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first looks
The single sheet manual feed slot and
paper input tray.
Brother HL-2140
Many users are going for monochrome
laser printers and not colour because we
tend to print more in black and white like
business proposals, emails and school
assignments. Another reason is also
because monochrome laser printers are
more affordable than their colour siblings.
This month, Brother sent us their new
HL-2140 for review which is designed to
meet the requirements of home and small
office users. Measuring 368x361x170.5mm,
the monochrome laser printer features a
squarish form factor and small footprint
that looks to fit neatly anywhere without
taking up too much space. According to
its specifications, the HL-2140 boasts fast
print speeds of up to 22ppm and print
resolutions of up to 2400x600dpi.
A USB port is conveniently located at
the rear, while a single-sheet manual feed
slot and input paper tray of 250-sheet is
at the front. The output tray is at the top,
together with the control panel consisting
of alert LEDs – Toner, Drum and Error. There
is also a large blue-backlit LED button at the
edge which acts as a Ready LED that flashes
depending on printer status, as well as a
Go button which is used for wake-up, error
recovery, form feed, job cancel and reprint
functions.
Setting up is a breeze. Just connect the
USB cable and install the software drivers and
it is ready to do your bidding. As the toner is
front mounted, it provides users with easy
replacement and remedy of paper jams.
Performance-wise, the Brother HL-2140
printed an A4 text document in 6.03sec
and ten pages in 30.03sec, which is notably
fast compared to some larger monochrome
laser printers we had tested. It also churned
out three Excel charts and graphs in
just 12.19sec and a page of A4 image in
5.99sec. Overall, text quality looked sharp
enough for your school projects or business
contracts, even at small font sizes of six or
four. This means you can choose to squeeze
more text onto a page and still have no
problem reading the printouts; you also
help to save the trees. The A4 colour image
also has more depth when we printed
at maximum resolution (2400x600dpi)
compared to the same image printed at
draft quality.
Compatible with Mac and Microsoft
operating systems, the HL-2140 comes
with a standard toner with 1,500 pages
yield; replacement toner costs SGD55. But
for heavy users, they can choose the high
yield toner (SGD80) that offers up to 2,600
pages of printouts.
If you are looking for an affordable and
compact monochrome laser printer, the
Brother HL-2140 is a sturdy worker retailing
at an attractive SGD198.
Our only gripe is that it does not have a
built-in network port for network printing.
But if you want a monochrome laser printer
that has integrated network port and
wireless LAN 802.11b/g, check out the HL2170W (SGD398).—Koh Siang Liang
Toner, Drum and Error alert LEDs and blue-backlit
LED (Go button) at the edge.
overall rating
monochrome laser printer
Brother HL-2140
price
SGD198
• Performance.
• Compact form factor.
• Does not have network port.
specifications
Processor 181MHz
Standard Memory
Interface
Paper Tray
Paper Sizes
Legal, Folio
Print Speed
Print resolution
600 dpi, 300 dpi
Emulation
Dimensions/Weight
Contact Brother International (S)
Tel
Web
USB2.0
1800-276-8437
www.brother.com.sg
8MB
250-sheet
A4, Letter, B5, A5, B6, A6, Exe,
up to 22ppm
HQ1200 (2400x600dpi),
GDI
368x361x170.5mm/5.8kg
PC MAG AZ INE SINGAPORE
32
may 2008