to use. But did it meet up to my expectations. Yes. It has exceeded what I expected of it. It prints in very good quality (2400 x 600dpi at max quality), and very quickly too. It has a power save mode, whereby it switches itself of after a period of time, which serves to both save power, and reduces its noise. The only problem with this printer is when it comes to printing light colours as greyscale. In many cases you can't make out what was clearly defined on screen. The only area where this has been a problem for me is in printing roadmaps from the internet (such as multimap or live maps), whereby it is hard to see the actual roads, and all you can see is the road names!!! Other than this the printer has functioned well above any expectations or standards that I had set, and I am pleased with my purchase.
*** Value ***
This is where this printer really excels. For its price (under £70 when I bought it from PC World) it is a truly phenomenal machine, and performs on all levels. The cost of toner and drums are relatively cheap compared to some models currently out on the market, and they also allow more pages to be printed than some too.
*** Conclusion ***
All this boils down to a very practical, and affordable laser printer that I believe is/and certainly should be a market leader.
Advantages: small and tidy reasonable cost per copy Disadvantages: limited memory and small feed tray
This flat little laser printer is a good machine for the price.
looks:-
Well i can say it looks the part on an office desk it's footprint is pretty much square and is about 6-7 inches high.
It has charcoal grey sides and a typically light grey top and front. WxDxH: 371x381x165mm. Weight: 6.5kg.
usefulness:-
This printer is ideal for the job whitch I got it for just to print address labels and email orders for my company sharp clear blacks and ... ...ppm the 8mb of memory is a bit limited what this basically means when you send to it a large print job of address labels it will have to keep refering back to your computer rather than storing the whole job in memory which can slow down your pc.
It only holds 250 sheets in the paper tray not much for me. it has a pretty useless manual feed as do most of these little printers for heavier cardstock. ease of use:- This is a snap pop in the cd and follow ...
bob3000000 16.11.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Brother HL 2030
Advantages: Nice looking machine, but not flashy, good speed and quality, well-designed Disadvantages: In a small space, the noise can be a little annoying.
...I have written on the Brother HL-1230 as well as the Hewlett Packard HP4. So what are these similarities:
1. Like myself in the ring for the first time, most printers are sized up like one sizes up an opponent. If you are bigger, and heavier, and have more muscles, you automatically assume that you will be the best. When I decided to go out looking for a new laser printer, I used the same method at first and shopped for something that I felt was ... ...settled on is made by Brother and is the HL-2030 model. It is not colour, but prints in black or grey-scale only. My new machine is small enough to fit on just about any size workstation or even a small shelf and unlike the HL-1230 that I own, it is fully contained in its own footprint with no paper trays sticking out the back requiring more room.
2. As I quickly found out in my first match, looks are definitely deceiving but not before it was too ...
UKRushbrook 06.11.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Brother HL 2030
Advantages: low profile, quick, good output Disadvantages: USB only, small paper tray, limited compatibility
This printer replaced a brother HL10 i've had for *years* and it's good. it's not brilliant, but it's good.
first of all this version of this printer is absolutely USB only which will put off some people. secondly the printer is absolutely windows/mac/linux only as it is a GDI based printer, if you use real UNIX or dos applications, forget it. (hint: there's new LPR and CUPS software for linux on the brother solutions website which makes linux installation ... ...the CD took care of all of it and it was printing from it's host machine in minutes. depending on what you send to it it is fast, a plain text word document printed at it's stated speed, whilst one with graphics in printed at roughly half that. the paper tray only holds 250 sheets as standard and we had to refill it to finish printing a long report, a 500 sheet tray would have been more useful (an add on is available, but it's not cheap!)
it makes ...
owenhurrell234 06.07.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Brother HL 2030
Advantages: Cheap and cheerful... does it's job quickly & relatively quietly Disadvantages: erm... thought it had network connectivity but not so sure now
I paid UNDER £60 for this little gem and it was well worth it.
Quick and easy to set up. Ok so I thought I could use it as a network printer and run it out of my router, but that's my mistake.
It is reliable, produces top notch quality prints - and this is the important bit... QUICKLY and with minimum fuss.
As a teacher I use this to produce worksheets; lots of them! Each one is as good as the first, and the 250 sheets of paper are hidden out ... ...bonus!
I've even used it to produce professional quality invites for my wedding, on thick, coarse hand-made paper... again without a simple complaint from the printer. The only problem I had was in keeping up with the speed of the printer as I manually fed the A6 sheets in.
Even the consumables are reasonably priced. If you need a crafty little laser, this is for you. ...
stewtee 15.03.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Brother HL 2030
Advantages: Fast, Cheap, Reliable Disadvantages: As with all lasers, the toner cost
I bought the Brother HL-2030 in October 2005, having hankered after a laser for months. I was fed up of my inkjet printer letting me down (will review that after) so I thought that a laser would make life easier. It certainly did! It can operate at speeds of up to 16 pages per minute which is far more than adequate for me. I also use the printer for school projects and find that the printoffs are of a good quality which *is* required. I have recently ...
joshtfs 10.07.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Brother HL 2030
Picture quality
Printing speed
Colour sensitivity
Ease of use
Value For Money
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Advantages: Cheap, Large Paper Tray, Low PP cost, Quick Disadvantages: Greys and gradients could print better
the quality of my print outputs. College charges 5p per page for printing! So I can thoroughly recommend this to any science / engineering students who has a high workload! Good going away present from a relative perhaps?!!
I spent a long time choosing which printer to buy... I set myself a budget of £120 pounds.
****** ADVANTAGES OVER SIMILAR PRICE PRINTERS ******
I considered the following other printers;
SAMSUNG ML1610
BROTHERHL2030
HP 1020
HP 1022
The most important factor in my choice was the cost per page. Most of the other lasers in this price range are fairly low capacity with toners only lasting 2500 pages. The Samsung 2250 meanwhile toner is supposed to last up to 5000 pages. The printer also features a toner saving button which increases this further (I have it on all the time and the quality is just as good ...
The Brother HL-2030 is stylishly designed and compact enough to fit onto a shelf or workstation. It produces printouts with the speed and quality you would expect from a more expensive machine. Installation is straightforward - simply plug in the power cable, click through the installation CD, and you will be printing minutes later. Compatible with both PC and Apple systems, the HL-2030 uses a USB connection to ensure connectivity with most modern devices. The 250 sheet paper tray provides ample capacity and there is also the option of a single sheet manual feed. With only a low cost toner cartridge and drum to replace you can be confident that this machine offers economical printing.
