Brother HL-2040 Monochrome Laser Printer

I can't print more than 10 pages before the printer has a "fuser unit failure" and has to sit for fifteen minutes before it will reset. This has happened 3 times so far and I am still waiting for the printer to reset as we speak. I wish I had read the reviews before I bought this piece of junk.

Last year, I bought a couple of the Brother HL-1440s (now discontinued) for my kids and had great luck with them. It's a good, cheap printer. When my old Panasonic died, I figured the replacement for the 1440, the HL-2040, would be even better. Wrong! The 2040 is a very poorly engineered piece of junk. Every page out of it is curled so badly as to be almost unusable. It apparently has very poor spark suppression for motor control as it sparks (spikes) three of my computers to backup power every time I print. The desk lights flicker too. These problems are apparently in the design because I have read other reviews describing the same problems. This one needs a RECALL. Don't waste your money.

as soon as I plugged in the printer, it caused my lights to flicker. Printed a test page and it blew my circuit breaker. The printed page comes out so curly, it's practically a roll. I'm returning the printer for a refund...

I bought this for under $150 on sale. Mine came with a rebate so it was even lower. The speed at which pages come out of the printer make it well worth the price paid. If this thing dies in six months I would have gotten my money's worth and I wouldn't even object to getting another one! I do get some of the curling mentioned but I'm also using a $2 ream of paper. I'm sure with better paper it will be fine. The pages are far from unusable though.

I purchased this to use with my new iBook. The compact size nicely reflects the compact size of my portable iBook. Conectivity is great via USB and it found the printer right away. No complaints here, and I print daily on this machine. Good machine for the price.

This Brother printer is a great value for the price. I purchased this machine for my home and it has performed flawlessly. I haven't seen any of the excessive curling mentioned in previous reviews, but then again, I'm using a quality laser paper. I have ran a few larger print jobs, printing various manuals and it churns right through them. The best part is it's small enough to fit on my desk and still leaves me room to work, not like past laser printers I've owened.

I have purchased this machine for the new compact design and high speed for the price. This machine has met every expectation for a personal laser printer in speed and quality. Print quality is very good. I would strongly recomend the HL-2040 where space is a necessity. Also Brothers lower opperating cost help.

I bought this printer for just a week and printed about 100 pages, then the toner light was on. I cannot print any more from it. I talked to customer support, one lady told me the new printer can only print about 100 pages. Then I got an email reply from the other customer support person, he told me the initial toner can print about 1500 pages. So who is right?
Anyway, I finally can print out the printer information by replacing the toner with a brand new one. it says it's already printed 1300 pages. Don't know who did the other 1200 pages.
So if you bought the new one, make sure to check the printer information and find out how many pages has been printed. If it's already printed 500 or more, you'd better return it.
The print quality is ok, sometimes I got vertical lines. The speed is good.
The reason I kept this printer since I've already sent the mail-in rebate and bought a new toner. :(

I wish I'd read the reviews before buying this printer. It's fast and the print quality is fine, but it has the paper-curling problem that other reviews mention. It doesn't matter too much with one or two pages, but for larger documents it can be a problem. Also, the toner ran out after just a month, which I wasn't expecting. When I bought this printer, I thought I would get an updated version of the reliable 1440, so I was disappointed to find out that the 2040 is a whole different creature. I wouldn't buy this printer again.

I was going to wait for Brother to reply to my email before writing this but then I read all the reviews. Wish I had read them all before buying this.

I have gone through three brand new printers in 3 weeks. All of them have stopped printing mid page and all the LEDs come on. According to Brother tech support, this is a fuser error and is unrecoverable. After three printers and all three having the same problem, I'm giving up.

I too had an HL-1440 and loved it (except the price for the drum and toner). Brother did something wrong with this unit!

Bought this printer when I found out the toner cartridge for my Laserwriter 4/600 would cost as much as this printer. Faster, USB 2.0, takes a little longer for PDF's but not bad.

Using this with an iBook and a Powerbook. Was interested in Dell's $99.00 printer, but it's not compatible with my Macs. Others on the board recommended this one, and so far it's performed as advertised!

Give them the printer, sell them the toner!!

I got what I was looking for in this printer. It is fast when starting cold, and even faster once it's going. I use an HP 4000 at work, and this printer is as fast as that one! As for page curling, it does curl them a bit (I use regular Hammermill paper), so that's not a function of the paper as noted by previous users. For me, it's not a big deal--the speed and resolution more than make up for it. They don't curl into a circular tube, the ends of the page turn up a bit.

Good price; nice product; Amazon shipped quickly. Only thing that kept me from giving it highest rating - product does not come with usb cord. It meant another trip out to get one (I'm sure most of you have a half-dozen of them lying around, but we were setting up in a dorm.)

The Brother 2040 is a fine machine. The product covers all the bases.

I have an experience almost identical to another reviewer. Shortly after I bought the printer, a sheet of paper jammed. After I removed it, all the lights flashed which indicates the fuser is broken. I returned it for a replacement. After another week, the same thing happend all over again.

I was able to change the printer settings...and dramatically reduce paper curl.

Open Printers and Faxes from Start Menu, select Properties for the Brother HL 2040, click Printing Preferences, then change Media Type to "Thin Paper."

I got this printer yesterday, and will update this review if I encounter any problems, but so far everything has been absolutely beautiful. I had a painless install/setup, and it printed quality work immediately. There was no curling of any pages, and no break-down while printing well over than 100 pages back-to-back. I do not use heavy weight paper (I use the 20 lb stuff), and I saw no curling at all. The print speed was much faster than the Epson C82 inkjet I was replacing (which died unceremoniously over the weekend). I selected this model because it was available from an electronics superstore here in California for less than $90 after $30 rebate, and I calculated it's toner cost per page as being one of the lowest out there ($43/toner for 2500 pages at 5% black comes to about 1.7 cents/page).

Hard to believe a laser printer for less than $150 can be so good!

This printer works great as long as you use paper in the paper drawer that is brand new. I like to recycle my paper and use the back side, but this printer doesn't work well when used like that. First, there's no tray to feed the paper in. So even if you want to use colored paper (or whatever... just not the paper currently in the drawer) you have to feed it in, one page at a time. And when you do, it often jams. Plus it doesn't work well with envelopes. It crinkles them up.
But for straight-on, normal printing, it works fine.

The printer is a good value, and has worked without problem for the two weeks I've had it. It is much noisier during printing than the other desktop laser printers I've owned--sounds a bit like a jet aircraft revving up. The noise only occurs during the printing process (when not in the act of printing, the printer is dead silent), so the noisiness is quite brief unless you are printing for long stretches of time (in which case you'd want a more durable printer anyway).

Since it has good basic functionality for a low price, I'd rate it higher if it weren't for a bit of thoroughly misleading marketing from Brother. While their promotional materials and the box it comes in trumpet a USB 2.0 interface, the truth is that it is only capable of operating as the older "full-speed" USB (max 12 mb/sec), not as "hi-speed" USB 2.0 (max 480 mb/sec).

In practice, for text-based documents, the printer is reasonably fast. But Brother should be ashamed of themselves for so blatantly misleading their buyers.

I am just using this thing at home for stuff I run across and want to print from the internet. For that you are good to go. Would I use this for a business? The answer is no. Like the people mentioned before their is some curling with cheap paper. You can also follow the suggestion of setting the paper to thin paper as that does seem to help. I also changed the setting to reduce toner usase and it seems to print acceptable pages as far as I am concerned.

If you print a bit of text and you don't care who sees the output this is the printer for you as the quality for my own personal reading was 100% acceptable to me.

I also have a canon inkjet for color pictures and for professional output I just go to kinkos.

I also was surprised at the sound level but when not in use as another person wrote it is so quiet you would think it was off.

I just upgraded from an HL-1440 which died a sudden death last night -- the sheet feeder broke.

This one is a little noiser, seems a little flimsier, but boy is it a lot faster. For a $110 -- if I get one year out of it, I figure I'll be money ahead.

Not only does the tray not fit A-4 size paper properly, the carteridge is extremely difficult to remove. The printer also constantly jammed. Everything things feels cheap with this printer. In addition, it puts a horizontal creases in your paper when you print. After sending the printer back to Brother for repair, it came doing exactly the same thing to the paper. Take a pass on this printer.

This machine has worked great for our family's basic black and white printing needs. It's been fast, small, and puts out quality just as nice as $500 laser printers. I have been using it regularly and just replaced my first cartridge, very economical compared to others I've had. This machine is already saving me $$. The USB 2.0 works just fine for me.

I thought Brother was a trusted name in the printer business, but I was extremely disappointed in its performance. The print quality was fine, but each piece of paper that went through it came out with slight vertical creases on the top of each side. I tried several quality brands of paper (20lb and 24lb), and it even made the indents on high quality, thick resume paper. Nothing got rid of those creases, and I ended up giving the printer away after 3 months. Spend your money elsewhere!

Im a professional engineer and my purpose to buy a printer is to print out documents since i sometimes find hard to read through computer screen. I have been looking to buy a printer which would offer both affordability and quality. It has been almost a week since i have this one and so far my experience is more pleasant than i expected.

