Brother HL-2140 Laser Printer by BROTHER
|
List Price: Our Price: $199.88 You Save: $0.11 (0%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $85.00 (click here) Category: CE See more digital camera details and other models |
|---|
Digital camera reviews of Brother HL-2140 Laser Printer
Digital camera Review: A Phenomenal Printer for College Students and Families
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a 19 year old college student and I use this printer on a regular basis. This printer has been THE BEST college investment that I have made.
The Pros:
Value for Money 5/5 stars.
-The printer itself is dirt cheap. It's cheaper than most of the inkjets that I was looking at before it (don't buy an inkjet!)
-Extremely economical. The cheapo included "starter cartridge" lasted me my entire freshmen year. I printed over 1200 pages with it.
-Replacement toner is dirt cheap! I bought the "Brother TN360 High Yield Black Toner Cartridge" for $44 (about what you'd pay for the average inkjet set of cartridges) and just swapped it last week (Over a year later).
-Energy Star Approved. Need I say more? (all you cheapo college kids without electric bills might not appreciate this until you start renting an apartment!)
Reliability 5/5 stars.
-I've had 1 (one) jam. That's it. 1 single jam in over a year of use, and it was while I was trying to print on an envelope (see point below in Cons).
Print Speed 5/5 stars.
-Relatively fast printing. For $60, this printer is more than fast enough for even my lengthiest reports. It's not a business workhorse like the HP P4014's on campus, but then again it's about $550 cheaper.
Ease of Setup 5/5 stars.
-Setup takes less than 5 minutes:
-Take it out of the box
-Pull the safety tape off of the tray and toner.
-Insert toner and paper.
-Plug it in.
-The printer is the PERFECT SIZE. It's almost perfectly square, so it stacks well. It's not heavy. It easily fits right on my desk without getting in the way.
Ease of Use 5/5 stars.
-Windows 7 found and installed it automagically (including the correct printer thumbnail).
-Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop found it right away.
-Toner Saver Mode (which is an ABSOLUTE MUST), was very simple to turn on.
The Cons:
Features 4/5 stars.
-First of all, know that I didn't dock the star because of the lack of color (that would be unfair since this is CLEARLY a monochrome printer).
-It doesn't print color. Big deal, 99/100 college reports and documents have 0 pages that need to be printed in color. Why waste money on expensive color ink if 50% is used on those stupid color advertisements in the page margins? I'll run to the library if I need to print 1 or 2 pages in color. Plus, for the family type, why do you need to print in color? If you're not printing out Birthday Cards or Cheesy Certificates, I'd save the money and just print in B&W.
-Printing on envelopes using the dedicated slot is a pain. I've tried multiple times and never had a good experience, or awesome results. This printer loves 8.5 x 11.
Noise 4/5 stars.
-When in use, it's a tiny bit noisy; however, all laserjets are.
-At idle, this thing is silent, and power-up time out of stand-by is fantastic.
Overall:
This is THE BEST investment I've made in my college career. It's cheapy cheapy, extremely reliable, relatively fast, so-easy-to-setup-that-a-caveman-could-do-it, the perfect size, and OS friendly. Yes, the lack of color might bother some (it doesn't bother me), just ask yourself "why should I print in color?" And it's a little bit noisy (meaning that staying up till 4AM printing out sources for your research paper might irritate your roommate (if you have one)). Do either of those matter even the slightest in the grand-scheme-of-things? No. At least not in my opinion.
Do yourself a favor and buy this printer.
Digital camera Review: A great everyday printer!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been using this printer for 7 months now and it is awesome. I have been printing off all of my university class notes for the past 3 semesters and it has worked almost flawlessly. So far, it has printed over 1700 pages, and there have only been 2 paper jams. These jams were really easy to solve though since the printer has so many openings.
I have been using the sample toner that came with the printer this entire time. I took the advice from another amazon review and covered over the clear holes on the toner with duct tape when it was indicating toner was low (after 465 pages). It has gone on to print 1300 another pages thus far, and the quality has not been affected at all.
Also, I bought my printer at Staples for $69, so wait and watch for it to go on sale!
Digital camera Review: A great printer
Summary: 4 Stars
As much as I'd like to waste and consume less, I'm a grad student and still have to operate in print format to really digest material. I had an inkjet printer when I realized that I was spend $40 a quarter on ink, I realized it's time to invest in a printer better suited for my needs. I saw this printer on sale for 60 dollars and sprang for it. I'm really glad I did and I spread the word to my school friends to take advantage of this little powerhouse.
