Brother HL-5280DW Toner Cartridges

Brother HL-5280DW Printer Review

The Brother HL-5280DW is a monochrome laser printer designed for the home or small office user. It has more capacity and speed than the average personal laser, and includes Wi-Fi networking built in. Graphics quality is below average. If this printer is too expensive, you may want to consider the Brother HL-5250 toner printer which has many of the same feature and specifications.

The standout feature of the Brother HL-5280DW is certainly its integrated Wi-Fi capability. Setting it up for Wi-Fi access can be a little trickier than setting up a printer for ethernet sharing, but that is not to say it is difficult. The challenge is mostly in identifying which of the multiple wireless scenarios are best for your office. The printer can be set up as its own wireless server, or can connect itself to an existing wireless router or server. Each scenario requires a different setup process, but all are explained in the printer's documentation, and setup instructions are easy to follow. The HL-5280DW also includes an ethernet port and a USB 2.0 connection.

Paper capacity is impressive, with 250 sheets in the main tray and 50 sheets in the multipurpose tray. Paper capacity can be further expanded by adding one or two 250-sheet add-on trays for a maximum total capacity of 800 sheets. The printer comes with 32 MB of memory, which should be enough for a small office of users. As more users are added, this amount of memory may start to slow down printing. Luckily, the printer can be upgraded to a maximum of 512 MB of memory, and it is a fairly inexpensive upgrade.

Paper capacity is not the only thing that can be expanded on this printer. The Brother HL-5280DW toner cartridges which usually have a capacity of 3,500 pages are also available in high yield. The high yield Brother toner cartridges double the amount of page yield to 7,000 pages. They are a much more economical option for the user who has to buy Brother HL-5280DW toner cartridges, as they reduce the printer's cost per page.

Print quality is excellent, especially given the HL-5280DW's affordable price. Text is sharp and defined, and even small fonts retain their sharpness. Graphics printing quality is a little below average, but still passable. Always a weak point for laser printers, the graphics quality here is not much worse than average.

Overall, the Brother HL-5280DW has a lot of bang for the buck, with Wi-Fi, duplexing, and fast speeds all wrapped up in an affordable package. Expandability means it can keep growing with changing needs.