Customer Reviews

Brother HL-5040 Laser Printer

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I purchased my Brother HL-5040 from Amazon.com for $190.00 delivered, including the USB 2.0 cable, and the TN-530 3,000 page "starter" toner cartridge and the DR-500 drum rated for 20,000 pages. I am an English professor and generally use it for printing out my papers (15 to 30 pages) and drafts of books (up to 500 pages), and master copies of handouts and exams and the like for my classes (I have an HP DeskJet for color printing). The Brother HL-5040 printer has a nice compact footprint: there is no hideous projecting tray or paper catcher as with several of the competing models, and the output area on top holds fifty or more printed pages without spilling them. The printer is also low enough at "9.9 inches" to fit under a foot-high shelf in my work room (so it doesn't take up the valuable real-estate on the top shelf) The 12 point text (which is the standard in my field) is very sharp, and the old (circa 1880s) political cartoon images I've reproduced from scanned photocopies of newspapers look great: I've no banding or dark areas.

Having read the other reviews, I want to share some of my thoughts that may shed light on the differing views regarding the Brother printers. This printer replaces a Brother HL-1240 model I've owned for over two years. I replaced that printer (it was given to my sister) because its drum was failing, after making approximately 12,000 copies. Until the drum began to fail, I never had a single problem with the printer: it never ever jammed even once (my previous laser printer, an Epson 1400, jammed all the time). For $110 I could have replaced the drum unit (as my sister did), but for $190 I upgraded to the HL-5040. So, while I've seen the critiques of the Brother printers because of their drums, and I have in fact elected to replace my HL-1240, I still don't think the harsh criticisms directed at Brother for this situation are fair.

Here's what I think: it is not likely that very many $200 laser printers will ever print out 100,000 or even 60,000 high quality copies over their lifetimes. I say this in part because I suspect the paper transport mechanisms in all the printers in the personal use category are likely to be at least somewhat degraded by the time the printer approaches that number of copies, and once that happens--as anyone who's ever tried to nurse an aging photocopier knows--the point of ever diminishing returns has been reached. And I say this also because many, if not most, small office and home users like me are unlikely to use a $200 printer often enough to generate 60k to 100k copies in less than five years. At my rate of use, I will have to own my new printer for 8 years to reach the upper number. Given the rate of technological change, as good as it now is, I seriously doubt that I'll want to have this printer for that long.

That said, this time I intend to keep the printer long enough to replace the drum unit at least twice, and, assuming I get the same 12,000 copies out of each drum, that puts me in the 36,000 copies range. When I crunch the numbers (the drums presently cost $140.00 and the 6,500 page toner cartridges run $75), my cost per copy for the first 16,000 estimated copies (using the included DR-500 drum and the TN-530, and purchasing 2 TN-560 toner cartridges), works out to 2.1 cents per page. Of course, as we all know, the estimated yields are highly inflated. Assuming I get 36,000 copies out of the 3 drums (including the one included with the printer) and 5,000 copies from the TN-560 toner cartridges, plus 2,000 to 2,500 from the included TN-530, I'd need to buy 7 TN-560s to get to that number. This would add up to a $995.00 total investment and would mean my actual per copy cost would be approximately 2.8 cents over the "life" of the printer.

This is not the low 1.3 cents per copy figure I've seen in one magazine review, but once all the inflated estimates are cut down to size, I suspect it is quite competitive with what the other companies can offer.

I have this printer shared between Macs and Windows machines on my home network using a print server.

It's a sweet machine. Quick to warm up and fast to print. With 8 Megs of RAM, it has never given me a memory-problem. Comparable HP and QMS budget-printers that come with 2 Megs of RAM will need memory upgrades.

QMS printers in this price range have only USB ports. The Brother has both USB and parallel. It's very nice having the option available and I use both the USB and parallel ports simultaneously without a problem.

I love that Brother has made drivers for Mac OS 9 and OS X as well as Windows. It also emulates an HP printer. The emulation-mode was essential for me when I decided to share the printer using a 3rd party (cheap) print server. GIMP Print for OS X does not have Brother drivers, but it does have HP drivers that work very well.