First the printer is not that 'noisy' as few have mentioned. Its a printer so it is supposed to make some noise but it is totally acceptable. I had HP Laser Jet in the past and that one made more noise than brother 2040.

Secondly unlike in other reviews, paper didnt curl even once during printing. I am using standard 20(lb) multi-purpose paper and it comes out straight.

About quality: text printing is comparable to any laser printer in the market. I am printing in the lowest dpi with toner save mode and even that comes out to be totally acceptable. Graphics quality is also acceptable but again I am not looking to use this printer other than printing notes and research papers.

Just like other printers, this one also doesnt come with Printing cable. But these ones are cheap as I bought one from Walmart for less than 9 bucks.

Overall if someone is looking to buy an economical printer (2500 paper print cartridge comes for around 50 bucks) for daily and heavy printing just like me, 2040 is the one he/she should look for.

This is, for the sub-$200 market, a great laser printer. It's fast, text is readable to at least six point font, and graphics are acceptable. It's also small, although a bit noisy.
Please, keep in mind that this printer isn't meant for large businesses, or anything like that. It doesn't really handle A4 or legal sized paper that well, but then, most people don't print to that size of paper. The ink will run you around sixty for a cartridge that prints, in real world use, around 1500-2000 pages. That's not bad--many inkjets, a cartridge that does 200 or so pages will run ten to twenty. You do the math.
If you print around 100-300 sheets a month of black and white, this is a great printer to handle it. For college students (me!) who have to print lots of papers, it's great.
I've never had problems with pages curling as some reviewers noted; but then, I use laser printer paper. It cost maybe 30 cents extra for a 500 sheet ream (which last me almost 2 months).
Seriously, if you do a decent but not huge volume of text printing, this is a great machine.

This printer is a great value for the money. I have been printing like crazy and have had no problems. Though the paper does curl a bit, this isn't really a big deal. The printer is silent when not in use and a bit noisy when printing but again this is no big deal. Installation took all of five minutes. I would highly recommend.

I purchased this printer just a few days ago and it is perfect for my home use. I agree with most that the unit is little noisy, but mostly when warming up. I am mostly using this to print items off the web, word documents, spreadsheets, etc. The printer is fast, the text is clean, I have had no issues. Now that this printer can be had for under $100 (with rebates)...for general printing, this can't be beat. No more crappy inkjets and clogged printheads!

Lights dim every a while not to mention printing.(Brother says that 's your house not up to current wire standard!?) Here is what I find its electricity spec.: standby 70w; printing 450w. A similiar HP ($50 more though) standby 2w;printing 250w. If you have a strong circuit in the room/house,you are fine.I need to returned it.

I bought this printer because the price was right. I've been using it for several months, and I've been pleased. Set-up was easy and it seems to get along just fine with Windows XP. I don't have to print often, but it does just fine for the light demands I place on it. It spits out pages quickly. The text is very clear and the graphics are decent -- much better than "good enough" for my at-home use.

I've been especially pleased with the way it handles envelopes. There's a slot on the front for envelopes (and other odd-sized paper) that's separate from the main paper tray. Sliding them in for a fast print is quick and easy. Of course, I can never remember what direction to turn them so that the address will come out on the right side of the envelope, but that's more a problem of my own klutziness than the printer's fault.

I know that there are criticisms of this model floating around, and, for the most part, they're valid. The printer is noisy, and it does seem to drain power. I don't use it often enough for these troubles to be especially bothersome. There's also the issue of curled paper, but a couple of swipes across the page on a flat desk takes care of that. It doesn't seem to be much of a problem to me.

Again, I'm not a heavy printer user. I probably average about a half-dozen pages a week. People who have bigger printing loads may not be as pleased with this machine as I've been, but it's just fine for me.


I succumbed to the cheapness and bought this printer. Mistake! It leaves shadows on my documents, and curls the paper. The results are acceptable for personal casual use, but nothing you'd want to present to anyone else. Next time, I'll be less cheap and pay for a decent machine.

I've been very disappointed by my experience with this printer and the lack of service from Brother Corporation.

The printer itself worked fine right out of the box. The quality is fine. I'm running Macs with OS X. The Mac compatability was a big reason for my purchase. My initial response was actually so good, that I recommended it to my coworker who also bought one.

Problem #1: The rebate. Even though I completed the rebate form exactly according instructions, I was denied the rebate. I asked to fill out the form again, which I did - again perfectly - with all supporting docs, and was turned down again. Apparently this isn't an isolated incidence because my friend also has been unable to get the rebate. I complained to Brother Corporate who told me to talk to their offices in NJ. The NJ offices does not return phone calls.

Problem #2: Toner issues. OK, I suppose lots of printer companies ship new printers with a minimum amount of toner. Forces you to buy new toner cartridges asap. Mine ran out within two months. I don't print a lot, btw. A new cartridge costs about the same as what you are paying for the printer - less the rebate (if they actually honor it). New cartridge isn't recognized by the printer. Still says the toner is out. Tried everything on the Brother support site, resets, etc. Out of luck. I'm going to have to ship this in for service and pay for return shipping. Would actually cost less to buy another - and that's exactly what they are counting on.

Nope. No more Brother printers. Everybody screws up occasionally, and I'm willing to forgive honest mistakes. This company, however, is unwilling to correct their mistakes and demonstrates a clear pattern of deception.

You want a cheap printer? Buy this and you'll have one.

Considering that it is a bargain printer at a good price (mine ended up costing about $73 total) this is a solid product. It is small, relatively fast, and prints text well. Printed quality of shaded graphics and grayscale is poor to fair. I have unresolved problems printing from some Mac classic applications when running in OS X 10.3.9. Also, the printed pages curl a bit. But for the price and purpose, I am satisfied and feel the printer is a good purchase.

After reading several negative reviews about this laser printer, I was a bit reluctant to go ahead and buy it as others were having problems with paper jams. But the price was right and I had some Amazon gift coupons so I thought I'd take a chance on it. I just needed a good black only printer to take the place of several ink jet lemons that are constantly going dry. Well, the Brother was just what the doctor ordered! I use the printer in a home-office environment and haven't had any problems in the past couple of months it's been running. The toner cartridges can be refurbished by a local company here in town although I haven't tried that yet. At any rate, the generic replacements are no more than some ink jet cartridges and they run circles around them in longevity! If you need a good quality relatively high resolution black printer, I think this is the way to go.

I have only used the printer for two weeks. I bought it to be used with my laptop, and it is unplugged almost all the time. When I need it, it heats up in a matter of seconds (really), and prints extremely fast compared to my inkjet. It has become my printer by default. It is quite solid and easy to maintain. I am an engineer, so I have the habit of performing all the tasks in the manual the first time I open a product, just to make sure everything is in order. This printer will not give you trouble that way. Pages do come out slightly curved, but I guess that depends a lot on the paper used, and the pages settle to a straight plane once they are allowed to cool. I cannot tell you about how long the toner lasts, and certainly nothing about long term reliability, but for this price and performance, I would buy it again if it breaks down in a year or two.

I bought this for my wife to use at work (she works for a non-profit, so cost is the main issue). I figured for US$87 (refurbished) if it was a mistake, it wouldn't be an expensive one. We already have a Brother 5 in 1 and it's done well, so I wasn't going into this totally blind.

For what it does, print black and white without the expense of ink, it does it really well. My wife hooked it up to her PowerBook, it indicated it needed a driver which installed from the CD no problem, and she started printing. It's fast, makes nice prints, and is relatively small. Some people indicated they had fuser issues right out of the box. Maybe that's why this was a refurb, but no issues in about 900 pages so far.

For $90-$100, it is a great printer. The replacement toner isn't that expensive either, though it doesn't include the drum, but that's rated for 12,000 prints I believe. By then, we'll have gotten our money's worth.

I'm a college student and was looking for a high-quality printer that was cheap and small.

This one is perfect: easy to install and connects via USB to my computer, I don't have to spend lots of money on ink cartridges, and it fits under my bed.


I purchased this printer yesterday. I printed some materials that I could not very well have printed on my old inkjet printer, and so far this Brother is doing well on these tests.

So far so good. But I had a terrible time trying to install the driver on my Mac Power Book G4. The CD that comes with the printer simply would not install the driver on my computer. In fact, trying to use this software disabled my Power Book, and it took the better part of an hour, with the help of Apple Care on the phone, to bring it back to life. Instead of trying to use the supplied CD once more, I was able to download the driver from the Brother website. But even here there were difficulties, because the instructions were confusing and contradictory.

If you have A LOT of patience, go ahead and (try to) install this thing on your computer. If you want peace of mind, you better desist.

This printer has not skipped a beat in the month I've used it.
This is replacing a Konica/Minolta PagePro1350W, which was complete junk.
I'm a Brother user for life!

