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Brother HL-4040CN

84

Very Good

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2 User Reviews | add yours »

Pros
Low price; excellent text quality
Excellent setup and documentation
Cons
Confusing control panel; heavy weight
Not expandable

$189.97 - $506.86
From 21 Merchants

Pricing: Very Inexpensive: $400 (8/25/2008)
Performance: Good: 78
Features: Very Good: 85
Design: Good: 79

Find out how these four scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Pricing

Very Inexpensive: $400

Standard-Capacity Black Cartridge - $93

Standard-Capacity Color Cartridge - $130

Standard Cyan Ink Cartridge/Toner Cost - 69.99

Standard Magenta Ink Cartridge/Toner Cost - 69.99

Standard Yellow Ink Cartridge/Toner Cost - 69.99

Performance

Good: 78

Text Printing (Plain Paper, Normal Settings)
Tested Text Speed (ppm)	19.3
Three-Page Word Document (secs)	33.99
Ten-Page Word Document (secs)	40.4
Text Output Quality	Superior

Color Printing (Plain Paper, Normal Settings)
Tested Color Speed (ppm)	4.2
Two-Page Excel Document (secs)	19.7
One-Page Webpage (secs)	16.42
4 by 6 Color Photo (secs)	21.28
Color Output Quality	Good

Color Photo Printing (Glossy Paper, Best Settings)
Tested Glossy Photo Speed (ppm)	1.9
Sports Action Shot (secs)	31.8
Color Photo Quality	Fair

Grayscale Printing (Plain Paper, Normal Settings)
Tested Grayscale Speed (ppm)	3.3
4 by 6 Grayscale Photo (secs)	18.19
Grayscale Output Quality	Fair

Grayscale Printing (Glossy Paper, Best Settings)
Grayscale Glossy Output Quality	n/a

Lineart Printing (Plain Paper, Best Settings)
Tested Lineart Speed (ppm)	3.9
300dpi Line Art Image (secs)	15.21
Line Art Output Quality	Very Good

Scan Tests (in seconds)
Overall Scan Quality	n/a

Copy Tests
Copy Output Quality	n/a

Features

Very Good: 85

Memory (in MB)
RAM Installed	64
Maximum Amount of RAM	576

Dimensions
Dimensions	16.5 by 18.7 by 12.5
Weight (pounds)	64.2

Vendor Rated Speeds
B&W Pages per Min.	B&W PPM:21
Color Pages per Min.	Color PPM:21

Resolutions
Max. B&W dpi	2400-by-600
Max. Color dpi	2400-by-600

Language & Emulation
Printer Emulation Type	PCL6
PCL Emulation	PCL6
PostScript Type	none

Interfaces
Parallel Port	No
Serial Port	No
USB 1.1	No
USB 2.0	Yes
Ethernet	Yes
Media Card Readers	None
PictBridge	Yes

Drivers
Macintosh	Yes
Windows 98	No
Windows NT	No
Windows 2000	Yes
Windows XP	Yes
Linux	Yes

Power
Maximum Power Draw (watts)	0
Standby Power Draw (watts)	0

Multifunction Printer Specs
Fax Memory (pages)	0

Paper Handling
Number of Input Trays, Standard	2
Number of Input Trays, Maximum	2
Tray Capacity, pages	300
Maximum Sheets With Optional Paper Trays	300
Manual Feed Slot	Yes
Maximum Paper Size	Legal
Output Tray Capacity	150
Auto Duplexer	No

Warranty & Support
Labor Warranty (years)	One
Parts Warranty (years)	One
Weekday Support Hours	24
Saturday Support Hours	24
Sunday Support Hours	24
Toll-Free Support	Yes

Cost of Operation Inside of Warranty
Cost per Page, Black	0.04
Cost per Page, Color	0.16
Belt	129.99

Vendor-Supplied Data (in Pages)
Monthly Duty Cycle	35000
Monochrome Ink/Toner Yields	5000
Color Ink/Toner Yields	4000
Standard Cyan Ink Cartridge/Toner Yield	1500
Standard Magenta Ink Cartridge/Toner Yield	1500
Standard Yellow Ink Cartridge/Toner Yield	1500
Belt (Service Life)	50000
Waste Tray/Cartridge/Bin (Service Life)	20000

Bundled Items
Included Hardware	Standard toners: 1,500 page cyan/yellow/magenta toners; 2,500 page black toner
Included Software	Driver disc.