This printer does jam occasionally. Jams are pretty easy to clear and it has a function to re-print the last page, so I seldom lose a print job.

I hate wasting paper, but it will almost always jam when I re-use paper in the paper tray. So I take my bad prints and drafts and re-use the paper in my inkjet instead.

The only reason that this printer got 4 stars instead of 5 is that the 1200 dpi print mode is only suitable for text. Graphics come out too dark at this resolution. It's odd because the 1200 dpi mode is supposed to be enhanced for such printing. The driver does not permit tweaking to make this work better.

I have been staring at the Brother model HL 1440 for quite some time. It was Consumer Reports number one pick. I decided to go with the HL-5040 because of the additional ram and extra fonts. When I read the owners manual it showed me that a lot of other features are built in as well. I like the fact that it prints a page so fast, and only costs 2 cents per page. My Lexmark X83 multifunction does a nice job in color but has a single page print cost of 6 cents to $1.50 when printing a full-page photograph. Now I think nothing of whipping out a 20-page document. The speed is another practical issue. At a max of 17ppm the paper is coming out so fast that one page is settling in the print tray, while another one is coming out right on top of it
To be critical of the unit is to cite the comments in C Reports, and ZD Net reviews as to the medium quality results when printing graphics. I think that is due in part to the print per page cost being the lowest out of all of the printers. The HL1440 was rated a little higher in graphics, but the same in text. I think black and white photos mixed into an MS Publisher document look fine for black and white. The laser gives you an acceptable printed photo for a few cents. Make up a single 4-page flyer, and make a hundred copies, and you can see that the laser printer could pay for itself in a single printing next to an inkjet. Makes you want to market your tail off with the economy of the laser.
I networked the house, and put the brother HL-5040 in my home office, and now have the option of printing from any one of the machines.
It comes with 8 Meg of ram built in, that is permanently installed, and you have one expansion slot for a single added ram chip. I went into Boogle.com and found a supplier with a 128 Meg ram chip that is generic. The 128 was only thirty-six dollars with free shipping. The printer will work fine with the 8 Meg it comes with, but if you send it a 50-page PDF file, the extra ram is a good idea to help prevent bottlenecks.
I love the fact that it has a 250-sheet paper tray. The additional 250-sheet tray for a total of 500 is an option.
The 5040 was listed in Consumer Reports as being the loudest of the laser printers, but I find it to be very quiet.
The big bonus is that with a laser printer your ink never dries out. It is a powder to start with. My friend bought an NEC in the mid 80's and did very little printing, and just last year his cartridge ran out. The problem with my Lexmark inkjet is that the darn cartridges wear out so fast even if you don't use them, and they are expensive.
You do not want to move this machine without removing the drum-toner cartridge first. Brother has big warning messages on the toner bag, stating you can do irreparable harm if you don't remove it first. I imagine that the toner can spill into the workings of the printer and do come damage. Some people commenting on streaking may have done just that. If you move it into the next room, treat it like nitroglycerine, or remove the cartridge first.
The bottom line is the price. (...)the reduction in price to start with, this printer is a super buy. I noticed that Brother has a 5140 now to replace this one. It has the same results on graphics, has the same print resolution, and only a couple of pages per minute improvement on the print speed. I saved the extra money by buying the 5040 and put some of that savings, into the 128 Meg memory expansion chip, and still had some money left over. The 5140 does come with 16 Megs instead of 8 like the 5040.
Bubble jets and inkjets will give you a slightly darker and larger text. The laser is smooth, and truly fuzz free, even under a microscope. I find it easier on the eyes to read. I am keeping my Lexmarks X83s for when I want to print photographs, and when I want to print something out right where I am, instead of going into the office.
I'm not into yeah this, and boo that. I think if I had to have just one printer, it would be a full featured bubble-ink jet, so I could do color too. Adding a laser to your arsenal is the ultimate conclusion. With the price of these Brothers, and the high ratings, (...), makes them a must have. Highly recommended.