Very nice laser printer. Much smaller and lighter than previous Brother model (HL-1440), plus it has more memory and prints faster. Easy to set up. The advantage over many other personal laser printers on the market is that the HL-2040 has a totally concealed paper tray as well as a feed slot for envelopes, stickers, or manual duplexing. The only two minor gripes that I have are (1) the paper curls a bit when it comes out of the printer and (2) the warm-up/start-up noise is a little irritating. Overall, though, it is a very good value for the money. It's an even better value if you can take advantage of the mail-in rebates that are occasionally available. The HL-2040 is currently #2 on PC World's list of top monochrome laser printers.

wake up very quick, quite fast printing. No problem found yet.

This was one of the fastest installations I have ever seen. Crazy!

I was going to buy a new drum unit to replace my HL-665 when I looked at the price the HL-2040 was less expensive and had a $[...] rebate to boot. Print quality is excellent. You have to get the manual feeds correct in Word. But, this is an excellent value.




I purchased five of these printers, in brand new condition, for light office use and strangely, all five units died around the same time (~3 months after purchase). All units currently power up but fail to print. Brother's tech support also failed to resolve the issue. As I only paid about 50 dollars for each after rebates, I guess I shouldn't expect much but this printer's high rate of unreliability has forced me to consider other brands.

I bought five Konica-Minolta 1350W printers to replace the faulty Brother 2040s and the Minoltas have been working great since day one with no errors whatsoever. I will no longer purchase any Brother products.

The printer definitely curls the paper, no matter what quality paper you put into it. I have put the cheapest paper and the best quality resume paper into it, and it curls it all the same. I've found the curling to be bad when it first comes out of the printer, but then straightens out a bit to only a slight bow. If you can live with some curling, it's a wonderful printer.

Has yet to jam from the paper tray (I accidently jammed it when running notecards through and stuck 2 in at a time because I was impacient, but it took 2 seconds to unjam and get back on track). I'll take the blame for user error on that one.

I dinged it a star due to the curling and power usage (it is a power hog), but it definitely isn't a fatal flaw in a cheap laser printer if you know what you are getting.

I love this printer. Although it is louder than my older HP that died, this one is extremely fast. I just printed a 65 page paper in less than five minutes. On my old printer, that would have taken a half-hour. And I like the paper tray. 250 pages allow me to print even the largest job without having to load more paper. So far, I have had no paper jams or misfeeds. Envelopes print very easily. For less than $100 (after rebate), this machine has my whole hearted recommendation.

I love love love this printer. I am a college student always printing out papers, and at the end of this school year I still have ~10000 (92%) pages left to print on the drum. It is a little bigger for a desk, but well worth the FAST printing time. And it is a little loud (esp. on the powerup). My only problem was when I broke it trying to fix a paper jam (my bad), and the store just replaced it for me for free.

Try it!!

Just got it today, took 2 minutes to set up. I plugged it into my Airport Express and was printing wirelessly immediately. Ran a few tests and the text is very clear and clean.

As others have mentioned, it does curl the paper but not in a really bad way. Envelopes work great when fed through the manual feeder, no more having to unload the paper tray just to print an envelope. The dimming light syndrome hasn't happened to me yet, although it does put out a lot of heat.

Well worth it for my needs, now I just hope it'll last more than 2 years...

I bought this printer mainly for my High School daughter. It fits nicely in the small area I had open for it. I had it set up and printing in about 5 minutes. It came with the toner cartridge and I purchased the USB cable for $5.00. So far, it works great. Quick printing and very crisp. The paper did curl, but ever so slightly... once I left my document sitting for a little while it flattened itself out.

I'm quite happy with the printer. A lot nicer than the old inkjet I replaced!!!

I was a little sceptical when I bought this printer, but now that I have connected to my computer, I am very impressed! The speed of printing is definitely as advertised, which is not always so (kinda like the MPG rating of cars?). I printed a 50-page socument in under 3 minutes! The print quality is great, the printer is a nice compact size as far as lasers go, and the toner cartridge is reasonably priced when it needs to be replaced (according to Staples the toner yeilds up to 12,000 pages). Also, this printer has a great monthly output rating, which means it could be used in a small office as well as for personal use. Just a note, I run Linux, so not only is this printer compatible with Windows & Mac, but Linux users should be happy too.

All-in-all a great little printer for a great price $$ -- couldn't be happier!

I don't care if this printer prints well. You'll hear an annoying click on printer startup and every minute or so. More like two clicks, one second apart. I really don't see why they can't get rid of something like that. The replacement unit they VERY GRACIOUSLY sent me has the same problem, so I know it's a Brother feature. Get a Samsung and do yourself a favor.

Right out of the box this printer was super simple to set up and get going. Windows had no problems installing the printer and within 5 minutes I was printing the test page. I couldn't believe how quickly the page came out, I thought it must be blank because nothing could have printed on a page that came out so quickly.
For 100 dollars this is a great printer. It would probably be a great printer for twice that since it also comes with 1500 page toner.

The print quality is really nice (I have only used it to print text), but the pages curl no matter how thick or thin the paper. I've used cheap copy paper and expensive 30-pound resume paper, all with equal curling.

It's kinda noisy when printing, quiets down right after it finishes, and then goes completely silent about 15 minutes after the last page is printed.

I use mine for economical home printing since I print a lot. I was tearing through ink cartridges before I bought this.

Great quality prints for the price, but think twice before buying if you plan to use it for business, professional, or resumes (anything where you're trying to make an impression) because of the curling.

It took a while to get it set up for my Mac, because the software didn't want to install right. Also there were conflicting instructions to plug in and to NOT plug in the usb plug before installing the software. After a half hour of fiddling around with it and two or three restarts, I finally got it going. Not exactly plug and play, but doable if you know your way around a computer. The manual says it has duplex printing, but then shows it only for windows. In the Mac's print dialogue, there is a place you can put Print only even or Print only odd pages. But when I did this, the printer disregarded these instructions, and printed everything.

Brother, if you are going to advertise a product as working on both Mac and Windows platforms, it should have the same features on both, or offer a prominent disclaimer to the contrary.

The output was quite adequate for my uses, and super fast compared to my old inkjet. While I am not happy that I cannot easily print on both sides of the page, overall this looks to be a good printer for my needs for the low price I paid for it.

This printer is great and does everything I would expect it to do for the price. Nothing too fancy here - no faxing capabilities, no color printing. But if you want a printer so that you can work from home, print out school papers, print out directions, etc. this is the one for you. The quality is excellent!

This printer is much smaller and somewhat more economical with toner than the similarly priced name-brand printer I replaced with it, but it prints just as fast and sharp. It has not had a hint of the page curling problem reported by another user, so perhaps that user's printer is running too hot or has some other factory adjustment problem. But as for me, I'm a very happy camper.

I had been without a printer at home for about a year now as my old (sub-par) printer did not have a USB cable and my laptop didn't have an LPT port. I originally saw this printer in the Computer Shoppers Guide and then came to Amazon for purchase. The setup for this printer was the easiest and most brilliant I've ever seen on any piece of hardware. Installation software was very well written and had an excellent visual guide for reference. The drivers have caused no problems at all. The overall quality is great for the casual black and white printing need. The speed is superior and I absolutely love the response time for hitting execute to the milliseconds it takes to wake up the printer and fire off the first page. Construction may seem a little clunky with plastic everywhere, but it works the way it needs to for the casual printer. When it prints it's fairly loud due to the scrolling bar and the material selection of the unit. But it isn't overly so and this is only a worry if you're attempting to print in the middle of the night and you might wake up your spouse (oops). All in all - it's still quieter than the old dot matrix printers of yore and for the price, speed, and error free issues i fully endorse this printer for casual use.

The price is reasonalbe and it must be the "best buy" product among the same level models of monochrome laser printer.

Bought this laser printer after years of paying to replace both the black and color cartridges in my epson printer. You just can't beat the price of this laser. 2,500 page count toner cartridges for just over 50 bucks. To replace my inkjet printer's cartridges costs almost the same and they are only good for about 500 pages. Been using this Brother for a year and never had a problem and still havent replaced the toner, and I print a lot of papers for school. If all you print is mainly black&white buy this printer.

Having previously purchased & used a Brother HL-1440 over the past couple of years, I got a deal on this Brother HL-2040 thinking it would be a nice 2nd laser printer for home. Once I finally found time to hook it up, I was unable to get either a test page or any documents to print. All it kicks out are blank pages. Tried connecting it to both Mac & Windows computers without any success. Tried different USB cables, re-installed drivers, shook the starter toner cartridge, etc. No luck getting any successful prints yet. Emailed Brother tech support & got a suggestion for resetting the printer, but still no success. Could possibly be a faulty toner cartridge, but at this point I'm still dealing with Brother support trying to find a solution. An incomplete experience so far, but rather disappointing.

I am very pleased with my new printer. The print quality is excellent, the printer is fairly fast and I can easily print double sided.

Installing the printer was easy and the users manual is clear.

This works great for the small black printouts you need at home. Fast speed, lower noice level but a little too light of print for me. I even purchased a higher grade paper to darken the print and it didn't improve the quality. NOT RECOMMENDED FOR BUSINESS! Good for the price.

I upgraded from the 1440. To be honest, I'll probably go back to the 1440! Although the 2040 is faster, it is a mess in manual duplex mode, which I use often. It wrinkles the paper, gets the pages out of order, and pulls two pages through at once. I've emailed Brother to complain. This is truly a disappointment in a Brother product!

