The Best Printer... What to Buy?

If you are in the market for printer that is perfectly suited for a small office or home office, printing principally letters, forms, e-mails, or other letter-sized black-and-white documents, this review may of particular interest. When laser printers first became available they were quite costly (in the thousands of dollars) as well as being large, heavy, and expensive to operate. That is no longer the case, but which one is now the "best buy?"

You can go to Best Buy (no pun intended), or simply look in the Sunday newspaper and you will see many varieties of printers-- principally laser and inkjet, multifunction and single-purpose -- available with a staggering array of features and prices. As mentioned earlier, if you operate a home office or a small office (or even a medium-size office) and have a frequent need for printing high-quality black-and-white output, the best solution is a dedicated laser printer, not an inkjet printer. So which one should you buy? At the BestStuff.com and Best Magazine offices we do a lot of printing. Over the past few years we have tested many printers, and we think we have a good answer for you; it is the Brother HL-5340D laser printer.

We recommend this printer for a number of reasons. The price is right, the print quality itself is great, and the print output is very fast (up to 32 pages a minute), AND they just never break down. In fact, one of the older Brother printers that we've used for about four years has never even had a paper jam--- which is amazing!

For those of you who are interested in more detail, here goes:

• Fast results. Operating at print speeds of up to 32 pages per minute, this printer is ideal for a busy office.
• Outstanding print quality. The HL-5340D delivers up to 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution so that all of your printed materials are high resolution and look their best.
• Easily print two-sided documents. Produce professional-looking two-sided documents, brochures and booklets using the automatic duplex printing feature. This feature can help reduce your paper use and save money.
• Versatile paper handling. An adjustable 250-sheet capacity paper tray easily handles letter or legal size paper and a 50-sheet capacity multi-purpose tray is for printing letterhead and custom paper sizes. You may also add up to two optional paper trays for additional capacity.
• Straight-Through Paper Path. A convenient fold-down, 50-sheet capacity multi-purpose tray and rear paper exit provide a straight-through paper path for printing envelopes, thicker media and custom paper sizes.
• Maximum compatibility. Offering PCL6 and BR-Script3 (PostScript3) emulations, the HL-5340D can support virtually any office or graphics application.

We have been testing this printer for about six months, and just like its predecessors, it has yet to disappoint in any way. Most amazingly this printer lists for only about $200, but is frequently available on sale for little as $159 at places such as Best Buy (online only) and your neighborhood Office Superstore. This printer is the perfect blend of price, performance, and reliability… and that is about as good as it gets.

John Lentz