Brother - Compact Black-and-White Laser Printer

I picked up this printer for black & white use, expecting reasonable speed (though printers are NEVER as fast as they claim unless you're on Draft quality). I loaded it with toner and paper, and the installation process was simple, well-explained, and error-free. Thinking I'd take the printer for a test drive, I printed a modest 200 page document with grayscale imagery as well as text. I wasn't expecting much from the grayscale images, as that's traditionally been a weakness of laser printers. Not so anymore! The images weren't of the quality I can get on my HP with the gray cartridge installed, but they were infinitely better than I'd expected. There is more than sufficient differentiation between the grays to make this printer just fine for doing draft printing of grayscale images, though I'd leave the serious printing to a photo printer. As for the text, this printer claims 20 ppm, but I actually found it to be a bit higher at somewhere between 30 and 40. This would possibly depend somewhat upon text density, but I was quite impressed having come from the inkjet world. All in all, if you're looking to print a lot of text (emails, reports, etc), then you really can't go wrong with this printer. It's very fast, produces high quality text and grayscale images, and is compact enough to fit most desktops. There are a few cons with it, however, though I found them to be minor. It is somewhat noisier than any of the inkjets I own. It also seems to draw rather a lot of power when it's in full operation (though it goes into standby when not printing and draws very little power then). The initial power draw was enough to give UPS unit some issues, but I plugged it into a peripheral surge strip and that's all taken care of. I would highly recommend this printer, especially for college students and people looking for an inexpensive printer for a small business.

I purchased this primarily because I have had good success with Brother products in the past, both printers and label makers. They are reliable products and perform exceedingly well, especially in light of their affordable pricing. The HL-2040 is no exception to this tradition. I am satisfied with the blacks, the whites and the shades of gray rendered by this printer. The speed is quite good. I especially liked the promotional rebate of $20.00. Laser printer at an affordable price. This printer is replacing my HL-1440, a workhorse. I wore out the later from so much printing. Without hesitation, I recommend this printer for personal and small business applications.

This printer prints like a champ - you can't see the difference between the output of this printer and the output of a printer 100 times the cost! This printer is very fast and has almost no delay before printing, even if it was just turned on. After already considerable usage, the paper has not jammed once, and the single-sheet input tray works extremely well, even with thick paper, laser label sheets, and envelopes. This printer is very quiet and goes back to sleep after printing a job; making it as quiet while waiting for print as if it was turned off. Even though laser printers are prone to curled printouts, the printer hasn't once failed to properly stack its output, and the curl disappears once the printout returns to room temperature. You can't beat this printer in the price, quality, and reliability categories. If you are printing in black, this is an excellent choice, imo.

I am very happy with my Brother Laser printer. It's quite small, and prints projects out very quickly. The quality is good and the energy saving timer on it works well. It warms up very quickly when turned on. <20 seconds. Great printer. Would definitely recommend this product if looking for a simple economical laser printer that does the job well and doesn't break your wallet.

I used my new laser printer for the first time, and I was immediately floored! The printer was so lightweight, not heavy or bulky. The part I liked was the easy setup with my laptop; all I did was plug in my USB cable into the printer, the other end into my computer, turned both of them on, and just let Windows Vista do the job. I printed some test pages, and she performed flawlessly. My one pet peeve about inkjet printers is that they make too much noise, this printer hardly makes any; it's so ultra quiet, it's as if it isn't even on. I found out when I registered my printer that this particular model is very popular especially where the price is concerned. I definitely would recommend this printer to anyone and everyone.

I bought this as a college student going to UGA i can say that I have printed many papers including MANY fliars to hang on walls. Ill get to my point quick. This printer uses a laser so its very FAST (especially if you are used to inkjet). It closes to become compact for travel. It is very quiet to the point where you only hear paper moving through it as it prints. The BEST part about this is that I got it on sale for $100 and the intro cartridge has STILL not ran out after a year and a half of school. I bought another cartridge while I was there just to have an extra (around $70) but I have yet to open it! If you need a printer (non color), GET THIS ONE!

I got this print to replace my old inkjet printer. Its size is right for my small home. It's not noisy at all, even if running through night. I really impressed by it printing quality, using save toner mode can still get good quality with less toner spending. I would recommend it to anyone who plan to buy a print for home use. After my expierence with this laser printer I hate inkjet printers!

For the money, you can't beat the price of this laser printer. Replacement toner cartridges can be had for less than $50 if you shop around and print 2500 pages per cartridge. More if you use the toner saver feature. Compare to a black inkjet cartridge that costs around $30 and is good for 300 pages tops. If you do the math you'll find that the brother HL-2040 will cost less than 3 cents per page before having to replace the drum. Using a similarily priced inkjet printer will cost more than 10 cents per page. (Not including paper.) When it's time to replace the drum, buy a new printer. It's cheaper than the replacement drum and you get a new toner cartridge thrown in. Some people complain about paper curl. That's the nature of the beast. To fix the toner, the paper must be heated up to as high as 200C. Expect curl unless you buy a very expensive commercial printer. Paper curl is a slight annoyance to put up with compared to the operating cost an inkjet. I use a commercial printer at work that has more curl than the HL-2040. To minimize curl use a better grade of paper. If you're willing to spend the extra money. Caution! Because of the high internal temperatures be sure that the vent ports are not restricted as this may cause early failure.