This printer was on sale at offciemax and I bought it. I think I was very lucky. So far I am really satisfied with it. It is easy to install and prints faster than my other printers I have. I was able to put it on my network and every other computers on the network can see it and send documents to it. Thanks to my D-Link router 704-UP. The other thing that I like is the number of pages you can print before you change the toner (up 2500). Well! I don't even print 300/year. I think I am set for many years to come. Overall, it is good printer that I can recommend.

I give 5 stars

Pros:Very fast printer as I timed it at 22 pages a minute. Large 250 sheet paper tray Very easy set-up, prints envelopes, labels etc. no problem. Cons: A bit noisey, sheets tend to curl as with any laser printer. They tell you to use "laser" paper, but regular paper works well. All in all a nice little printer for the desk or home user at a very good price.

This printer is really good.
pretty fast, pretty clear, pretty cheap (five star for these reasons)
But if you want to print out more than 30 pages at once,
it just throw up papers without printing anything.
I think it's because printer gets hot after printing 30 pages.
If you print 10 pages and let the printer have time to cool down like 10 or 20 seconds, it will print out very clearly without problem.

This printer is wonderful. After going through many HP inkjet printers, I was tired of the ink costs and the bad reliability. With printers like the Brother 2040, laser printers will enter the home more and more. With the price of toner on amazon (43 dollars, 2500 prints) laser printers are extremely economical.

Print Quality: The print quality (of course this is monochrome, so I am referring to text) is much better than a similarly priced ink jet (or at least the 10-15 ink jet models I have seen). The text is very sharp, and comes out of the printer dry.

Ease of Use: The printer works perfectly with OS X. I am sure it works just as well with Windows XP, as most printers do. When not printing, and after printing, the lights on the printer turn off into a 'sleep mode'. This mode is automatic, power saving, quiet, and convenient. There is a switch on the side to fully power down the printer.

Size: It is not much larger than most ink jet printers. What more could you ask for?

'Paper bending issue': Look at it this way, the paper comes out of the printer warm. If you pick it up and move it around warm it will bend a little (but not to the point that it is unusable). Just leave it on the printer until it cools. This 10 seconds of cooling (if straight paper is really important) is made up by... 1) It prints very fast 2) 250 sheet paper tray... change paper less 3) 2500 prints per toner cartridge --> less toner changes

There is a reason that I will never print documents with an ink jet printer- that reason is the Brother 2040. This printer makes laser printing convenient for a consumer.

Highly recommended, 5 stars.

This laser printer puts out high quality text documents and decent prints of pictures. Setup was very easy and quick. The printer driver disc is included with the printer.
Very satisfied with this purchase after more than 3 months.

This printer is working quite well for me. Sure it doesn't do color, but it is really fast. I was impressed that it really doesn't take hardly any time to warm up. If you do the math, this printer is much cheaper than any ink jet you will find. It is a great printer for home if you just want to print black and white and are not printing in bulk. You might want to check out other laser printers if you are printing many reams of paper. If you don't print much, this is a great price. If you do, other laser printers will be cheaper over the long run because of toner and drum costs.

Good solid printer. No problems as of ~200 printed pages. Does suck up a lot of current (lights dim in room when printer works). However is very fast and has good resolution.

This printer, prints very well. Quality is amazing and I have had very few glitches setting it up in my home. I use it as a shared printer on a network which can be buggy but its not the printers fault. Highly recommended.

I bought this printer recently. Installed this baby in no time. So far it's great. Very reliable(should be since it's new) and nothing to complain about. You can't go wrong buying this printer under 100 bucks.


I bought this printer looking for a cost-saving, economical printing solution. That is what I got....The printer does not have a lot of noise unlike some brands. Its a good purchase.

The HL-2040 was purchased at good price with no shipping charge. It is working fine. Next test is performance with Refab toner cartridge. If good, cost of printing will go down to acceptable level.

Everything is great about this little printer, especially the price, but don't buy this printer if you want to print envelopes from WordPerfect. The online 'help' and e-mail 'help' is as terrible as any. I can print envelopes from Microsoft Word, but not from WordPerfect.

I've had this printer in my office for two years now. It's a work horse, and I print constantly - sometimes very large reports. It's a fast, quiet printer. I just put in my first toner cartridge after all that printing. I recently bought another HL-2040 for my home. It will replace my Dell color printer, since I rarely use color. The price at Amazon couldn't be beat by any other store or website. I paid much more for the two-year-old printer in my office than for this new one.

I had an old HP 920c that worked very well for the past 4 years. My problem was the I never used it. I just printed out boarding passes, occasional jokes and my taxes. Then It stopped working, Said the black ink was low, I refilled the inkjet, still said low, I bought another ink supply and still said low. A salesman said that is how things go and just replace it. I used a laser printer in a pharmacy that was going all day long so I decided to go that route. (no ink or jets to dry out)I researched this machine, ordered it and got it in 4 days,Easy to set up, works in 30 seconds and my old 20 pound paper worked very well, a slight curl.(almost not noticable, you could probably flatten then with a book) So at this point; for the very infrequent user, This machine is perfect.

Great printer, small price. Took 2 minutes to install and get everything up and running. I am really happy with it.
The print quality is definitely great for home use. BTW, mine is rather quiet and it prints really fast. (I use USB connection)

Great home printer. And the delivery time was awesome - I ordered it in the afternoon, and it arrived the next day in the afternoon. This was supposed to be 3-5 business days.

I am very pleased with our purchase of the Brother HL-2040. It is great for home use. It operates quietly and the printed pages look great. It's a simple printer that works well. It is a compact unit that can fit into small spaces as well.

Started out printing far too light -- secretary I gave this to was deeply disappointed, and our letters couldn't be sent out. Adjusted it to print darker using "advanced" options, but the printer began printing dark smudges at top & bottom of page. It's simply a dud. salesman in Staples says this particular model has been getting a higher rate of reported problems than others -- his personal experience -- and I sure believe him. Buy another model.

Overall a good printer. Especially good if you just need it to print things you are going to read or use. If you neeed professional quality, the curling of the pages may be a problem.

This is an excellent printer. It's inexpensive, doesn't guzzle toner, quiet, fast, and makes clear prints. What more could you ask for? Easily the best value for the money in small laser printers.

If you're looking for an inexpensive printer that's easy to set up, this is the way to go. I wasn't interested in color so I have had this printer for a couple of weeks and it does the job quickly.

So far, so good.

this printer is GREAT! if you want a no hassle "set-up and go", and keep on going, B/W printer, this is it. this is THE best printer I have owned or used.
true - it is B/W printer only ~ no scanner or other "stuff" attached, but most of the "dump screen", or print for later reference i use B/W. did you know that most color printers still use the color cartridges for B/W printing!?!? why?

anyway, it is quiet, always ready, very large ink cartridge(i think 1,500 pages!!), no stops, paper jams, or lights flashing telling you "yellow ink is LOW, so i will not print until it is replaced"(even though it is B/W you want to print), self setting smart adjustments so you get the best settings for what your printing ~ not 4 pages that each contain a section of what you wanted printed.

even if it broke, i would buy another one from Amazon immediately! it is very inexpensive, and I have another color printer with all the bells and whistles, i got from Amazon, to do the color, faxing, scanning, copying and ink cartridge purchasing for.
well, i could go on & on about mr. reliable (the Brother hl-2040), but i think you got the drift
paul

note: B/W in this review = monochrome printing

Very pleased with the size and capability of this unit. It takes up little space and prints very clearly while giving you many pages per minute. I have never counted to see if the the 20ppm is correct but it is very quick. It holds enough paper in the paper tray and in my opinion is a must buy for the $90 currently on Amazon. I have not yet replaced the laser cartridge as in the past on my inkjet printer which seemed to eat cartridges.

After 3 reams of paper, the included toner ran out.
Pretty shocking. I guess Brother has figured out how to tap into the cash cow of inkjet printing.

This laser printer is fast. It is however quite noisy. The printer pages curl quite a bit. For the price, it is a good economical mono laser printer. The replacement off-brand cartridges are inexpensive compared to other laser printers. Overall, I recommend this printer.

Be careful generally with laser printers when replacing the toner in a bright room. The very first time I replaced the toner on my Brother HL-2040, I think I damaged the drum unit. There was no warning anywhere on the toner replacement instructions that come with the new toner, nor was there any warning instructions on the Quick Start instructions. However, I replaced the toner in a bright room, and from then on every printout had "toner specs" (go see Brother's` website ..look up the toner specs question in FAQ)
I wish there was more warning about replacing the toner in a bright room. There wasn't even any direct sunlight at all! Perhaps it is best to replace toner at night.

If it can print double sides automatically, it will be ranked as 5 stars. Anyway, it's indeed a really nice printer.

This product really helps me with all the printing that I do at school. It doesn't run out of ink quickly and the speed at which it prints is amazing. It's a quick print then run to class.

GREAT PRODUCT!

