If this printer is doing office work, you can configure up to five different profiles so that only authorized workers have access to the printer and keep printing costs down. With a compressed form factor, many Brother laser printers save desktop space. A home office laser printer with a high-speed USB port is easy to install and operate. Manual feed slots can accommodate varying paper types for added flexibility. Likedot matrix printers, laser printers are made from robust and sturdy materials for durability. Their unique build ensures a quiet operation, which allows you to concentrate without compromising on speed and quality.
The Brother HL-L2350DW monochrome laser printer helps your home or small office meet its document imaging needs. It delivers class-leading print speeds1, flexible paper handling and convenient mobile device printing2. Offering the reliable performance you expect from Brother, the #1 brand in home and small office laser printers3, along with cost-efficient printing, wireless networking and automatic two-sided printing. The Brother DCP-L2550DW is a compact multifunction monochrome laser printer that can print, copy and scan — but no faxing, sorry. It has a generous 250-sheet paper tray, two-sided duplex printing and a 50-sheet automatic document feeder, which was the one feature Rick lamented was missing from this printer’s older sibling.
However, they also mention networking issues with some routers, along with parts failures. HP’s one-year warranty for the M479fdw is shorter than what some rivals offer—Canon in particular provides three years of coverage on its machines—but it may actually be better than competing policies. That’s because it provides on-site service within one business day, while other warranties require you to ship your printer to a service center, sometimes at your own cost. Wirecutter has covered printers for seven years, and I’ve written about them since 2016. My editors and I have kept an eye on feedback from comment threads, email, and Twitter to better understand our readers’ real-world needs. We’ve considered reviews from other editorial sources, including CNET, Computer Shopper, and PCMag.
Don’t forget the double-sided printing capability too – if you set that as a default it should cut your paper bills considerably. Print speed refers to how quickly a printer will complete a page in a document. In our reviews we test this capability, measured in pages per minute. If you need to print frequently, or in high volumes, faster print speeds are worth paying for. This printer may cost a bit more up front, but the Brother MFC-L2750DW is the best combination of print quality, speed and value we’ve seen in a laser printer, which is why it’s our Editors’ Choice.
Speed isn’t everything, of course, but the Brother’s print quality was impressive too. Text was crisp and clear, if a little light when toner save mode was selected, and graphics were reproduced well without obvious artefacts or banding. In addition to basic printing of black-and-white text and mixed media documents, we also test the scanning and copying capabilities. We compare the scan with the original image to see how accurately the scan captures details and color, but we also measure the scanning speed and copying output. The printer’s lifetime depends on the model, level of use and operating conditions.
The Brother HL-L2320D can meet all of your printing needs via an adjustable, 250-sheet capacity paper tray‡ that handles letter or legal size paper and a manual feed slot for printing envelopes and letterhead. For professional-looking brochures or presentations, you’d probably want to use a printer like our upgrade pick, the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M479fdw, or punt the job to a pro print shop instead. Right out of the box, the HL-L2350DW produced good-looking text in our tests. Tax forms and other documents with tiny fonts were perfectly readable, and larger headers came out with crisp edges and dark centers. All in all, this printer should be more than adequate for printing text-heavy documents.
When we crammed the main paper tray with as many as 50 extra sheets, a warning popped up on the control panel saying the tray was overstuffed, and the machine refused to print. (In this situation, other printers would try, fail, and jam.) When we put exactly 250 pages in, it printed normally; same with just a single sheet in the tray. If you ever do run into a jam, however, the printer’s back has a convenient access hatch for you to remove it. Because simply getting a job to print can be frustrating, we also tested other ways to interact wirelessly with these machines.
The connectivity options for this printer are numerous, too, making it great for a small office or a home with multiple people using multiple devices to print. It has USB 2.0, a LAN connection, and both NFC and Wi-Fi for wireless connections. The Touch to Connect NFC epson workforce option makes it super easy to print from your phone or tablet. You can also print directly from Cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Evernote, and more. Our full-page, grayscale business graphics and documents containing embedded photos printed well, too.
Most come with a touchscreen display that lets you create custom shortcuts, providing quick access to crucial commands. If you like the sound of our budget pick but want the ability to scan and copy documents and photos too, the Brother MFC-L2750DW should fit the bill. At its core it’s a very similar printer—and epson workforce it’s just as easy to set up—but it also has a flatbed scanner and a fast, single-pass duplexing automatic document feeder on top. Its print quality is slightly better out of the box, and you get the same operating costs, the same print speed, and the same connectivity options as you do with the HL-L2350DW.
Boasting print speeds of up to 34 pages per minute, this Brother monochrome printer makes quick work of reports, forms and spreadsheets. The automatic document feeder handles multipage fax, print and scan tasks, while the color flatbed scanner creates faithful digital versions of important paperwork. Some people swear by third-party toner and even third-party imaging drums.