Sections
- Page 1 Brother HL-2270DW Review
- Page 2 Performance and Verdict Review
- Page 3 Print Speeds and Costs Table Review
Brother HL-2270DW – Print Speeds
Brother claims a top speed of 26ppm for the HL-2270DW but, we measure complete job time, not just page-to-page throughput and under this measure, our 5-page text test gave 12.5ppm. This is still a fair turn of speed, and it increased to 13ppm in draft mode and 20ppm for the 20-page, long document.
Overall these are good speeds for a small printer and this is reflected in graphic print speeds, too. A 15 x 10cm photo from a PC took 14s and a full A4 image from a Samsung Galaxy SIII Android smartphone took only 17s.
Brother HL-2270DW – Print Quality and Costs
Print quality is generally very good. Text, from the 600dpi engine, is clean-edged and there’s little visible toner spatter, even in areas of heavy text, like headings. Graphics are also well reproduced and there are plenty of grey levels to support the reproduction of different colours in an original.
There is some slight banding in gradated areas of photos, such as skies, and darker shades can tend to black, but this is no worse than in printouts from rival machines.
Noise levels were pretty average, measured at 63dBA at 0.5m, so you should be able to live with this machine on a desktop beside you.
The toner cartridge is available in two yields, of 1,200 and 2,600 pages. They clip into a drum cartridge rated at 12,000 pages. Using the best prices we could find online gives a page cost of 3.0p, which is good, though a little higher than, for example, Samsung’s £150 Xpress M2835DW.
Should I buy a Brother HL-2270DW?
Brother’s main competitors are HP and Samsung and the Samsung Xpress M2835DW has most of the same features as this printer, though is marginally easier to set up and includes NFC for quick connection of mobile devices. The HP LaserJet P2035 also has a similar spec and is slightly faster, but doesn’t have wireless connection.
Verdict
Last year Brother sold more mono laser printers than any of its rivals and in many ways it’s easy to see why. Aa an example, there’s very little you can level against the HL-2270DW, which gets on and does its job in a business-like way, with a minimum of fuss. It has all the essentials of a modern mono laser, including wireless and duplex print and although its wireless setup is a little fiddly, you only do this once and it’s pretty plain sailing after that.
Next, read Which Printer Is Best For Me?
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.