Easy installation, works great, no problems so far, a little slow to warm up but super fast printing especially when many pages are needed. Highly recommended because it saves me a lot of money because I now only use my inkjet printer for color, photos, and very detailed prints. The savings comes from the price of a black laserjet toner cartridge for 2500 pages verses the price of a black inkjet cartridge for less than 500 pages. It "pays for itself" very quickly.

Great laser printer for the money. Fast and crisp prints. Highly recommend! Works great on a Mac!

I haven't had this printer for more than a month, but it's a great printer, and a fantastic value. I highly recommend it.

Got this printer for my home because I find color printers never work for me after they use up their first cartridges. Prints well -- but it does smell a bit after printing and the lights flicker in my dinky apartment when printing (as mentioned in another review). If it's on sale, buy it, you won't lose.

I got tired on replacing expensive ink cartridges in my Epson printer, the black jet just stopped working, Epson was NO help, so I bought this printer.

Price was great, speed is fine, copies are great, I received it in like 2 or 3 days so I'm happy!

The Brother HL-2040 is a very good printer for the money. Prints fast and easy to use.

. Before buying my HL-2040 I read other people's reviews and thought I'd have a few problems to put up with for the sake of the low price of this product. Not so. After three months of use it hasn't once made the room lights flicker. Page curl I sometimes notice but it's slight if it's there at all.
. And as for noise, the printer is usually in sleep mode and makes none (it goes into sleep mode for power saving about five minutes after starting up or printing, and I don't print that much, only 770 pages in 3 months). During startup and while actually printing there is a roaring sound but it's fairly low decibel white noise and not disturbing to me, even though the printer is only two feet away.
. No need for toner or drum replacement yet. The "Print Settings" printout says I have 93.5% remaining life of the drum, which predicts a drum life of almost 12,000 pages. Toner consumption should be low because the default values in Printing Preferences-Advanced are set to 300dpi Resolution and Toner Save Mode ON. The results with these settings are just fine for most of what I print.
. I didn't install the software from the setup cd-rom that came with the printer, so no comment on it. Because my OS is Windows XP Pro x64, I had to download a special printer driver from the Brother website, and it does its job without problems.
. So, I have no complaints with the HL-2040 and plenty of praise for its low cost, print quality and printing speed.

Bought this at Fry's reconditioned for $49. Cartridge finally went out after 6 months, but was easy to replace and much cheaper to find than many of the "TOP Name brands". Cartridge is also refillable for the adventurous. HINT DO refill OUTSIDE WHEN YOUR WIFE OR HUSBAND (the neat freak) is not around.

I only use B/W ..make simple forms and print letters. Ordered on Saturday - came on Tuesday. (thanks all!) It took all of about 3min to connected with my iMac, as the HP inkjet's USB cable worked. Prints quite fast .. good .. crisp. It's louder than the inkjet but runs only a few times a day.

The only Negative is that the paper is not flat when done, but I read that here before I ordered it, and for under $100 - what's to worry?!

Jim

I've only had this printer for 2 weeks. The print quality is good, but obviously I can't speak about durability yet.

I have found one thing about it that annoys me. I keep my printer in another room and only connect my laptop when I need to print something. Last time I printed, I ran out of paper before the last page of a document printed, and I didn't notice. Well, four days later I realized that the printer was still making noise (not in sleep mode). It refused to 'sleep' until it was done printing, so the thing was sitting there running for days until I noticed. Probably not a problem for most people who use the printer more often. I hope this incident hasn't caused any unnecessary wear on my new printer.

I thought I had a bargain here. It prints well and relatively quickly -- at least with regular sized paper. It's also cheap, considering the price of toner. Tray design is good, does not let in dust, although seems to take less paper than our previous Brother printer.
Several problems have emerged with use at our small office.
1) The manual envelope feeding thing on the front is loose and flimsy and frustrating to use. The width of the feeder tabs does not stay in place. This was not a problem with our previous Brother printer, the HL-1020.
2) Three people bought this model in our office. Two of the printers print a ghost image on envelopes, and one has started to ghost on regular sized paper. This last one alone makes us seriously consider a return.
3) Very light, flimsy, plasticky feel to the machine and all its parts; I'm expecting the main paper-catcher to break off any day now.
4) This was addressed in other reviews: excessive curling of paper and envelopes due to heat. Curling does go away after some time.
5) The fact that it comes with no printer cables. Luckily, we're replacing old Brother printers connected to our network so we didn't have to buy the cable by itself at extra charge.
We had a choice of this or the leading HP printer. Mostly because we had Brother printers from before, to ensure compatibility with our extant printer network, we went with this one. I'm taking off one star for each of this printer in the office which has disappointed us. In the future, as my corny officemate says, "We won't even Brother."

I have to admit I used to hate Brother's products.
Very upset when my wife came home with this printer, especially after I had already ordered HP 1020 (which I returned a week later).
It is everything that a printer in this price range should be.
Pros: Prints first page in ~ 5 sec after waking up from power safe. Acceptable gradients and great text quality. No paper curls. Haven't had a paper jam - ever. Decent multi-page speeds. I've printed everything on it, from transparencies and stickers, to 200 grams heavy stock. Easily refillable toner. Linux ready, tried it in both Fedore 5 and openSuSe.
Cons: Image drum, the price of which makes it smarter to just buy another OF THE SAME printers.
Other: No printer that I have purchased in the past 6 years had come with an USB cable, I did expect it (my local Longs drug store has them for $7.99).

Before I owned this printer I used inkjet printers. I became weary of replacing costly inkjet cartridges; I tried third party replacement inkjet cartridges and some did not work. So I purchased this printer to use with my Mac. The installation was easy and it has worked great since the installation -- and many pages later, I am still using the cartridge that came with the printer. This printer is a winner! Highly recommended!

This printer functions quite well, easy to set up and operate, but don't expect to use it in a busy office.

I would never recommend this printer.

We bought three of these for a school where we worked and all three had quality print issues. They ghost-printed the top of the page onto the middle and bottom. Even after we bought new cartridges, the same problem occurred.

I personally have a Brother HL-1440, which is a great printer, so I thought these would be just as good. I was embarrassed when my strong recommendation turned out so bad.

I bought this printer based on recommendations of others. I am not a heavy user, so assumed that in spite of the lower price, it would do what I needed it to do. The paper did curl after being printed and took a while to uncurl. Then . . . one day, out of the blue it printed about 20 blank pages and now will not allow me to print anything -- the paper jams immediately and in spite of following the very detailed instructions on Brother's website it will not work. After checking with Brother about a warranty I was informed that there was a 30 day replacement policy. DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER. Not worth the aggravation.

It is an excellent printer so far. I use it to print my incoming internet orders and it couldn't be better. You can't beat the price for laser.

this is my first Brother printer and first laser printer. was very easy to set up and so far no problems. I had a cartridge ink refill printer before this and was always running out of ink and I didn't print alot. I have only had this Brother laser printer since April 2007. I will come back and review again in a couple of months.

I bought this printer for college classes - it prints papers quickly and the ink lasts a long time. My dad owns one of these printers as well, and we haven't had to replace our toner for the past 6 months. Two downsides: it's bulky (what printers aren't, though?), and loud when printing. If you have some desk space to give up and don't mind a little warm-up noise, this is definitely the right printer.

We use several of these printers for our office. Since we decided to standardize on one printer to save on inventory and parts replacement. They have held up well so far, although two are flashing "drum replacement" they still are working. Satisfied with the performance as far as speed and print quality. Initially the print cartridge does not carry much stuff. Once you replace the cartridge you can get several thousand copies out of it..
Not a bad printer for the price...

I love this printer. It's my second Brother Laserprinter, only because buying a new drum is more expensive than a new printer (what a waste). It's great, but really needs a bigger paper tray, or two paper trays. It's not as loud as people say.

This printer causes voltage drop problems at my office. It turns out that a person in another office put a UPS on his computer and it regularly started beeping. The electricians came out and tracked the problem down to a voltage drop caused whenever the heating element came on.

While it is a nice printer and a good value --- the voltage drop caused great problems in the workplace.

I needed an inexpensive printer to connect to my home server. This printer is used as a netwoked printer for the entire family. This printers has been an excellent choice. I have experienced paper curl but nothing that was more than just a minor distraction. This is a good personal printer for the home, not the expensive networked printer you're use to at work. As long as you keep that in kind, you can't beat it for the price.

Being a very busy student myself, there's definitely a lot of paper activity when it comes to using this printer, and so far there have been no problems whatsoever. It's very simple to use and it doesn't take a million years to sift through instructions or procedures to get it running.

When you plug in the USB cable into the computer (I have a Mac), the only thing you have to do is make sure the computer is connected to the printer and you're ready to go. Speaking of "ready" the Ready/Go button is only button you have to push to turn it on (and pretty much the only button on the whole printer). In a few quick seconds the printer is done loading (or in other words making those interesting "whurring" sounds). That's the thing I've loved most about this printer: how fast it is. Even the printing of documents is done lickety-split (Well duh, it is a laser printer).

