Brother HL-5040 Toner Cartridges

Brother HL-5040 Printer Review

The Brother HL-5040 laser printer is designed for the home or small office user. Its print speed is fast for the price, and text is sharp, but lackluster graphics quality and lack of expandability limit some users.

The design of the Brother HL-5040 laser printer is sleek and compact, with a traditional design that is simple, but effective. It measures 9.9 inches by 15 inches by 15.1 inches, and weighs around 23 pounds. Its small footprint makes it easy to fit into a tight office space, and its light weight makes it fairly easy to move by either one or two people. It can connect by either USB or parallel port, but does not include built-in networking.

The unit can do most of its own processing, with a 133 Mhz processor and 8 MB of RAM included. The memory can be upgraded to a maximum of 136 MB if needed. Paper capacity is 250 sheets, which is quite good for the price. Unfortunately, the paper capacity cannot be upgraded, unlike many similarly-priced competing models. Users who expect growth in the future will need to consider whether its paper capacity is likely to be enough in the future.

Standard Brother HL-5040 toner cartridges have a capacity of 3,300 sheets, while high-yield laser toner cartridges have a capacity of 6,500 pages. The high-yield printer toner cartridge is a more economical choice, as it results in a lower cost per page than the standard cartridge.

Print speed is quite good for the price, at around 12 pages per minute for graphics and 13 pages per minute for text. Text is very sharp and detailed, with readable characters even at small font sizes. Graphics quality is lackluster, and a bit disappointing.

Overall, the Brother HL-5040 is a good choice for the small office user, as long as graphics quality and future expandability are not priorities.