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| Brother HL-1240 |
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Hardware Reviews December 1999 • Vol.10 Issue 12 |
Brother HL-1240 | ||
 Laser printers were once reserved for large offices that needed the speed, quality, and reliability of a good laser printer. For consumers and small office/ home office (SOHO) users restricted to tight budgets, laser printers were simply out of reach. Today, however, many companies are breaking the $300 price range on low-end laser printers. One such printer is the Brother HL-1240. Rated by Brother International Corp. at 12 pages per minute (ppm), this small, compact printer produces decent text at a great speed for a unit in this price range. We printed a 10-page text file in the lowest quality to find this unit's fastest speed. We averaged 10.3ppm during this test and the text quality was decent. Other printers certainly do a better job, but this one is hard to beat because of its price. The printer did, however, have problems with graphic files. Our average fell to 8.6ppm when we introduced a few graphics and charts in a six-page text using a Word file. This is not a blazingly fast speed, but, again, it is good for the price. The quality of the graphics was a little suspect. Some streaking occurred in our smaller graphic files, with some areas of the same color appearing a little darker than others. Our one-megabyte (MB) Photoshop file also encountered some difficulty. The large image was slightly disjointed in a couple of areas, but many more expensive units also had similar difficulties with this file. An upgrade in RAM may have helped, but unfortunately, the standard 2MB of RAM is not upgradeable in this unit. Consumables for this device were also reasonably priced. Two different toner cartridges are available: one capable of 3,000 pages for an estimated street price of $49.99 and one capable of 6,000 for $79.99. The print drum will also need to be replaced every 20,000 copies; it has a suggested retail price of $159.99. Overall, the estimated cost per page is as low as two cents. This printer's print quality isn't as good as some of the more expensive systems we have reviewed, but it deserves consideration from anyone who wants laser printing on a budget.  by Chad Denton HL-1240 $299 Brother International Corp. (800) 521-2846 (908) 704-1700 http://www.brother.com
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