Unlike its HP counterparts, there's no connection problems. If you frequently unplug an HP printer from the computer, the HP goes on the fritz and documents get backed up. With the Brother HL this is no problem at all. It makes printer technology very simple: If the blinking light is off, it's off. If the light is on, well.. you get the picture. It even conserves energy by automatically turning off after 10 minutes of unuse. Other printers would waste energy by being left on the whole day.

So, so far I've been very satisfied with buying this printer. I hope other consumers won't resort to the free HP printers that come with the purchase of PCs (there's a reason they're free), because they will quickly disappoint.

I bought this printer for the express purpose of printing 100-page handouts for an anger management class I teach. I've had no problems whatsoever with this printer. It seems very fast, I've never had a paper jam or paper curling. I've not counted copies from the toner cartridges, but I've printed a lot of pages without replacement. After the rebate it was about $[...], so well worth the price. No problems installing with my Windows based OS.

I bought this to replace the aging bubble-jet printer that smeared everything it printed.

I bought this one just because of its very low price. It never breaks down and every print job looks sharp and professional.

The only thing keeping this printer from getting 5 stars is that the toner and drum almost cost as much as the printer itself. We don't do much printing in my house, so I doubt we'd ever need to replace either part.

I bought this printer from another site for about $60 and i have to say it is the best $60 i ever spent. Right after i got it i had to print out a 300 page document, clicked print and it was FAST and crisp. LPT and USB ports are a great addition, great way to free up a USB port or connect both a laptop and desktop. Theres only 2 cons i can see, one of them is the same with all laser printers: expensive toner and drum, but its still cheaper than replacing the ink carts. The other is that it pulls alot of power (while printing) and outputs alot of heat. If all you need is a monochrome laser printer then get this now! Brother is a quality name, and you get a quality product with great tech support (yea, i got mine refurbished, it messed up, all i had to do was call their support people, go though routing procedural diagnosis, and they shipped me a new one and i sent back my old one in a prepaid box)

"Not for DOS printing? So what!" For the very few of us in this world stuck using some stone-age software based on DOS like me (local swim team still using a DOS based Paradox database), this one doesn't work. Digging deep into the Brother Support website confirms this fact (of course I didn't check prior to the purchase...shame on me I guess). Purchased because it is one of the few printers still having a parallel port and it's exceptional price for a laser printer (oh yea, and the decent reviews in here). Printed fine via Windows (some page curl as others mentioned), but only used for a day before I realized it would need to be returned.

Returning this one and will buy the Brother 2070N which indeed still supports DOS print commands.

It was time to replce my 15 year old laser printer and this one is quieter, faster, and puts out a better copy. Hopefully it will last until I buy another one in the year 2022.

Pros
1 very few problems
2 very good prints
Cons
1 paper curl is bad (try several different papers)
2 bypass / manual feed paper is a bad design. Hard to get a straight feed
3 Brother support is essentially worthless
4 voltage draw is noticeable

I replaced toner cartridge with an after market one and that was a mistake. Buy the OEM cartridge and it works perfectly

I've owned this printer for a couple of months and use it fairly heavily for a home-based business. Simple to set up and use, it's faster than previous versions, the print quality is excellent, and the unit's price was less than I expected. This is my fourth Brother laser printer. They generally last me three years or so, and each replacement model's a little faster, cheaper, and better than the last. Highly recommended.

I've owned this printer for a couple of months and use it fairly heavily for a home-based business. Simple to set up and use, it's faster than previous versions, the print quality is excellent, and the unit's price was less than I expected. This is my fourth Brother laser printer. They generally last me three years or so, and each replacement model's a little faster, cheaper, and better than the last. Highly recommended.

Pros
1 very few problems
2 very good prints
Cons
1 paper curl is bad (try several different papers)
2 bypass / manual feed paper is a bad design. Hard to get a straight feed
3 Brother support is essentially worthless
4 voltage draw is noticeable

I replaced toner cartridge with an after market one and that was a mistake. Buy the OEM cartridge and it works perfectly

It was time to replce my 15 year old laser printer and this one is quieter, faster, and puts out a better copy. Hopefully it will last until I buy another one in the year 2022.

"Not for DOS printing? So what!" For the very few of us in this world stuck using some stone-age software based on DOS like me (local swim team still using a DOS based Paradox database), this one doesn't work. Digging deep into the Brother Support website confirms this fact (of course I didn't check prior to the purchase...shame on me I guess). Purchased because it is one of the few printers still having a parallel port and it's exceptional price for a laser printer (oh yea, and the decent reviews in here). Printed fine via Windows (some page curl as others mentioned), but only used for a day before I realized it would need to be returned.

Returning this one and will buy the Brother 2070N which indeed still supports DOS print commands.

I bought this printer from another site for about $60 and i have to say it is the best $60 i ever spent. Right after i got it i had to print out a 300 page document, clicked print and it was FAST and crisp. LPT and USB ports are a great addition, great way to free up a USB port or connect both a laptop and desktop. Theres only 2 cons i can see, one of them is the same with all laser printers: expensive toner and drum, but its still cheaper than replacing the ink carts. The other is that it pulls alot of power (while printing) and outputs alot of heat. If all you need is a monochrome laser printer then get this now! Brother is a quality name, and you get a quality product with great tech support (yea, i got mine refurbished, it messed up, all i had to do was call their support people, go though routing procedural diagnosis, and they shipped me a new one and i sent back my old one in a prepaid box)

I bought this printer for the express purpose of printing 100-page handouts for an anger management class I teach. I've had no problems whatsoever with this printer. It seems very fast, I've never had a paper jam or paper curling. I've not counted copies from the toner cartridges, but I've printed a lot of pages without replacement. After the rebate it was about $[...], so well worth the price. No problems installing with my Windows based OS.

I bought this to replace the aging bubble-jet printer that smeared everything it printed.

I bought this one just because of its very low price. It never breaks down and every print job looks sharp and professional.

The only thing keeping this printer from getting 5 stars is that the toner and drum almost cost as much as the printer itself. We don't do much printing in my house, so I doubt we'd ever need to replace either part.

This printer causes voltage drop problems at my office. It turns out that a person in another office put a UPS on his computer and it regularly started beeping. The electricians came out and tracked the problem down to a voltage drop caused whenever the heating element came on.

While it is a nice printer and a good value --- the voltage drop caused great problems in the workplace.

I needed an inexpensive printer to connect to my home server. This printer is used as a netwoked printer for the entire family. This printers has been an excellent choice. I have experienced paper curl but nothing that was more than just a minor distraction. This is a good personal printer for the home, not the expensive networked printer you're use to at work. As long as you keep that in kind, you can't beat it for the price.

Being a very busy student myself, there's definitely a lot of paper activity when it comes to using this printer, and so far there have been no problems whatsoever. It's very simple to use and it doesn't take a million years to sift through instructions or procedures to get it running.

When you plug in the USB cable into the computer (I have a Mac), the only thing you have to do is make sure the computer is connected to the printer and you're ready to go. Speaking of "ready" the Ready/Go button is only button you have to push to turn it on (and pretty much the only button on the whole printer). In a few quick seconds the printer is done loading (or in other words making those interesting "whurring" sounds). That's the thing I've loved most about this printer: how fast it is. Even the printing of documents is done lickety-split (Well duh, it is a laser printer).

Unlike its HP counterparts, there's no connection problems. If you frequently unplug an HP printer from the computer, the HP goes on the fritz and documents get backed up. With the Brother HL this is no problem at all. It makes printer technology very simple: If the blinking light is off, it's off. If the light is on, well.. you get the picture. It even conserves energy by automatically turning off after 10 minutes of unuse. Other printers would waste energy by being left on the whole day.

So, so far I've been very satisfied with buying this printer. I hope other consumers won't resort to the free HP printers that come with the purchase of PCs (there's a reason they're free), because they will quickly disappoint.

I love this printer. It's my second Brother Laserprinter, only because buying a new drum is more expensive than a new printer (what a waste). It's great, but really needs a bigger paper tray, or two paper trays. It's not as loud as people say.

I bought this printer for college classes - it prints papers quickly and the ink lasts a long time. My dad owns one of these printers as well, and we haven't had to replace our toner for the past 6 months. Two downsides: it's bulky (what printers aren't, though?), and loud when printing. If you have some desk space to give up and don't mind a little warm-up noise, this is definitely the right printer.

We use several of these printers for our office. Since we decided to standardize on one printer to save on inventory and parts replacement. They have held up well so far, although two are flashing "drum replacement" they still are working. Satisfied with the performance as far as speed and print quality. Initially the print cartridge does not carry much stuff. Once you replace the cartridge you can get several thousand copies out of it..
Not a bad printer for the price...

this is my first Brother printer and first laser printer. was very easy to set up and so far no problems. I had a cartridge ink refill printer before this and was always running out of ink and I didn't print alot. I have only had this Brother laser printer since April 2007. I will come back and review again in a couple of months.

It is an excellent printer so far. I use it to print my incoming internet orders and it couldn't be better. You can't beat the price for laser.

This printer functions quite well, easy to set up and operate, but don't expect to use it in a busy office.

I would never recommend this printer.