Reliability & Service
Summary of results for all of brand's products in this category	Readers saw some improvement here. Brother’s scores--average across the board--were a step up in reliability and ease of use from the marks the printer vendor posted in our previous R&S survey.

Reliability of brand's products in this category
Reports of products arriving with problems	Average
Reports of products with any significant problems	Average
Reports of problems that render a product unusable	Average
Buyers' rating of products ease-of-use	Average
Overall satisfaction with reliability of brand's products in category	Average

Service & Support Quality
Time spent holding for phone support	Average
Overall quality of vendor's phone support	Average
Reports of problems unresolved after contacting service	Average
Overall quality of service	Average

Design

Good: 79

Brother HL-4040CN Review

by Melissa Riofrio

- Brother takes a major evolutionary step with the HL-4040CN: This is the first color laser designed by the company itself, rather than a rebranded model from another manufacturer. It's a decent first effort, offering good overall speed and print quality for a competitive price. The design sometimes falls short on ease of use, unfortunately.

Read Complete Review »

User Reviews for Brother HL-4040CN

Reviewed by: kcihtred2

Duration of ownership: 6 Months

Strengths: fast speed, low cost per page and for the printer, reprint feature, good text quality

Weaknesses: setup is annoying if you don't know IP addresses, heavy, only ok picture quality

Overall Evaluation: considering my old printer (a Canon Pixma iP1500, which is the worst printer of all time probably), it is a great upgrade. I have it hooked up to a Trendnet TEW-452BRP router and then have the computers hooked up wirelessly and hard-wired to the router. The main thing I want to point out is that you will want to do the advanced configuration for the network setup, and you get the IP address from the printer by hitting cancel till the screen says sleep on a green background and then you hit OK 3 times and on the final page you will find the IP address of the printer and you should use that for the printer setup. (The steps you choose are the model (HL-4040CN), language, install printer driver (if its already set up) or initial printer setup (if its the first time setting it up), accept the terms and conditions, peer to peer (if you have a setup like me), the second option which you type in the IP address, and finally let the printer install the drivers.) The automatic way is ok, its just that it messed up for me
Reviewed by: molder101

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Fast print speed * easy setup * low cost consumables * cost

Weaknesses: Heavy * light blacks * sub-par photo output

Overall Evaluation: As a little background, I am not new to color laser printers. My first was a Tektronix 740N which set the bar really high. It was and is a great printer and I recommend it to anyone that is serious about quality prints. My current printer is a Xerox 6120 which for the money couldn't be beat (~$160 with full toner set). The HL-4040CN was purchased for my office to use, when our old HP inkjet printer took a turn for the worse. It was going to be too much money to buy parts, so it was only logical to move to a color laser. We were looking for a printer that was mainly 1) competitively priced, 2) offered quality output, 3) could handle a moderate load of printing, and 4) overall low operating cost. Our expectations were met with this color laser. It's fast print speed (we average 20ppm black and about 5ppm color) works for us. What was even better was it's easy setup. Whether a seasoned computer geek or not, you should be able to set it up by following the instructions. USB is a nice option, however, we obviously set it up on a network. The lost cost consumables and ability to print a few thousand pages before replacing them was nice since we print about 15,000 pages/month color (we have a dedicated high-speed b&w copier). On the slightly negative side, we weren't too hot on how heavy the printer is. While solid is nice, know that you are going to have to have a heavy duty desk, table, or something of the such. Compared to my Tektronix and my Xerox, the blacks are softer than they should be. My Tektronix was by far the winner in this test. They were simply amazing as they almost jumped off the page. High quality black output seems to be an issue with most of the newer color lasers. Not that it's a major issue, but I've noticed that photo output could be better. My Xerox 6120 is a little better and yet was half the price. Overall this printer is very good and filled out need well. We paid $285 after a 5% Buy.com coupon and that included free shipping. I would definitely recommend this printer to any workgroup of people who need to be able to print better than average color quality. Cost per print is very affordable which in the end is one of the major stengths we were looking for in a color laser. RATING: 3.8/5