Brother HL 2400CE > Reviews (1)

Brother occupies an enviable slot in the mono laser printer market, and is carving out a good chunk of the colour laser sector too. It's achieving this feat with products such as this networkable, high-end colour laser unit.

The HL-2400Ce is a large, heavy (32kg, in fact) beast, as are most colour lasers. This is because they require four separate toner cartridges and a somewhat convoluted paper path. The Brother unit is no worse than any others in this respect, and the installation process is relatively straightforward.

The machine comes with 32MB of memory as standard, with slots for a potential maximum of 288MB should your customers require it. A 166MHz NEC processor powers the unit. For true power users, there's the option of a 2.5-inch hard drive for increased storage of queued documents.

Colour emulation is handled via PCL5e, while for mono output the unit makes use of PCL6. This means that even non-standard bespoke applications can be used with the unit, as it will effectively behave like an HP LaserJet when required. Not that this is likely to be a problem in any event, as Brother supplies drivers for all major operating systems, and these provide a good level of user feedback.

With a top resolution of 1200dpi, boosted to an 'apparent' 2400dpi with various resolution enhancement algorithms, the HL-2400Ce has a maximum print speed of 16ppm in mono and 4ppm in colour. Printing on transparencies halves these potential maxima. As you'd imagine, there's an 'N' version of the printer which has powerful networking tools built in, including Web access for remote configuration and control.

Verdict
The HL-2400Ce is an impressive machine. Output, both in mono and colour, was good in terms of both speed and print quality. You pay for what you get, of course, but in offices where the printing of presentations and reports in colour is the norm, that is unlikely to be much of an obstacle.