Brother HL-1060 review

When it comes to mono printing, even the fastest inkjets have trouble keeping up with a half-decent laser printer.

Once you're talking multiple copies of the same document, the nozzle-equipped variety of printer lags miles behind in terms of speed of output. If the laser printer is a 10-pages-per-minute job, then the difference is truly phenomenal, and Brother's HL-1060 laser is a case in point.

A twin-bin printer, the HL-1060 has a design reminiscent of the old Fujitsu layout - two paper bins, each holding an inch-thick wad of A4, sitting atop the machine, with the output tray at the front. To the right of the top panel sits the minimalist control panel.

Or, to be more precise, the indicator panel - in common with most modern printers, the majority of the Brother's controls are accessed via the easily installed and comprehensive driver software.

Build quality on the HL-1060 is rather good. The only suspect part is the paper stopper, which folds out from the front output catcher. This is mounted to the catcher itself and requires a little dexterity to deploy.

Initial set-up is easy. The imaging cartridge and toner drum slot easily into the unit, and installing the drivers is a simple Add Printer routine in Windows 95's printers department. Installing on Windows NT 4 is just as simple.

Once that's done, getting down to using the HL-1060 is just a matter of ensuring that the right paper size has been selected and choosing the resolution you want to use as default - leaving all other settings at Auto does the trick perfectly well for most purposes. Resolutions available are 600x600 quick, 600x600 standard and 1200x600 for graphics. The quick mode produces text that is noticeably lighter than the other two modes, both of which deliver superb quality textual output at a speed that makes an inkjet look like an ink rollerskate.

Graphics output is not as good as text-only. A full-page photo shows areas of inconsistent density, but mixed text and graphics pages print very nicely indeed.

Time to first page printing is in the order of 15 seconds or so for plain text, rising a little if complex graphics are on the page, and subsequent copies do, indeed, exit the straight paper path at six-second intervals. There's quite a heat build-up as the pile of printed sheets grows - after 30 or so sheets your fingers can get quite a warming as you remove the output stack from the tray.

And that's about all you can criticise. At £350 on the street, ten page per minute performance has never been cheaper. When you consider the good build quality and added versatility of the twin paper bins, it's a very good choice for the more demanding office.

Author: - Dave Dorn