Brother HL-4050CDN review
Verdict:
Review Date: 5 Dec 2007
Price when reviewed: £418
Buy it now for: £354
Supplier: http://www.printerbase.co.uk
Our Rating
User Rating
Brother's HL-4050CDN is a close relative of the HL-4040CN reviewed in What's New, Shopper 238.
This version combines the same reasonable print costs and high speeds with the benefit of an automatic duplexer and an optional 500-sheet paper tray, which brings its total paper capacity up to 800 sheets.
This single-pass workgroup laser is one of the largest and heaviest in the group, but it's easy to set up, with toner cartridges that slot into a tray that slides out from the front of the device. It supports USB, parallel and Ethernet connections, and is the only device on test with a PictBridge USB port for printing files directly from a digital camera or flash drive.
The HL-4050CDN has the highest print resolution in the group, at 2,400x600dpi. Mono and colour print quality is excellent, with sharp text and detailed, accurate images. Greyscale shading was smooth, but greyscale images printed in Auto or Colour modes suffered from a tint of colour. Greyscale prints produced in mono print mode looked excellent, with no trace of this problem.
The HL-4050CDN produced the fastest and best-quality colour prints in the group, and mono speeds were also quick. Both colour and mono print costs are remarkably low if you buy high-yield cartridges, and the printer comes equipped with enough toner for 2,500 mono and 1,500 colour pages. It requires more consumables than any other printer here, including a £112 photoconductor drum that must be replaced every 17,000 pages. Despite this, the total cost of ownership is low, with only HP's Color LaserJet 3600 and Kyocera's FS-C5015N costing less to run over three years of heavy use. However, it's less economical over three years of light or medium use.
Brother's HL-4050CDN is expensive to buy and complicated to maintain, so it isn't ideal for home or home office users. It's cheap to run if you do a lot of printing, though, and has outstanding print quality, so it's an excellent choice for a small-to-medium-sized office in need of a presentation-quality laser printer.
Author: Kat Orphanides
User Reviews
Independent customer reviews from Reevoo.com
Brother HL4050CDNZU1 scored:
8.3 out of 10
The 2 most helpful reviews based on 33 reviews:
20 Dec 2008 Phil, Gloucester
9Good Points
Able to print on A4 shhets down to A6. Very good repeat positioning for doing over prints on pre-printed leaflets. Good clear thin line definition for CAD drawing.
Bad Points
No full user manual in paper form (a pain refering to CD). High power consumption when printing.
30 Jun 2009 Peter, London
6Good Points
Very solid printer - VERY heavy, takes 2 folks to lift it. Driver software is uncomplicated but powerful. PIN function (using a PIN to release a job at the printer) is very helpful - stops waste. But the big plus with this printer is that it's easy to refill the cartridges with colour toner powder. So instead of paying £333 for a new set, you can order the toner on ebay for around £70 inc delivery. There are no chips to reset/replace or anything fancy like that when you reuse a cartridge.
Bad Points
BEWARE of the USB stick print function. It can be very, very slow indeed, and you STILL need to install the drivers if you want it to work each time. eg: if you create and print a simple PDF in Word via the USB stick you should be OK. But if you have anything more complex - with graphics etc - then you must "print to file" using the driver, or elements will be missing or corrupted.
Best Prices
Best Prices
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£354 | |
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£391 | |
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£396 | |
| Prices, delivery and availability at 8 retailers | ||
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