If Brother's DCP-8110DN mono laser all-in-one printer looks somewhat familiar, that's because it's part of the same batch that included the Brother MFC-8520DN which we reviewed recently.
See: more printer reviews.
These multifunction printers are intended to complement the single function mono printers Brother released previously. If you're on a slightly constrained budget for your home office or small business, then the Brother DCP-8110DN is the most affordable in the range.
The dimensions of the Brother DCP-8110DN are identical to its big brother (405 x 415 x 423 mm) but it's a shade lighter in weight at 15.6 kg. It also has one less function as there's no fax capability on this model although if you don’t need it, that's a good trade-off for the cost saving.
Paper storage is identical to the higher-spec printer, with a 250-sheet input tray in the base, a drop-down 50-sheet multi-purpose tray above this and a 35-sheet Auto Document Feed on the top.
As before, you can further supplement this by adding an optional 500-sheet tray to the bottom for an extra £90 if your monthly volume is reasonably substantial.
As with the Brother MFC-8520DN, connectivity options extend to ethernet and USB. It also shares big Brother's 5-line, 22-character display for menu choices, rather than the more user-friendly touch-screen we often see on consumer printers. But the button controls are as clearly marked and positioned as you could wish.
One obvious sign of cost-cutting is with the auto-duplex capability, which is restricted here to just printing, where the MFC-8520DN extended this to copying and scanning as well.
There's also an absence of memory-card slots but there is a USB port at the front for flashdrives and PictBridge-enabled digital cameras.
If your main interest is in printing rapidly at high quality, this is where the Brother DCP-8110DN scores highest. In our tests it racked up speeds of 33ppm for standard print pages and 18ppm for duplex.
Print quality suffers noticeably when making copies – graphics in particular were considerably darker than the originals and frequently looked almost black.
Once you've used up the limited 'sample' toner, specified to 2000 pages, you’ll need to invest in either a 3000-page toner (averaging 2.55p per page) or the 8000-page option which will set you back £122 but works out at a more competitive 1.52p per page.
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