Review This squat, square printer has a surprisingly good specification and can be found for a very reasonable asking price. The slide-out paper tray at the bottom of the front panel holds a full 250-sheets and is fully covered when closed, so you don’t need to remove paper to avoid spills when not printing. There’s a single-sheet feed slot, too, which can take thicker paper, up to 163gsm, and envelopes.
Not the smallest footprint for a desktop printer
Controls are simple, with a single button taking the printer on and off line and four indicators for ready, paper jam, low toner and drum depletion. The four lights cycle at switch-on until the printer has initialised.
The software is no more than a Brother driver and both Windows and OS X versions are provided on the supplied CD. As usual, Linux drivers have to be searched for, but a quick browse of the Brother Solutions Centre offers CUPS and LPR support.
Brother quotes a speed of 18ppm for the HL-2035 and our tests showed this to be more accurate than many claims. The five-page text and graphics print gave 12ppm and the 20-page text document clocked up 16ppm, the joint highest speeds in tests. The 1,500-page toner cartridge clips into a 12,000-page drum, which slides easily into place and gives a cost per page of 4.0p, which is in the middle of the range for this group.
Verdict
Print quality is good, with clean black text and good greyscales. The relatively high resolution of 2,400 x 600dpi does well in reproducing photo content, too, with little banding and plenty of detail. There’s little to hold up against this printer, except a slightly larger footprint than some. ®