We bought three of these for a school where we worked and all three had quality print issues. They ghost-printed the top of the page onto the middle and bottom. Even after we bought new cartridges, the same problem occurred.

I personally have a Brother HL-1440, which is a great printer, so I thought these would be just as good. I was embarrassed when my strong recommendation turned out so bad.

I bought this printer based on recommendations of others. I am not a heavy user, so assumed that in spite of the lower price, it would do what I needed it to do. The paper did curl after being printed and took a while to uncurl. Then . . . one day, out of the blue it printed about 20 blank pages and now will not allow me to print anything -- the paper jams immediately and in spite of following the very detailed instructions on Brother's website it will not work. After checking with Brother about a warranty I was informed that there was a 30 day replacement policy. DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER. Not worth the aggravation.

Before I owned this printer I used inkjet printers. I became weary of replacing costly inkjet cartridges; I tried third party replacement inkjet cartridges and some did not work. So I purchased this printer to use with my Mac. The installation was easy and it has worked great since the installation -- and many pages later, I am still using the cartridge that came with the printer. This printer is a winner! Highly recommended!

I have to admit I used to hate Brother's products.
Very upset when my wife came home with this printer, especially after I had already ordered HP 1020 (which I returned a week later).
It is everything that a printer in this price range should be.
Pros: Prints first page in ~ 5 sec after waking up from power safe. Acceptable gradients and great text quality. No paper curls. Haven't had a paper jam - ever. Decent multi-page speeds. I've printed everything on it, from transparencies and stickers, to 200 grams heavy stock. Easily refillable toner. Linux ready, tried it in both Fedore 5 and openSuSe.
Cons: Image drum, the price of which makes it smarter to just buy another OF THE SAME printers.
Other: No printer that I have purchased in the past 6 years had come with an USB cable, I did expect it (my local Longs drug store has them for $7.99).

I thought I had a bargain here. It prints well and relatively quickly -- at least with regular sized paper. It's also cheap, considering the price of toner. Tray design is good, does not let in dust, although seems to take less paper than our previous Brother printer.
Several problems have emerged with use at our small office.
1) The manual envelope feeding thing on the front is loose and flimsy and frustrating to use. The width of the feeder tabs does not stay in place. This was not a problem with our previous Brother printer, the HL-1020.
2) Three people bought this model in our office. Two of the printers print a ghost image on envelopes, and one has started to ghost on regular sized paper. This last one alone makes us seriously consider a return.
3) Very light, flimsy, plasticky feel to the machine and all its parts; I'm expecting the main paper-catcher to break off any day now.
4) This was addressed in other reviews: excessive curling of paper and envelopes due to heat. Curling does go away after some time.
5) The fact that it comes with no printer cables. Luckily, we're replacing old Brother printers connected to our network so we didn't have to buy the cable by itself at extra charge.
We had a choice of this or the leading HP printer. Mostly because we had Brother printers from before, to ensure compatibility with our extant printer network, we went with this one. I'm taking off one star for each of this printer in the office which has disappointed us. In the future, as my corny officemate says, "We won't even Brother."

I've only had this printer for 2 weeks. The print quality is good, but obviously I can't speak about durability yet.

I have found one thing about it that annoys me. I keep my printer in another room and only connect my laptop when I need to print something. Last time I printed, I ran out of paper before the last page of a document printed, and I didn't notice. Well, four days later I realized that the printer was still making noise (not in sleep mode). It refused to 'sleep' until it was done printing, so the thing was sitting there running for days until I noticed. Probably not a problem for most people who use the printer more often. I hope this incident hasn't caused any unnecessary wear on my new printer.

. Before buying my HL-2040 I read other people's reviews and thought I'd have a few problems to put up with for the sake of the low price of this product. Not so. After three months of use it hasn't once made the room lights flicker. Page curl I sometimes notice but it's slight if it's there at all.
. And as for noise, the printer is usually in sleep mode and makes none (it goes into sleep mode for power saving about five minutes after starting up or printing, and I don't print that much, only 770 pages in 3 months). During startup and while actually printing there is a roaring sound but it's fairly low decibel white noise and not disturbing to me, even though the printer is only two feet away.
. No need for toner or drum replacement yet. The "Print Settings" printout says I have 93.5% remaining life of the drum, which predicts a drum life of almost 12,000 pages. Toner consumption should be low because the default values in Printing Preferences-Advanced are set to 300dpi Resolution and Toner Save Mode ON. The results with these settings are just fine for most of what I print.
. I didn't install the software from the setup cd-rom that came with the printer, so no comment on it. Because my OS is Windows XP Pro x64, I had to download a special printer driver from the Brother website, and it does its job without problems.
. So, I have no complaints with the HL-2040 and plenty of praise for its low cost, print quality and printing speed.

Bought this at Fry's reconditioned for $49. Cartridge finally went out after 6 months, but was easy to replace and much cheaper to find than many of the "TOP Name brands". Cartridge is also refillable for the adventurous. HINT DO refill OUTSIDE WHEN YOUR WIFE OR HUSBAND (the neat freak) is not around.

I only use B/W ..make simple forms and print letters. Ordered on Saturday - came on Tuesday. (thanks all!) It took all of about 3min to connected with my iMac, as the HP inkjet's USB cable worked. Prints quite fast .. good .. crisp. It's louder than the inkjet but runs only a few times a day.

The only Negative is that the paper is not flat when done, but I read that here before I ordered it, and for under $100 - what's to worry?!

Jim

Great laser printer for the money. Fast and crisp prints. Highly recommend! Works great on a Mac!

I haven't had this printer for more than a month, but it's a great printer, and a fantastic value. I highly recommend it.

Got this printer for my home because I find color printers never work for me after they use up their first cartridges. Prints well -- but it does smell a bit after printing and the lights flicker in my dinky apartment when printing (as mentioned in another review). If it's on sale, buy it, you won't lose.

I got tired on replacing expensive ink cartridges in my Epson printer, the black jet just stopped working, Epson was NO help, so I bought this printer.

Price was great, speed is fine, copies are great, I received it in like 2 or 3 days so I'm happy!

The Brother HL-2040 is a very good printer for the money. Prints fast and easy to use.

Be careful generally with laser printers when replacing the toner in a bright room. The very first time I replaced the toner on my Brother HL-2040, I think I damaged the drum unit. There was no warning anywhere on the toner replacement instructions that come with the new toner, nor was there any warning instructions on the Quick Start instructions. However, I replaced the toner in a bright room, and from then on every printout had "toner specs" (go see Brother's` website ..look up the toner specs question in FAQ)
I wish there was more warning about replacing the toner in a bright room. There wasn't even any direct sunlight at all! Perhaps it is best to replace toner at night.

If it can print double sides automatically, it will be ranked as 5 stars. Anyway, it's indeed a really nice printer.

This product really helps me with all the printing that I do at school. It doesn't run out of ink quickly and the speed at which it prints is amazing. It's a quick print then run to class.

GREAT PRODUCT!

Easy installation, works great, no problems so far, a little slow to warm up but super fast printing especially when many pages are needed. Highly recommended because it saves me a lot of money because I now only use my inkjet printer for color, photos, and very detailed prints. The savings comes from the price of a black laserjet toner cartridge for 2500 pages verses the price of a black inkjet cartridge for less than 500 pages. It "pays for itself" very quickly.

This laser printer is fast. It is however quite noisy. The printer pages curl quite a bit. For the price, it is a good economical mono laser printer. The replacement off-brand cartridges are inexpensive compared to other laser printers. Overall, I recommend this printer.

What a great deal!!!! I was spending $40 - $50 bucks every few months for toner for my old printer. Now not only has the print speed and quality increased but the spending for toner has stopped. A cartridge may cost a little more but the 2500 sheets it prints is 5 times more than the old lexmark printer.

i read all the amazon reviews before buying this printer, and shopped around for a good deal. i got that with the Brother printer, with a [...], so my total price was about $69.00 plus about $6 for the cable. It prints pretty fast, the quality is good. It's not that loud. The only thing I notice screwy about it is when I print a stack of pages on one side, then put them back in the tray so I can print on the other side (to conserve paper), occasionally the printer grabs 2 sheets instead of one, or prints half on one sheet and half on the other. This has happened twice so far. It's possible I need to let the printed pages sit for 5 minutes before sticking them back in the tray, I don't know.

Other than that, so far so good.

Pro. Print quality is good.

Con. Paper curls after printing. Paper guides in the manual feed slot do not hold the heavy paper or labels in place, causing paper or labels to feed at an angle.

I bought this laser printer recently after trying many ink jets. This printer is great.. It works very well with every kind of copy paper. It even prints well on the low quality papers. I like it..

This has been a nice printer so far. I purchased it just over a year ago when our inkjet stopped working. The printer is quick, prints nicely, and I replaced the ink for the first time just last week. I am a graduate student and do a fair amount of printing, maybe around 20 pages per day on average (some days it's 100 and other days none). My husband also prints but not as often. I bought this on sale with a rebate, making the total cost about $[...]. It's well worth it.
Other reviews comment that the paper curls a little after printing. I notice a little of this but it is really negligble.

