The Brother HL-2700cn is a color laser printer designed for the small to medium office or workgroup. While it has color printing capabilities, the focus is on monochrome speed and quality.
The design of the Brother HL-2700cn is fairly typical for a laser printer: a beige boxy design with an input tray on the bottom and an output tray on the top. The input tray holds 250 sheets, as does the output tray. Both trays can accommodate up to legal size paper. The control panel and LCD screen are well-designed, and easy to understand, and menus are simple to navigate.
The HL-2700cn include built-in networking via an ethernet port. This allows the printer to be easily connected and shared across a network of computers. Once connected and set up, the printer includes a built-in web interface that can be accessed from a browser on any networked computer. This interface allows users to view the status of the unit, change options, and manage print jobs.
As mentioned previously, the focus of the HL-2700cn seems to be on high-quality and fast monochrome printing, while offering the capability for the occasional color prints. Its black printing speed is around 18 pages per minute, while its color speed is around 6.5 pages per minute. Black print quality is impressive. Text is very sharp and readable. Color print quality is somewhat mixed. Many color prints show poor color accuracy and banding issues.
The HL-2700cn offers some upgrade options if needed. Its 250 sheet paper capacity may be small for some users, so a 530 sheet additional tray is available, though it is a bit on the expensive side. The unit ships with “starter” Brother HL-2700cn toner cartridges with capacities of 5,000 pages for black and 3,000 pages for each color cartridge, but these can be upgraded also to high-yield cartridges. The high-yield Brother HL-2700cn toner cartridges have capacities of 10,000 pages for black and 6,600 for each color.
Overall, the Brother HL-2700cn is an impressive color laser printer with a sharp focus on fast and high-quality monochrome printing. Small paper capacity and fairly poor color print quality are certain to be an issue for some buyers.
