Brother HL-2040 Laser Printer

HL-2040 from Brother

Posted Oct 31, 2005 - Overall, this is a good laser printer for the price. I have noticed some comments about paper curling and I have experienced it somewhat. Nothing to loose sleep over. The toner is easy enough to refill but replacements are higher than expected.

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Decent for the price

Posted Apr 22, 2006 - Comparing the HL-2040 to similarly priced black and white laser printers (like the Samsung ML-2010 and Konica Minolta PagePro 1350W), this is one exceptional printer. Printed text comes out clear and crisp even at small fonts. It takes about 11-15 seconds for the first page to finish printing from a "cold" print, which I find above average compared to other printers. Unlike other similarly priced laser printers, this one prints graphics very well with minimal banding but only after tinkering with some software settings. I found the toner-saver function was too conservative with graphics though: even dark shades of grey would come out near-white. Text is fine though. Installation took less than 10 minutes on Windows XP with clear instructions. I wish I could comment on the support for this printer, but I never found a reason to call. The noise while printing was high though not quite as high as the Samsung ML-2010. Still, it's noisy enough to wake a roommate if you decide to print in the middle of the night in your dorm. The only major gripe I have about this printer is unintuitive way the paper is printed. It seems the page is turned twice before printing. This may be difficult if you frequently print on both sides or recycle paper by printing on the other side of old documents. With no network capability and unupgradable 8 MB memory, this printer will serve well anyone seeking fast, occassional printing of small to medium jobs. Recommended for: students, small office Not recommened for: those who print a lot of envelopes or legal sized paper (must manual feed), those who frequently print graphics, medium to large offices UPDATE: There is a slight paper-curling problem with this printer; however, leaving the paper to cool for a few seconds will normally resolve this. ALSO, THIS PRINTER TENDS TO DRAW MORE WATTAGE WHILE WARMING UP. BROTHER'S WEBSITE ATTRIBUTES THIS TO THE FAST WAKE-UP PROCESS. BECAUSE OF THIS, LIGHTS TEND TO FLICKER. IT IS NOT RECOMMENDED YOU PLUG THIS PRINTER ON THE SAME CIRCUIT AS OTHER DEVICES THAT DRAW A LOT OF POWER AND LEAVE THIS DEVICE OFF WHEN NOT IN USE. As a consequence, I will lower my rating from 5 stars to 3 stars.

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I get this print to replace my old inkjet printer. ...

Posted Apr 27, 2005 - I get this print to replace my old inkjet printer. Its size is right for my small home. 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. If you don't care about price, model 2070 is almost the same but with network printing ready, I hope that is even better.

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Fast, but not worth it

Posted Aug 6, 2005 - I have gone through three brand new printers in 3 weeks. All of them have stopped printing mid page and all the LEDs come on. According to Brother tech support, this is a fuser error and is unrecoverable. After three printers and all three having the same problem, I'm giving up.

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2040

Posted Jul 28, 2005 - I got what I was looking for in this printer. It is fast when starting cold, and even faster once it's going.As for page curling, it does curl them a bit (I use regular Hammermill paper), so that's not a function of the paper as noted by previous users. For me, it's not a big deal--the speed and resolution more than make up for it. They don't curl into a circular tube, the ends of the page turn up a bit.

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Impressive compact printer

Posted Aug 16, 2005 - Customer Support was outstanding. I had an installation problem that turned out to be a quirk of my computer, not the printer. This printer is a workhorse. I printed a few pages of full reverse (white text with black background) for an attempt at making paper printing negatives for platemaking. It worked. Then I tried running cut electrostatic plate material through the machine for use on my offset press. It worked beautifully. For the price this machine offers great speed and outstanding quality. Add in the excellent customer service and this is a winner.

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This makes a great addition to the home office. It ...

Posted Mar 9, 2005 - This makes a great addition to the home office. It gets the job done with its great print features. The toner appears to be expensive to replace. Surprisingly, the printer is a workhorse. Highly recommended!

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I have purchased this machine for the new compact ...

Posted Mar 28, 2005 - I have purchased this machine for the new compact design and high speed for the price. This machine has met every expectation for a personal laser printer in speed and quality. Print quality is very good.

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Ed from Nebraska

Posted Sep 23, 2005 - I replaced my very old HP laser with the HL2040 and, for the price, I am totally satisfied. It is all I expected and more in terms of speed and reliability. A word of caution.....buy your replacement toner cartridge early and have it nearby because when the toner gets low, this machine dies....i.e., you don't get any warning. I'd definitely buy it again for my "home use." I can live with the paper curling problem.......which is pretty severe on card stock (which I manually feed from the front of the printer.)

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2 months' home office experience---no complaints so far

Posted Sep 2, 2005 - I replaced a 3 year-old Brother HL-1440 with this unit. It has ably filled its shoes so far, printing about 200 pages a month with nice, crisp black type that is no better and no worse than any of the 4 or 5 lasers I have used to date. I have it connected to my PC via the USB port, but have also used the parallel port to support a wireless aprallel-port print server, so I can send jobs to this printer from my laptop computer (which lives downstairs in my kitchen) even when the host PC is turned off. The first-page-out time is a little quicker than my old HL-1440, which is welcome; about the same in noise level, which is certainly not offensive to me.

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Printer

Posted Jul 25, 2005 - This is a really nice printer, and the prices for it are good. We've used several of these at work. Never had any issues with it. Lasers are good due to their high print speeds. Plus it's small and compact, so it fits just about anywhere your inkjet printer would.

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This compact laser printer is so great compared to ...

Posted Mar 30, 2005 - This compact laser printer is so great compared to other laser printers I owned before. Besides its perfect performance on printing, its small size does fit my small room. In a word, it's perfect for personal use.

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This printer worth Every Dollar

Posted Sep 14, 2005 - I bought this as I am tired of paying $25 for the Inkjet inks. This is a Laser Printer and the price I paid for this is little over than the price of a single Inkjet Cartridge. The print Quality is really good and it appears to be saving toner is toner save mode. Does little paper curling but I am Ok with it.

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a nice printer for this price

Posted Aug 19, 2005 - The quality is indeed very good in this price range. The first page prints out pretty quickly. It is so small compared to other laser printers. This might be the reason why it has the paper curling problem.

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Fast but only good for simple jobs

Posted Jan 29, 2008 - For the money, this machine gets the job done and does a fine job printing for most print jobs. However, the design is really strange when it comes to the way it feeds paper. You have to have paper in there permanently. The tray feels cheap, doesn't always grab the paper right, and it swirls the paper around like crazy through the machine before coming out. The paper comes out too curved and hot to flip right away. This design makes double sided printing a real pain. Manual feed is just a slot that doesn't always realize you're holding paper in there for it to take. It just keeps saying the printer doesn't have paper. Sometimes you get lucky if you jiggle it in there right. Cardstock must be manually fed one piece at a time. There are ambiguous printer settings for paper type and print options. I found that for double sided and cardstock printing, the machine would often jam and sometimes text would "ghost" giving you a double image. It didn't make my huge batch of cards and envelopes for my wedding guest list simple at all....However, I would say for most people that are just printing out essays for college or something, you won't even think about problems with this printer. It's great for simple, cheap, plain paper, single-sided jobs.

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