Brother DCP-7030 review

Brother's DCP-7030 is a compact mono laser MFP that wouldn't look out of place in any home or small office.

Costing just £79, it's the cheapest mono laser printer here and, although it lacks an ADF and fax capabilities, is ideal for everyday copying and printing tasks.

The DCP-7030 only has a USB connection, which means that you'll have to configure your PC to share it or buy a router with printer support if you want to use it over a network. The driver suite includes Paperport 11SE document management software, but if you would rather use a different package or you don't require document management, the installation disc includes a version of the suite without Paperport.

The printer has a native resolution of 600x600dpi but is capable of an effective resolution of 1,200x600dpi with software enhancement. This proved particularly helpful on our test photographs, which had sharper lines, smoother shading and much less visible dithering in HQ 1200 mode. A set of three pages of images took 22 seconds to print at this enhanced quality, compared to 17 seconds at the printer's native 600dpi resolution.

We were impressed by the speed and quality of the DCP-7030's greyscale document prints, which emerged at a phenomenal 19.2ppm. Although there was some blocky dithering in places, prints looked great, with an excellent range of shades and smooth curves. Standard text printed at a swift 20.3ppm and the first page emerged in just 11 seconds. Scan quality is limited by the 600x2,400dpi maximum optical resolution, but scans were sharp and accurately coloured.

Toner costs of just 1.5p per mono page are also excellent, and total ownership costs were also surprisingly low, despite the cost of replacing the separate drum unit.

The DCP-7030 doesn't have loads of features but is great value if you're after a good-quality compact MFP at a low price. It's an ideal personal printer for a light to medium workload, which makes it our Budget Buy.