Reviews4,313 Reviews

All Reviews > Hardware > Printers > Mono laser printers

February 1, 2008

Brother HL-2140 mono laser printer review

The £99 Brother HL-2140 mono-laser printer is pitched almost to perfection.

In the rush for full technicolour, mono printers have fallen rather far from grace. However, if you're on a budget, there are plenty of excellent reasons for resisting the high-cost allure of a full colour laser. For a start, to get one of the latter with photo quality that comes anywhere near to that of a decent £100 (or even £60) inkjet, you're going to have to spend hundreds.

Visit Business Advisor for reviews of the best IT products for your business.

Even this month's Oki C5750n (which approaches the £600 price mark) lacks total accuracy for colour printing. Inkjets, on the other hand, are frequently poor for serious text work. They're slow, consumables are expensive, and the output is often less than crisp.

That's why the £99 Brother HL-2140 is pitched almost to perfection. It's a full mono laser printer. But it's sufficiently cheap that you can run it alongside a quality inkjet for the best of both worlds. Indeed, if what you mainly print out is text work anyway, this'll again prove a good solution. But what do you really lose out on?

Well, while we wouldn't class the Brother HL-2140 as the prettiest of mono lasers, it does have a certain rugged charm. It lacks the flash of the latest HP inkjets, but we suspect you won't be breaking this printer in a jiffy.

And in keeping with Brother's drive for greater ease of use, the Brother HL-2140 is a cinch to set up. Because the consumables are front-mounted, it's easy to change the cartridges.

Quality is actually surprisingly good. You wouldn't want to use the Brother HL-2140 for any kind of serious graphical work – it's fine for printing out street maps and other such drawings, but photos are a definite no-no.

NEXT PAGE: text output, running costs and our expert verdict > >

Continued...
1 | 2 | 3 | NEXT >

Independent customer reviews from

Brother HL-2140 scored:
8.8 out of 10 100% real reviews

The 2 most helpful reviews based on 21 reviews:

18 Aug 2009 Mike, Margate

9

Good Points

Compact, easy to use, good print quality. Overall a very good home-office printer

Bad Points

None

04 Aug 2009 Adam, Braintree

8

Good Points

Compact, Easy to set up

Bad Points

Reviewer left no comment

See more Brother HL-2140 reviews on Reevoo.com

Best Prices

£70
Go»
£75
Go»
£85
Go»
Prices, delivery and availability at 14 retailers
Go»

Keep up to date by adding PC Advisor Reviews to your iGoogle home page or Google Reader

What is this?

Subscribe to PC Advisor now and claim your FREE gift

Question of the day!

Does your smartphone replace your need for a laptop when on the move?

Question of the day!

Does your smartphone replace your need for a laptop when on the move?

% of PC Advisor readers agree with you

Yes
TBC
No
TBC

What tasks can your smartphone do that would have traditionally been done on a laptop?

119 characters remaining

Follow the conversation at @SmartphoneFocus

web browsing, search facilities, voip, email, word processing everything RT @Graham_D_C

Mainly email but getting better at spreadsheets etc, RT @IDGdan

Total reviews: 4,313

See product specs

expert rating

Build quality

3.5/5

Features

3.5/5

Value for money

4.5/5

Overall

4/5

expert rating

Brother HL-2140

READER REVIEWS


Google


Recent reviews

Reviews index


Latest reader reviews

Latest reader reviews


Top news

News index


Latest blog entries

Blogs index


Sponsored Content

  • Take the internet to new places with the Nokia N800
    Communicate how you want to, where you want to with instant messaging, email and internet calling. View movies, browse the internet wirelessly and watch TV on the high-resolution screen and listen through high-quality stereo speakers with headphone jack.
    Buy now