Brother HL 5250DN

...and in the end, 9 Brother HL 5250DN mono.

The Brother HL 5250DN mono was from what we could tell the best ICT solution for our business needs and with the discount we received each unit cost 230 Euros (approximately £160). A reasonable price considering the specifications and what proved to be reliable and exceptional service.

Both Windows and Mac compatible, the printer once connected to the Local Area Network (LAN) ...
...points are problems for the Brother HL 5250DN mono. Whilst you can hear paper being fed from the paper tray through the drum, it is no noisier than someone typing on a keyboard and doesn’t distract at all. As far as warming up is concerned, this really depends on how much use it has had. First thing in the morning, it takes round 3 minutes for the first page to be printed, but if it has been inactive for a few hours, this time is reduced to around ... more

As part of our workstation upgrade my employer replaced all of our aging Hewlett Packard laser printers, allocating one printer to 4 workstations to ensure that there was never really a queue of people stood around the printer waiting for large documents and files to reach the top of the print job list. Whilst cost was not really an issue, a large amount of research was undertaken to ensure that the printers purchased had a long life expectancy, were of a good build quality and most importantly, printed in large volumes quickly. There was no requirement for wireless networking, or the need for a colour laser printer. This narrowed down the area of research and in the end, 9 Brother HL 5250DN mono.

The Brother HL 5250DN mono was from what we could tell the best ICT solution for our business needs and with the discount we received each unit cost 230 Euros (approximately £160). A reasonable price considering the specifications and what proved to be reliable and exceptional service.

Both Windows and Mac compatible, the printer once connected to the Local Area Network (LAN) is automatically detected by all of the computers and is essentially ready to go. Due to a number of ridges and sockets in the back, actually attaching the network cable was a mission in itself as it is very fiddly and doesn’t seem that secure once actually attached. A slight movement of the printer on its stand and the cable does fall out losing all connectivity with the LAN.

As the printer does not have the capacity to print in colour (it is simply a black and white printer) the print speed is actually very good, with 28 pages per minute produced easily and there is not one jot of compromise as far as print quality is concerned. Published print resolutions are 1200 x 1200 dpi; this allows for smooth and sharp printouts. As far as print speed and quality are concerned, everyone in our office is impressed. The A4 feeder tray can hold up to 250 sheets and further trays can be purchased at an additional cost to increase the paper capacity up to 800 pages. The finisher tray can realistically hold around 350 pages before it start to interfere with the printer continuing to print, so overall this is also much better than other comparable printers on the market.

An important factor for most people is the noise produced by a printer and the amount of time it takes to warm up after a period of inactivity. I can say that neither of these points are problems for the Brother HL 5250DN mono. Whilst you can hear paper being fed from the paper tray through the drum, it is no noisier than someone typing on a keyboard and doesn’t distract at all. As far as warming up is concerned, this really depends on how much use it has had. First thing in the morning, it takes round 3 minutes for the first page to be printed, but if it has been inactive for a few hours, this time is reduced to around 20 seconds.

As far as size is concerned, it is roughly the same width and depth as a Hewlett Packard Laserjet printer, but slightly shorter in height so it can be tucked away or stood on a stand without any fear of it toppling over and crushing work mates. It is very easy to move around and this makes maintenance much easier to carry out. The drum and toner cartridges are separate parts within the printer so the drum only requires changing after around 25-30,000 pages have been printed, whilst the toner cartridges last for around 5,000 pages. Not linking the two parts means that printer maintenance and servicing is reduced really to a minimum. Office staff rather than specialist ICT or Brother staff can therefore carry out most cleaning and toner changes.

We are very pleased with our new printers. They have now been working well for over a month (we have only had 1 paper jam) and take care of all our printing needs. As I have discussed, the only problem experienced relates to the network cable attachment but this is easily remedied with a handy piece of masking tape. Weighing up the pro’s and con’s of making this purchase I would recommend this printer to anyone looking for a good quality black and white printer for the office environment as it really isn’t suitable for home use due to the size, cost and lack of colour printing capabilities. 

...less