Brothers done it again…An Insanely Fast, No Nonsense Laser

This will be my third laser printer. Why? Pretty much because I like to have new toys to play with. My first printer: A Konica Minolta PagePro 1350W. It worked flawlessly for as long as I had it, but I saw a sweet deal on a Brother HL-2040 and grabbed that and gave the Konica to a friend. The HL-2040s drum is on its last legs. Nothing wrong with the printer, but I decided a new printer not only is about the same cost of the drum, but it gives me a new toy.

Given my HL-2040s rock-solid reliability, I looked at getting another Brother laser. I was considering either the HL-5240 or the HL-5250DN. I decided on the 5240 due to the fifty-dollar price difference. I determined I would not use the network interface on the DN had I gotten it instead because I share it through my server anyway, which works better than I think networking would in my case. The duplexing speed is rated at 13 sides per minute on the DN (6.5 ppm). I determined it’s not worth getting the automatic duplexing when I can double-side manually much quicker.

So…I bought a refurbished 5240 from Staples. Considering the printer I received was in flawless condition, I figure it was a wise choice.

First I’ll start up with some specs to keep you all from having to look elsewhere:

Print Speed: 30ppm Letter
First Page Print: 8.5 seconds
Resolution Modes: 300 dpi, 600 dpi, 600X2400 dpi (HQ1200), and 1200X1200 dpi
Memory: 16 MB
Processor: 266 MHz
Interface: Parallel/USB 2.0
Input Capacity: Multi-purpose tray: 50 sheets; Paper Tray: 250 sheets
Output capacity: 150 pages
Dimensions: 14.6” W X 15.1” D X 9.7” H; 20.9 lbs
Power Consumption: 610 watts printing; 80 watts standby; 8 watts sleep
Toner: 3500 page standard capacity; 7000 page high capacity (TN-550/TN-580)
Drum: DR-520 25000 pages


FIRST IMPRESSIONS / INSTALLATION

The printer really isn’t all that big. It’s only a little bigger than my 2040- roughly 15” square footprint and 10” high. It’s fairly light as well, at only 21 lbs. It’s easily manageable by one person of any strength whatsoever.

The printer comes with a 3500 page toner and a 25000 page drum cartridge-they don’t really cheat you like some other printer manufacturers do-granted it isn’t the high capacity toner, but it is the standard, not a starter.

The software installation was painless. It has simple on-screen instructions as soon as you put in the disk. Of course, being the techie I am, I downloaded the drivers ahead of time to see what they looked like. They are very intuitive and are nearly identical to my 2040 drivers. Any setting is easily found in the driver, and it includes multi-page-in-one printing, several duplex orientations, tray/paper selection, dpi/density selection, and MUCH more.


PRINTING

I was very impressed by the speed of this machine. It shoots out pages quicker than many printers costing several times the price. I clock it at exactly 30 ppm (what it’s rated for). It prints at this speed regardless of what you’re printing, in any paper tray and in any mode except 1200 dpi. It prints a bit slower in that mode. Still very fast, but not 30 ppm. I posted this Youtube video of the machine printing a bit so you can see the speed. Look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FWnErqMolg

It flickers the lights in the room slightly, but not too bad (20 amp breaker). The noise level is a little loud if someone is sleeping in the same room or even one room over. It’s rated at 52 dB. It’s certainly not too bad you could be on the phone or hold a conversation over it (though it would be annoying). It would probably wake up a light sleeper though.

Text quality is superb on all modes except 300 dpi, where edges are a little bit rough. Graphics quality is perfect as well. Photo quality, on the other hand, isn’t great. Banding is VERY noticeable when printing large photos. Smaller photos are pretty perfect though.

The manual tray is very nice. It holds 50 sheets and feeds perfectly straight pages through it. You can select whether to print to manual or the paper tray.

I’ve printed several hundred pages (some from each tray) and haven’t had a jam or crooked feed yet.

Only thing I notice is the paper meter thing on the right side of the tray isn't the greatest. It is designed to show how much paper is in the tray at a glance. It is far from accurate most of the time and isn't well designed like HP Laserjet meters like this. Generally, if I fill the tray to the top it will only register 3/4 full.

PANEL

The panel consists of four LEDs (toner, paper, drum, and status); along with two buttons (cancel and go). Cancel cancels the current job.

Go can do a number of things:

Wake up the printer (press once)
Go to the tray instead of the bypass if you set the job to bypass only (press once)
Reprint last job (hold go button until all lights light, then press repeatedly for the amount of copies of the last job you want)
Print Status Page (press three times)

CONSUMABLES

The low capacity toner is rated at 3500 pages (TN-550), but I'd recommend getting the high capacity 7000 page cartridge (TN-580). The TN-580 goes for 65$ from Newegg. The Drum goes for 25,000 pages and is $110 from Newegg. Provided you buy the high capacity toner, the price-per page works out to roughly 1.2 cents per page.


OVERALL

I would recommend this printer so long as you don’t do much with photos. The driver is intuitive and offers many options, the print speed is very fast, the text and simple graphic quality is superb, and the paper handling is great.

EDIT:

Here I am, 1660 pages, not a jam yet or any other issue for that matter. Still running good!