Customer Reviews

Brother HL-2040 Monochrome Laser Printer

5 star:		(102)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(20)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

I was able to change the printer settings...and dramatically reduce paper curl.

Open Printers and Faxes from Start Menu, select Properties for the Brother HL 2040, click Printing Preferences, then change Media Type to "Thin Paper."

Im a professional engineer and my purpose to buy a printer is to print out documents since i sometimes find hard to read through computer screen. I have been looking to buy a printer which would offer both affordability and quality. It has been almost a week since i have this one and so far my experience is more pleasant than i expected.

First the printer is not that 'noisy' as few have mentioned. Its a printer so it is supposed to make some noise but it is totally acceptable. I had HP Laser Jet in the past and that one made more noise than brother 2040.

Secondly unlike in other reviews, paper didnt curl even once during printing. I am using standard 20(lb) multi-purpose paper and it comes out straight.

About quality: text printing is comparable to any laser printer in the market. I am printing in the lowest dpi with toner save mode and even that comes out to be totally acceptable. Graphics quality is also acceptable but again I am not looking to use this printer other than printing notes and research papers.

Just like other printers, this one also doesnt come with Printing cable. But these ones are cheap as I bought one from Walmart for less than 9 bucks.

Overall if someone is looking to buy an economical printer (2500 paper print cartridge comes for around 50 bucks) for daily and heavy printing just like me, 2040 is the one he/she should look for.

I bought this for under $150 on sale. Mine came with a rebate so it was even lower. The speed at which pages come out of the printer make it well worth the price paid. If this thing dies in six months I would have gotten my money's worth and I wouldn't even object to getting another one! I do get some of the curling mentioned but I'm also using a $2 ream of paper. I'm sure with better paper it will be fine. The pages are far from unusable though.

I got this printer yesterday, and will update this review if I encounter any problems, but so far everything has been absolutely beautiful. I had a painless install/setup, and it printed quality work immediately. There was no curling of any pages, and no break-down while printing well over than 100 pages back-to-back. I do not use heavy weight paper (I use the 20 lb stuff), and I saw no curling at all. The print speed was much faster than the Epson C82 inkjet I was replacing (which died unceremoniously over the weekend). I selected this model because it was available from an electronics superstore here in California for less than $90 after $30 rebate, and I calculated it's toner cost per page as being one of the lowest out there ($43/toner for 2500 pages at 5% black comes to about 1.7 cents/page).

This Brother printer is a great value for the price. I purchased this machine for my home and it has performed flawlessly. I haven't seen any of the excessive curling mentioned in previous reviews, but then again, I'm using a quality laser paper. I have ran a few larger print jobs, printing various manuals and it churns right through them. The best part is it's small enough to fit on my desk and still leaves me room to work, not like past laser printers I've owened.

This printer is wonderful. After going through many HP inkjet printers, I was tired of the ink costs and the bad reliability. With printers like the Brother 2040, laser printers will enter the home more and more. With the price of toner on amazon (43 dollars, 2500 prints) laser printers are extremely economical.

Print Quality: The print quality (of course this is monochrome, so I am referring to text) is much better than a similarly priced ink jet (or at least the 10-15 ink jet models I have seen). The text is very sharp, and comes out of the printer dry.

Ease of Use: The printer works perfectly with OS X. I am sure it works just as well with Windows XP, as most printers do. When not printing, and after printing, the lights on the printer turn off into a 'sleep mode'. This mode is automatic, power saving, quiet, and convenient. There is a switch on the side to fully power down the printer.

Size: It is not much larger than most ink jet printers. What more could you ask for?

'Paper bending issue': Look at it this way, the paper comes out of the printer warm. If you pick it up and move it around warm it will bend a little (but not to the point that it is unusable). Just leave it on the printer until it cools. This 10 seconds of cooling (if straight paper is really important) is made up by... 1) It prints very fast 2) 250 sheet paper tray... change paper less 3) 2500 prints per toner cartridge --> less toner changes

There is a reason that I will never print documents with an ink jet printer- that reason is the Brother 2040. This printer makes laser printing convenient for a consumer.

Highly recommended, 5 stars.

This machine has worked great for our family's basic black and white printing needs. It's been fast, small, and puts out quality just as nice as $500 laser printers. I have been using it regularly and just replaced my first cartridge, very economical compared to others I've had. This machine is already saving me $$. The USB 2.0 works just fine for me.

The printer is a good value, and has worked without problem for the two weeks I've had it. It is much noisier during printing than the other desktop laser printers I've owned--sounds a bit like a jet aircraft revving up. The noise only occurs during the printing process (when not in the act of printing, the printer is dead silent), so the noisiness is quite brief unless you are printing for long stretches of time (in which case you'd want a more durable printer anyway).

Since it has good basic functionality for a low price, I'd rate it higher if it weren't for a bit of thoroughly misleading marketing from Brother. While their promotional materials and the box it comes in trumpet a USB 2.0 interface, the truth is that it is only capable of operating as the older "full-speed" USB (max 12 mb/sec), not as "hi-speed" USB 2.0 (max 480 mb/sec).

In practice, for text-based documents, the printer is reasonably fast. But Brother should be ashamed of themselves for so blatantly misleading their buyers.

I am very pleased with my new printer. The print quality is excellent, the printer is fairly fast and I can easily print double sided.

Installing the printer was easy and the users manual is clear.

Very low cost laser printer which is fast and has a good quality.

Use this for low volume home or single user office printing and you will not be disappointed. I use it to print text, expecting high quality graphics from a printer this inexpensive would be foolish. Nonetheless, it is OK in that regard given the price.

The printer is small, which I like, but it does cause some curl in the outputted pages, which is why I didn't give it 5 stars.

Bottom line: Great home laser printer. If you don't need color, get this instead of an inkjet printer.

Brother does a nice job on low end personal laser printers, easily as good or better than Lexmark and HP.