Brother HL 5270 toner cartridge and drum

Brother HL5270DN, the network printer that is big on features but compact on size. Discount supplies of laser toner cartridges TN3130,TN3170 for this laser toner printer listed with drum unit DR3100.

Brother HL-5270DN Review

Brother is well represented in most categories of office machine, which includes photocopiers, multifunctions as well as laser printers, both colour and black and white. The HL-5270DN is a duplex mono laser, suitable for the small workgroup equipped with three separate methods of connection.

The HL-5270DN is a cool, cuboid box, coloured in light and dark grey along with a compact petite control panel packed in to the left of the output tray. The controls are well presented, with a single line LCD display with a three colour backlight. Whenever not available (warming up or switched offline) the backdrop is orange, once operating it is green and in error conditions turns red - an inspired little bit of design.

Along with the regular menu navigation controls and big Job Start and Job Cancel buttons, there is moreover a little one, marked Reprint. This permits you to reprint the very last job direct from the printer, even if it was a multiple page print, instead of needing to return to your desk and do it from there - a useful time-saver.

A paper tray at the bottom of the front panel is the principal paper feed and takes up to 250 sheets of regular stock, whilst the multi-purpose tray that folds down from the front panel can take a further 50 sheets or many different special media. A third tray, that can hold 500 sheets, can be acquired as an option.

At the rear you will find sockets for USB 2., parallel and Ethernet connections as standard - it's abnormal to get all three sockets on a printer within this class.

The drum and toner unit slides in simply from the front of the printer and is a two-part system. The drum was made to last for approximately three and seven toner cartridges, dependant upon whether or not you use standard or high-capacity cartridges. The toner cartridge clips into a holder within the drum unit. You have to remove the complete unit prior to carrying the printer virtually any distance.

Software setup is easy and Brother gives you both PCL 6 and BR-Script 3 - its own PostScript 3 emulation. There's an admin application, also, to aid you to monitor and control the printer all over a network.

The HL-5270DN is said to be capable of 28ppm although, as usual, this particular claim is fanciful. Under test we completed of the five page text print and five page text and graphic print each in 19 seconds. This gives the machine a real-world print speed of just below 16ppm; no sluggard, although just a little above half the stated speed.

We examined the duplex print speed and achieved the 10-page, 20-side test piece in 1 minute 41 seconds, a rate of about 12 sides every minute; once more, more than decent.

Brother gives you two high quality print choices: a genuine 1,200dpi print and an alternative termed HQ 1200. The HQ 1200 selection makes use of resolution enhancement to realize a 1,200dpi-like print and for our 15 x 10cm photographic print, it finished in 14 seconds, four seconds under the full 1,200dpi print.

Both photo prints had a bit of banding throughout instances of sky, but in general were above average, with nice levels of detail, in particular in shadowed sections. Text and graphics turned out very well, with text appearing heavy with very little recognizable spatter. Graphics also suffered little from the numerous dither patterns utilized to create greyscales.

Pages feeding from the printer possessed a recognizable quantity of page curl, so much so that the top page within the output tray can on occasion be snagged by a sheet coming from the printer. The curl decreases as the pages cool, however you may have to select a precise laser printer paper, instead of general business stock.

Brother does not offer a noise level figure and this may just be for the reason that HL-5270DN is rather noisy. We tested it at highs of 63dBA, whilst alternative machines in its group could very well be 10dBA quieter.

There are two consumables: toner as well as photoconductive drum. Brother HL-5270DN toner cartridges can be obtained in 3,500 and 7,000, 5 per cent cover capacities plus the drum ought to keep going for 25,000 sheets. Upkeep is easy, while a bit more fiddly than with the single-consumable printers, typified by Canon and HP. The more straightforward the upkeep, the quicker and more cost-effective it'll be, needless to say.

The Brother HL-5270DN offers the great Reprint button and by and large is, in our opinion, a good buy.