The printer is compact, light and prints really well and fast. I don't get any of the streaks that I do with some of the laser printers at my work. The downside of having a light printer is I feel like I'm going to break it every time I touch it. But it's held up well for over a year and a half, even with me manhandling it.
One little tip, so people don't have the same issues printing on both sides as I did. If you do want to manually print double sided, print "even pages only." Then to print the "odd sides" on the back of the "even sides," insert the paper into the tray print side up with the header towards you (so the text is upside down). If you print "odd pages" first (which would typically make sense because you'd usually print starting from page 1 not page 2), then you'll have to go through and flip all the pages to get the whole packet back to order. I recommend doing the odd thing (hehe) and printing "even pages" first so you can skip that last step.
I also have to mention, as many other reviewers did (Thanks, guys!) that the low toner light went off wayyyy too soon. The starter cartridge is supposed to print 1000 pages and I know that I've printed fewer than 300 pages since I purchased the printer (especially since I print all my articles 2 pages on one side and front and back). I tried the popular tape trick and the printer is back in action. So you don't have to watch the Youtube video (though it's EXTREMELY helpful), I'll provide brief directions. Basically you take out the toner cartridge (it's inside the drum) and then take the toner cartridge out of the drum (by pressing down on the green flap to the left). There are two parts to tape up: one is to the right of the toner cartridge there's a little hole rimmed in clear plastic and the second is on the left side of the toner there's another hole that's cut out of the black plastic. I only had clear tape so I taped the two sides and then colored the center in with a marker. I just printed 23 pages and every page has crisp, black print on it. Beautiful! Thank you, Amazon community, for all for your tips!
Dinged a star for the toner issue, but love the printer otherwise.
Digital camera Review: A great printer with long lasting starter toner!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this printer about 6 months ago, already printed 1492 pages with the starter toner! Of course, I put a piece of paper on each side of the toner to block the light. This printer is very small, and smart. The manual duplex is easy to set up, and guided by the picture instruction, there is no way to mess up. As of now I only got 8 error messages, mostly between page 129 and 594, which means for the last 900 pages I printed, there was no error at all.
Absolutely love this printer!
Digital camera Review: A super good value
Summary: 5 Stars
After a month using this printer, I'm delighted. Compared to my ink printer, the brother prints at lightning speed. And every time I print something, I smile at the money I'm saving.
I am a writer but I often prints color photographs too, so I was using color photo printers for years. But in the midst of printing black on white manuscripts, a window would pop up to tell me I had better change the magenta cartridge or risk damaging the machine. I thought the machine might use a touch of magenta when printing black, but when the photo cyan cartridge gave out, I suspected something devious.
I calculated what I'd spent of ink cartridges for the past year and realized I could buy the brother HL-2140 plus enough toner to print 26 manuscripts of 400 pages each for the same amount. So I did.
The installation instructions that came in the box are clear, simple and precise. In ten minutes, I had the HL-2140 printing. But I had two problems.
Printing the same page on both printers, I noticed that the brother does not get the letters as black as the color printer does. Although the sheet printed on the brother is fine, no quibbling, I tried to get a darker print. In "print properties, advanced" I changed the resolution from 600 dpi to 1200, but noticed no difference between the two. I tried using "graphics" instead of "general." That didn't help either.
Reluctantly I accepted that when all else fails I have to read the instructions. The user guide did not come in my box, but I quickly found it on the brother website and downloaded the Acrobat file. I found the solution is the density adjustment slider, which is not easy to find. Go to Printer/Properties/Advanced/Device Options and select "Density Adjustment" for the list to activate the slider. This option does not work if 1200 dpi is selected or with Macintosh computers. But with Windows at 600 dpi, I could replicate the results with my ink printer.
My other problem was the brother printed last page first, forcing me manually restack the document. After reading the manual twice, I couldn't figure how to solve it. (Please stop laughing.) Finally, I discovered I had the "Reverse Print Order" box checked in the Windows printer options dialogue. Windows, not the print driver controls this option.
But reading the manual served me well. I learned the brother HL-2140 has an impressive array of duplex print options and other features. This machine is a super good value.