Brother HL-5250DN Laser Printer

Quick & sturdy laser printer

Posted Mar 3, 2006 - This latest Brother monochrome laser printer, is priced less than previous similar versions such as the Brother HL-1850 & others. This printer is also not as heavy as previous Brother printers. Plus, this printer prints up to 30 b&w ppm, instead of the usual 20ppm. Love the auto-duplex feature. Printer is very user friendly and print quality is excellent.

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Low-cost, feature-packed laser printer

Posted Jun 25, 2006 - This is a surprising capable and fast laser printer for the price. At under $250 after discount, this machine can do duplex (2-sided) printing, and the built-in network interface works with PC, Mac, Linux, etc. Postscript is also included. The light plastic construction does not give a warm feeling toward long term reliability. However this is just a feeling. My past experience with other Brother machines has been positive.

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Quality Laser Printer

Posted May 4, 2006 - This is a great printer if you are looking for one which will fit into a fairly tight budget. It has great print quality for the money and you can't beat how fast it is for the price. There is an additional small 30 page capacity tray which does pull down in the front which allows for another medium to be used which is a great help. I would like to add at least one of the additional trays to increase paper capacity and be able to use both legal and letter sized paper at the same time, but the additional paper trays seem to either be out of stock for most distributors or overpriced. All-in-all I would recommend this printer to someone on a tight budget looking for a quality product for a home office.

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Amazing value, amazing printer!

Posted May 29, 2006 - At work, I am a graphic designer on a Mac utilizing the PostScript language. This printer is for home use (also with Macs), but is actually more capable than the older workgroup laser printer I have at work. It is the most feature-packed value I have ever seen. Half-tones are very good, networking allows us all access to the printer (small ethernet network), duplexing saves paper, PostScript capabilities (BR-Script) work great, and the speed is wonderful. Had trouble at first getting PostScript to work, but it was a driver issue, and email tech support solved it within one working day. Highly recommend this printer as a full-featured small workgroup printer with excellent output. Can't say enough about the value of this product. Hope it lasts a long time!

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Excellent Printer

Posted Mar 24, 2006 - Although I haven't been using this printer for a very long time, I did run it through its paces when I got it. The jobs printed exceptionally quickly even at the highest 1200x1200 resolution. The output of text and black&white images was superb, the grayscale images were good, but nothing special. If you want to print pictures get an inkjet. The curling wasn't too bad, but I was testing with lightweight cheap paper. I also tried some 54 lb. Staples Inkjet paper (for toner transfer PCB fabrication) which exceeded the paper thickness in the manual, but it worked fine (with some curling).

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Great printer

Posted Mar 15, 2006 - I have not complaints so far, although the printer did just start making an occasional popping sound which I'm a little concerned about. The printer was as described - very fast and prints high quality images. I would strongly recommend and am even considering buying an additional one for the office (depending on what happens with that popping sound).

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Great Printer AFTER Tweaking

Posted Oct 1, 2007 - I had a previous Brother printer which I used for seven years, so I looked at Brother when it came time to replace it. This model had good reviews, and I expected it to be good to go out of the box. Envelopes loaded in the multi-purpose tray came out wrinkled and curled. After checking the online help, we contacted support, who proceeded to READ us the online help screens!!! Fortunately, a more intelligent support person finally gave us the secret -- you have to adjust some plastic arms behind the cover in the back. After that, envelopes came out beautifully. Why don't they put that secret info in the documentation?

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Much better printer than I expected for the money

Posted Mar 13, 2007 - I had a big print job to do (6500 pages) and my inkjet just wasn't up for the job and I only had a few days to do it. I bought the Brother 5250DN hoping it would be as fast as advertised (most lasers aren't) and it would handle odd sized paper. It did everything it was supposed to do and it did the job perfectly - not one paper jam, everything aligned perfectly on every page and all was done with the cartridge that came with the printer. Network setup was easy. I just plugged it into my wireless router, put the CD into my laptop and started the install. My laptop runs Vista Business edition and it worked PERFECTLY. I have set up several LPR printers on the network before and this was the absolute easiest install I have ever done - effortless.

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Great Printer

Posted Mar 1, 2007 - I have been using this printer for 1 year now. I printed 100 to 200 pages in duplex mode several times already with no hickups, all kinds of labels and CD labels. It is an excellent printer. It prints fast and the output is crisp. Networking is easy to manage via a browser. Toner lifetime is excellent.

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Great Value

Posted Jan 12, 2006 - This printer has 2-sided printing and an ethernet port. Excellent print quality at 2400x600(HQ1200) and 1200 dpi. Small and script fonts are crisp. The multipurpose tray will hold about 15 envelopes. I have used it to print 7 envelopes at one time. The paper in the paper tray lies flat when the tray is removed from the printer so the tray is easier to reload. Toner cartridge and drum unit separately replacable. Requires clearance on right side for ventilation and access to power switch. The flopiness of the multipurpose tray is frustrating because its design is similar to that of the HP LaserJet4 and a minor redesign would make the tray as steady as that of the HP.

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Great Printer

Posted Feb 4, 2006 - This is a great printer. I really like the duplex feature which will save on paper. Another great feature is the easy networking that is built in to the printer this is great to use on a small network or even at home you can place the printer in a remote location and let it do it's thing. For the price this printer is a great value. Picked it up at after rebates and coupons for around $140. Also, the printer comes standard with a full size toner cartridge (standard 3,500 copies) that is a great plus.

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5150dn--compact, quiet & FAST!

Posted Mar 21, 2006 - This printer is very fast and has a reasonable price. Toner/drum are reasonable too (go for the tn-580 hi-capacity toner it saves $$)--I was going to get an inkjet, but price per page is cheaper on these. Also, can't beat the speed. Duplexing is quick. I had gotten a 5140dn at the office for almost twice as much a year or so ago. This one is faster, smaller, and has a few better design features. The light flickering problem is common among brother and some other hi-powered machines. It will not create any problems, just flickering on powerup and during printing. To solve the problem, make sure you have 20amp circuit at the panel AND on your surgeprotector (not common, but you can find a built-in one at hardware stores), and that you are using 12 gauge wiring (most new homes)--search the web for more...

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Effective Laser Printer

Posted Mar 19, 2006 - This is the latest of the Brother Laser monochrome network printers. The print quality is great. This version of the printer also has a much faster print speed, up to 30 pages per min (ppm)! I do wish that BROTHER made environmentally friendly soy or vegetable based toners however for this and their other printers. Please also use at least 50% post-consumer recycled paper. This is a great printer!

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Brother HL-5250DN

Posted Mar 7, 2006 - Contacted support about problems on the size of the fonts. They said they would get back to me. Not a word since 2/18/2006. Many followup calls made to no avail.

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Good, light duty printer

Posted Sep 15, 2007 - It's a budget unit not well suited to anything but the smallest of offices. The cheap build quality would not survive a workgroup scenario. That said, it has been great in our installation, serving 3 users with very light printing requirements. I do get nervous when anyone but me goes to unjam it or to use the manual feed. It simply isn't rugged and some errant extra force here and there would have plastic snapping.

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