Brother DCP-7030 Toner Cartridges

Brother DCP-7030 Printer Review

The Brother DCP-7030 is a multifunction monochrome laser printer designed for the home or small office user. It offers well-designed multifunction features, most of them standalone, and great print quality. Lack of an automatic document feeder or faxing capabilities might be an issue for some buyers. Lack of color capabilities might be an issue too.

The Brother DCP-7030 packs a lot of features into a very small package, and for the most part, that is a good thing. It does create a few problems, however. First, the output tray is located in the middle of the unit, in a "slot" under the scanning mechanism. This is a bit awkward, and removing prints can sometimes be a little unintuitive, especially when removing many pages at once. Second, in an effort to reduce the unit's size and/or cost, there is no automatic document feeder. While an ADF is less common on multifunction inkjets, they are fairly standard for multifunction laser printers, and many buyers may opt for a unit with this convenient feature included. The DCP-7030 also lacks faxing capabilities, but this is a feature becoming less and less necessary in the age of email, and many home and small office users won't really miss it. It offers a much lower cost per page than a lot of the competition.

Paper capacity is a generous 250 sheets in the standard paper tray, which can handle letter or legal paper. A single-sheet bypass is included for other types and sizes of media, such as envelopes and labels. Toner cartridge capacity is 2,600 pages each, and they can be found for very inexpensive prices online, resulting in low operating costs. Print quality is excellent, with impressive text quality. Characters are detailed and sharp, even at very small font sizes. Print speed is also impressive at around 23 pages per minute. Brother DCP-7030 toner cartridge capacity is generally good. The standard cartridge is good for 1,500 pages, and there is also a high-yield cartridge which is good for 2,600 pages. The printer only ships with a starter Brother DCP-7030 toner cartridge that has a capacity of 1,000, so a toner cartridge will need to be bought soon after purchase.

Overall, the Brother DCP-7030 is an excellent multifunction unit, but a few design decisions result in a few awkward features. If you don't need faxing or an automatic document feeder, you will find a lot to like in the DCP-7030.