Brother HL-2035
Review This squat, square printer has a surprisingly good specification and can be found for a very reasonable asking price. The slide-out paper tray at the bottom of the front panel holds a full 250-sheets and is fully covered when closed, so you don’t need to remove paper to avoid spills when not printing. There’s a single-sheet feed slot, too, which can take thicker paper, up to 163gsm, and envelopes.
Not the smallest footprint for a desktop printer
Controls are simple, with a single button taking the printer on and off line and four indicators for ready, paper jam, low toner and drum depletion. The four lights cycle at switch-on until the printer has initialised.
The software is no more than a Brother driver and both Windows and OS X versions are provided on the supplied CD. As usual, Linux drivers have to be searched for, but a quick browse of the Brother Solutions Centre offers CUPS and LPR support.
Brother quotes a speed of 18ppm for the HL-2035 and our tests showed this to be more accurate than many claims. The five-page text and graphics print gave 12ppm and the 20-page text document clocked up 16ppm, the joint highest speeds in tests. The 1,500-page toner cartridge clips into a 12,000-page drum, which slides easily into place and gives a cost per page of 4.0p, which is in the middle of the range for this group.
Verdict
Print quality is good, with clean black text and good greyscales. The relatively high resolution of 2,400 x 600dpi does well in reproducing photo content, too, with little banding and plenty of detail. There’s little to hold up against this printer, except a slightly larger footprint than some. ®
COMMENTS
Power consumption
Although costs are discussed, electricity consumption is not, and it can be very significant as shown below. Consumption is very dependent on how much the printer is used and the annual TEC (typical energy consumption) figures below are based on printing for 1 hour per day, five days per week for 52 weeks per year on a typical UK electricity tariff. Where possible, figures come directly from http://www.sust-it.net/ .
Brother HL-2035: £37.05
Canon i-Sensys LBP3010: £11.85
Dell 1130: £6.31 - £9.44? (No Dell devices listed on SUST-IT; first figure from Dell literature, 0.78kWh per week; second from US ENERGY STAR, 1.3kWh per week at 230V)
Epson Aculaser M1200: ?? (No figure in Epsom literature and no Epsom devices listed on SUST-IT, ENERGY STAR sites)
HP LaserJet P1102w: ?? (No figure in HP literature though ENERGY STAR compliance claimed; this device not listed on SUST-IT; US ENERGY STAR consumption figures blank)
Samsung ML-1665: £7.26 (No figure in Samsung literature; not listed on SUST-IT; this from US ENERGY STAR, 1.0kWh per week at 230V)
