Brother HL-L8250CDN – Print Speeds

Brother rates the HL-L8250CDN at 28ppm and although we only saw 13.6ppm on our five-page text test, the longer 20-page document came through at 22.6ppm, which is at least in the right ballpark. The text and colour graphics document brought the speed back down to 13.6ppm and the duplex black text test gave 13.0 sides per minute.

All these speeds are reasonable for a colour laser printer in this price range and our two photo samples were quick, with a 15 x 10cm picture from a PC taking 14s and a full A4 image from the front panel USB still only taking 31s.

Brother HL-L8250CDN – Print Quality and Costs

Text print is clean and sharp at the default 600dpi resolution and there’s no sign of toner spatter. Toner save mode is still very readable, though you can see where dots have been removed to make the saving.

Colours are bright and vivid and look good in business graphics, though there is some slight haloing of black text over solid colour fills. Photo prints look surprisingly natural, with less of the over-vivid, seaside postcard effect we sometimes see from colour lasers.

The printer is quite loud when printing and we measured peaks of 66dBA at 0.5m, another reason to give the printer its own stand.

The toner cartridges are available in two capacities, with the high-yield versions offering 4,000 black pages and 3,500 colour. The drum unit only needs replacing every 25,000 pages.

This gives a cost per black page of 2.5p, with 10.7p for colour, both including 0.7p for paper. This is very much in line with, for example, the https://www.trustedreviews.com/kyocera-ecosys-p6021cdn_Printer_review Kyocera ECOSYS P6021cdn

See overleaf for print test results.

Should I buy a Brother HL-L8250CDN?

This printer comes in at a good price for a fast duplex colour laser, with the previously-mentioned Kyocera ECOSYS P6021cdn costing over £100 more. HP’s https://www.trustedreviews.com/hp-laserjet-pro-200-color-m251nw_Printer_review LaserJet Pro 200 Color M251nw, while £50 cheaper, is around half the speed, only prints single-sided and is more expensive to run. The Brother machine is certainly the best of this bunch.

Verdict

If you want a colour laser printer with good output quality and a healthy turn of speed, the Brother HL-L8250CDN fits the bill. It’s not expensive and it has the advantage of limited mobile device support and a front panel USB socket. It’s noisy, though, and a bit bulky, but its size does make it easy to maintain and running costs are on a par with its main competitors.

Next, check out our pick of the Best Printers