Brother - Black-and-White Laser Printer

I have had this printer for a year. I own a law office. This printer sits in my paralegal's office. I grind about 1000 pages through it a month. The print speed is superb, the sharpness is clear and crisp. Don't ask it to do much in the way of graphics and you're cool. You can find these on discount everywhere. When I first opened my office, I had some HP printers. I found an (now older) Brother Multi-Function Center about three years ago, and as we have built onto my office network, all I buy is Brother. Their toner is cheaper, but beware of replacing the drum. That's a costly little replacement part. (HP toner cartridges generally are more expensive because they include a new drum every time). I have never found a suitable "refurbished" or "rebuilt" drum anywhere: they are all streaky and blotchy. Only buy the new drum. You can get away with using refilled toner cartridges. I have three Brother printers now. I have never had a problem with any of them. In all, the per page cost is about the same as HP, while the initial buy-in is usually much lower. I'm sticking with the Brother machines for the whole office. As they retire from the office, I put them to pasture in my house.

We've purchased numerous Brothers and all run well, until the drum (very high cost) needs to be replaced. Replacement drums (sometime 75% the cost of a new printer) don't work for long which probably indicates some other problem. Just buy a new printer. On an older model, I could never get the network feature to run, so we printed via a networked computer to the destination printer. Overall Brother seems strong on mechanical features. I've given up on the HP's which always seems to cost more, either in laser printer repairs, or in replacement cartridges. Consider the Brother a disposable and you'll be happy.

I have had my Brother HL-5240 for a year and a half. It is a piece of junk. It crinkles paper (even after I adjusted paper thickness). Just recently it started jamming the paper. The Brother Company wasn't any help. They just suggested buying a different brand of paper. Because of my home business, i generate a lot of printed copy, and i need a work horse. Unless you don't plan on doing a lot of printing, don't waste your money or time on the Brother HL-5240.