I work as an independent paralegal, doing research and preparing documents to file with the Courts. I purchased this unit about 6 weeks ago because my inkjet printer was too slow and too expensive for big projects.

Like the other inexpensive Brother laser printers, this one is a very good value, and has features of more expensive printers. It does have some cheap plastic parts, but this is to be expected in this price range. Other inexpensive laser printers look feel cheap in comparison.

On the good side, the printer has the 250 page paper drawer located under the printer, where it belongs. This way, you don't have an unsightly flop [sic] of paper on the desk in front of you. It also has a front door for feeding single sheets so you don't have to open the drawer and replace the paper, reset the paper guides, and so forth, simply to print a single envelope. It also pops printed paper out of the top into a proper paper recepticle, or you can open the door at the back of the printer and let the paper feed straight through.

The printer is fast, at 17 pages per minute, and warms up fairly quickly so you don't have to wait too long for it to start. Print quality is good, and small fonts are legible with no bleeding. The grayscale for graphics is good, with nice even printing and little graininess.

The biggest problem I have with this printer is that the drum and toner cartridge are replaced separately. This is not as much a problem as an annoyance. The printer drum has to be changed every 20,000 copies or so, and costs almost as much as the printer itself. The toner is inexpensive relative to other printers, but the drum is around $100. Despite having this unusual expense every four or five toner cartridges, the per page cost is still only about 1.5 cents per copy. This is comparable to other laser printers, and is significantly cheaper than inkjet printers. In comparison to inkjet printers, this laser will pay for itself in the first 5,000 to 10,000 copies.

For a home or small office, this printer gives a lot of bang for the buck. Given the high quality of the black and white print, the low per page cost, and the speed, this printer is a steal.

I read most of the reviews on the Brother HL 5040 and there were a few criticisms that concerned me. People wrote that it was loud and handled envelopes poorly. I decided to take my chances since the printer was only $150 with no tax and shipping included. In its defense, I must say that my printer does a great job printing envelopes. I ended up printing out wedding invitations and envelopes. It printed the outer envelopes, inner envelopes, and RSVP envelopes as well as the card stock for the invitation cards, maps, and RSVP cards for 120 invitations!

It was easy to feed them through the manual feeder. I had to do it one at a time, but if you're on a budget, it beats paying for it to be professionally done (and hopefully, I'll only have to do it once in my life). It's also a very speedy printer and so manually feeding the hungry Brother was relatively painless. There was a tendency for envelopes to curl when they came out. It wasn't a problem after they had been stuffed. I believe that curling problems would happen with any laser printer since the paper gets heated up while being run through the feeders. The graphics for my maps were sharp in the "HQ 1200" mode and I did not have to purchase extra memory for it. Text was sharp in all modes. Paper would jam when I was dumb enough to try to feed paper, cards, or envelopes through the manual feeder that weren't completely flat. Unjamming was a piece of cake. I've also not had a problem with it being too loud. I don't keep it on all the time and I don't print while someone is trying to sleep. I've never experienced any high-pitched squeal that others have written about.

The only criticism that I do agree with is that it takes a large amount of energy to operate. When I print, the lights start to dim and I turn off other energy guzzling appliances. But if you're the type that likes to blow-dry your hair with the microwave on while printing on a laser printer all at the same time, you might want to consider... a gas-powered microwave!... or... the "wet hair look!"

To sum it all up, my printer works wonderfully and I was pleased that it did not exhibit some of the nasty things some of the reviews had mentioned. Good luck!

I've been struggling to keep my Apple Laserwriter 16/600 running with linux for several years. It's been fantastic. But after my last upgrade to SuSE 8.2, I ran into several problems getting the drivers installed and configured. So, I finally decided it was time to get a new printer. I chose this printer because it is well supported under linux, prints very fast at 17 pages per minute, has a fast first print time (under 10 seconds) and unlike the HL-1440 comes with 8MB of memory for printing larger files. It's also PCL6 compatible so it will work with just about any operating system. I had this printer out of the box, plugged in, configured and printing a PDF file in less then 20 minutes. It's also dead silent when not printing.

The only problems I've noticed is that fields of solid black appear to have nearly invisible faint gray lines, and text could be printed a bit darker. But this could be due to the newness of the printer, toner saver settings, etc.

If you're looking for a great laser printer for a home linux system seriously consider this one. ...

It doesn't get much more PnP than this. I'm running my HL-5040 on a parallel connection to a WinXP Pro machine, and then through the network to other systems running Win98 and Linux (UPDATE: The network now has two new G4 Mac systems running on OSX 10.3.9, bridged to the rest of the network through an AirPort Extreme, and THIS PRINTER STILL WORKS WITH EVERYTHING INCLUDING THE MAC SYSTEMS!!!). The printer setup on the main XP machine took about 15 minutes, and the other machines about 5 minutes each. It took me longer to configure my firewall(s) than it did to get the printer accessible on all the systems. I suppose this is a fine example of NOT needing to buy the 2100p print server.

The print quality was very suprising for a laser in this price bracket. I was expecting a HP 1200 quality level, but it seems (to me) to be far better. As a former Office Max employee, I'm rather picky about printers, but this one fits the bill. High volume, speed, and low(er) per-page cost than most.

Yes, it is noisy. About as loud as a Canon multi-pass doing its thing (read: you CAN hear it, but it's not excessively loud)

To the people complaining about picture quality: It's a two hundred dollar laser printer. If you want pretty pictures but an inkjet. If you want volume and crisp text, buy a laser. If you want both, SPEND MORE MONEY. I know everyone wants the best on the market for peanuts, but that's not the way it works. TANSTAAFL.

I have noticed the "power drain" issue as well. My lights do the "brownout" thing and my speakers hum. I also have a house that was built in 1952. If you read the UL label on the 5040 it lists the draw at 8.8A (incredible, but believe it) so be prepared with some good breakers. (comparison: I run two 21" Diamond Pro monitors on the same desk and the total draw between them is 3.4A)

My overall opinion is this: I couldn't be happier. I've been eyeballing small lasers for about a decade now with a specific set of requirements in mind. High speed, good drum life, high-cap toners, half-ream paper tray, and parallel connection were the important ones. This printer fufills all those requirements AND fits nicely on the corner of my desk.

Just gotta remember to shut off the lights before that big print job. ;)

Like one of the reviewers said below, the printer occasionally prints out a page with a blank space/white line running horizontally across it. When this happens, it's always with a multi-page document (usually on page 2 ONLY of the document, go figure)!

I've tried just about all the troubleshooting tips included in the Brother manual, but the problem still periodically occurs. I've never experienced this kink with any other printer, whether laser or inkjet. Please note that the blank space/white line doesn't appear all the time--if it did, I of course would have returned the printer, pronto! I haven't contacted Brother's customer service dept. yet.

While kinda annoying, the quirkiness (if you will) is not a big deal to me. The affected page always re-prints out fine.

Regarding envelopes, I haven't experienced jamming or any other problem. Once in a while, the printed address comes out a bit crooked, but this happens at times with my trusty HP inkjet, too.

I have owned the HL -5040 predecessor and have used it for 3 years at work. It was fantastic: efficient, easy to use, never jambs, and reliable. So I bought the 5040 last week. I have the same opinion of this model EXCEPT -- This printer draws a LOT of juice. I only have a computer that draws 200 watts, a desk light that draws 60 watts and this printer and it dims the light to an uncomforable level. In fact it makes me nervous. This is all that runs on a 15A curcuit - and has never happened beofre. I have read reviews on other sites about other people having similar problems with this printer. The printer is great. The power drain is not! Be sure you have a 20A circuit for this baby.

When I bought this printer I was initially very pleased. It gave good sharp print quality and the print speed was very quick.

However, after the printer was idle for 5 minutes it entered a low power sleep mode, and then the problem began. The printer started to emit a very high-pitched whistle. It was not exactly loud, but the pitch made it extremely irritating and it soon started to give me a headache.

I returned the machine for a replacement and I am glad to report that the new machine does not have this fault. However I have noticed from other reveiws of this printer that several other users have experienced the same problem, so this may be a quality control issue.