Very pleased with the size and capability of this unit. It takes up little space and prints very clearly while giving you many pages per minute. I have never counted to see if the the 20ppm is correct but it is very quick. It holds enough paper in the paper tray and in my opinion is a must buy for the $90 currently on Amazon. I have not yet replaced the laser cartridge as in the past on my inkjet printer which seemed to eat cartridges.

After 3 reams of paper, the included toner ran out.
Pretty shocking. I guess Brother has figured out how to tap into the cash cow of inkjet printing.

If you're looking for an inexpensive printer that's easy to set up, this is the way to go. I wasn't interested in color so I have had this printer for a couple of weeks and it does the job quickly.

So far, so good.

this printer is GREAT! if you want a no hassle "set-up and go", and keep on going, B/W printer, this is it. this is THE best printer I have owned or used.
true - it is B/W printer only ~ no scanner or other "stuff" attached, but most of the "dump screen", or print for later reference i use B/W. did you know that most color printers still use the color cartridges for B/W printing!?!? why?

anyway, it is quiet, always ready, very large ink cartridge(i think 1,500 pages!!), no stops, paper jams, or lights flashing telling you "yellow ink is LOW, so i will not print until it is replaced"(even though it is B/W you want to print), self setting smart adjustments so you get the best settings for what your printing ~ not 4 pages that each contain a section of what you wanted printed.

even if it broke, i would buy another one from Amazon immediately! it is very inexpensive, and I have another color printer with all the bells and whistles, i got from Amazon, to do the color, faxing, scanning, copying and ink cartridge purchasing for.
well, i could go on & on about mr. reliable (the Brother hl-2040), but i think you got the drift
paul

note: B/W in this review = monochrome printing

This is an excellent printer. It's inexpensive, doesn't guzzle toner, quiet, fast, and makes clear prints. What more could you ask for? Easily the best value for the money in small laser printers.

Great printer, small price. Took 2 minutes to install and get everything up and running. I am really happy with it.
The print quality is definitely great for home use. BTW, mine is rather quiet and it prints really fast. (I use USB connection)

Great home printer. And the delivery time was awesome - I ordered it in the afternoon, and it arrived the next day in the afternoon. This was supposed to be 3-5 business days.

I am very pleased with our purchase of the Brother HL-2040. It is great for home use. It operates quietly and the printed pages look great. It's a simple printer that works well. It is a compact unit that can fit into small spaces as well.

Started out printing far too light -- secretary I gave this to was deeply disappointed, and our letters couldn't be sent out. Adjusted it to print darker using "advanced" options, but the printer began printing dark smudges at top & bottom of page. It's simply a dud. salesman in Staples says this particular model has been getting a higher rate of reported problems than others -- his personal experience -- and I sure believe him. Buy another model.

Overall a good printer. Especially good if you just need it to print things you are going to read or use. If you neeed professional quality, the curling of the pages may be a problem.

I bought this printer recently. Installed this baby in no time. So far it's great. Very reliable(should be since it's new) and nothing to complain about. You can't go wrong buying this printer under 100 bucks.

This printer, prints very well. Quality is amazing and I have had very few glitches setting it up in my home. I use it as a shared printer on a network which can be buggy but its not the printers fault. Highly recommended.

Good solid printer. No problems as of ~200 printed pages. Does suck up a lot of current (lights dim in room when printer works). However is very fast and has good resolution.

This printer is working quite well for me. Sure it doesn't do color, but it is really fast. I was impressed that it really doesn't take hardly any time to warm up. If you do the math, this printer is much cheaper than any ink jet you will find. It is a great printer for home if you just want to print black and white and are not printing in bulk. You might want to check out other laser printers if you are printing many reams of paper. If you don't print much, this is a great price. If you do, other laser printers will be cheaper over the long run because of toner and drum costs.

This laser printer puts out high quality text documents and decent prints of pictures. Setup was very easy and quick. The printer driver disc is included with the printer.
Very satisfied with this purchase after more than 3 months.

This printer is wonderful. After going through many HP inkjet printers, I was tired of the ink costs and the bad reliability. With printers like the Brother 2040, laser printers will enter the home more and more. With the price of toner on amazon (43 dollars, 2500 prints) laser printers are extremely economical.

Print Quality: The print quality (of course this is monochrome, so I am referring to text) is much better than a similarly priced ink jet (or at least the 10-15 ink jet models I have seen). The text is very sharp, and comes out of the printer dry.

Ease of Use: The printer works perfectly with OS X. I am sure it works just as well with Windows XP, as most printers do. When not printing, and after printing, the lights on the printer turn off into a 'sleep mode'. This mode is automatic, power saving, quiet, and convenient. There is a switch on the side to fully power down the printer.

Size: It is not much larger than most ink jet printers. What more could you ask for?

'Paper bending issue': Look at it this way, the paper comes out of the printer warm. If you pick it up and move it around warm it will bend a little (but not to the point that it is unusable). Just leave it on the printer until it cools. This 10 seconds of cooling (if straight paper is really important) is made up by... 1) It prints very fast 2) 250 sheet paper tray... change paper less 3) 2500 prints per toner cartridge --> less toner changes

There is a reason that I will never print documents with an ink jet printer- that reason is the Brother 2040. This printer makes laser printing convenient for a consumer.

Highly recommended, 5 stars.

This printer was on sale at offciemax and I bought it. I think I was very lucky. So far I am really satisfied with it. It is easy to install and prints faster than my other printers I have. I was able to put it on my network and every other computers on the network can see it and send documents to it. Thanks to my D-Link router 704-UP. The other thing that I like is the number of pages you can print before you change the toner (up 2500). Well! I don't even print 300/year. I think I am set for many years to come. Overall, it is good printer that I can recommend.

I give 5 stars

Pros:Very fast printer as I timed it at 22 pages a minute. Large 250 sheet paper tray Very easy set-up, prints envelopes, labels etc. no problem. Cons: A bit noisey, sheets tend to curl as with any laser printer. They tell you to use "laser" paper, but regular paper works well. All in all a nice little printer for the desk or home user at a very good price.

This printer is really good.
pretty fast, pretty clear, pretty cheap (five star for these reasons)
But if you want to print out more than 30 pages at once,
it just throw up papers without printing anything.
I think it's because printer gets hot after printing 30 pages.
If you print 10 pages and let the printer have time to cool down like 10 or 20 seconds, it will print out very clearly without problem.

I upgraded from the 1440. To be honest, I'll probably go back to the 1440! Although the 2040 is faster, it is a mess in manual duplex mode, which I use often. It wrinkles the paper, gets the pages out of order, and pulls two pages through at once. I've emailed Brother to complain. This is truly a disappointment in a Brother product!

Very low cost laser printer which is fast and has a good quality.

Use this for low volume home or single user office printing and you will not be disappointed. I use it to print text, expecting high quality graphics from a printer this inexpensive would be foolish. Nonetheless, it is OK in that regard given the price.

The printer is small, which I like, but it does cause some curl in the outputted pages, which is why I didn't give it 5 stars.

Bottom line: Great home laser printer. If you don't need color, get this instead of an inkjet printer.

Brother does a nice job on low end personal laser printers, easily as good or better than Lexmark and HP.

Has anyone tried to print transparencies? I ordered my 2nd HL2040 printer last night and I totally forgot that it had problems printing transparencies. I would love to use this printer for my classroom, however, this won't work for transparencies. SHOULD it? Did I do something wrong? I read the info about Brother HL 2040 online and it CLAIMed that it's able to print on transparencies. Anyhow, the transparency would just get stuck because of the heat, and I found it curled up in the roller! Has anyone tried printing using transparencies before? Please help me!

Sure a laser printer under $100 sounds great but mine had problems from the beginning. It wouldn't feed quite unless entirely full of paper right and in a week later, it stop printing. The light just blinks "paper jam" though there isn't any paper inside the printer.

Yes that's right my Brother HL-2040 printer broke in a little more than a week!!

DO NOT BUY THIS CHEAP PRODUCT. It's shoddy workmanship and bad design. It'll just give you headaches and $80 less out of your pocket. Amazon of course won't give free shipping on this item either so you won't get that money back too even if you return it.



Yes, it draws a lot of current when it's actually printing. But ALL laserjet printers do: it's the nature of the technology, which involves putting fine dust particles on the paper and then melting them in an electric oven.

My point: if you're running a recent-vintage Ubuntu desktop, just plug this printer in, and tell Ubuntu that you have a new printer. It will immediately auto-detect the HL-2040 (it'll call it an HL-2060, but that's close enough). No software installation. No drivers. No fooling around. Amazing!

I just setup this printer tonight and for a picky person, I must admitt I am not disappointed with this printer. The speed is exceptional, the quality is great, and the noise is minimal.

The complaints about noise and paper curling are not something I have encountered with this printer. As for dimming lights during start-up, I have not had that either.

For the price this is a great printer. I will give it time to shown how the toner does compared to what Brothers says, I imagine half of the 2600 copies for the normal cartridge will be closer to what I get.



This is a well made printer, at a very reasonable price. Easy to set up and to use. My only problem was that I plugged it into the voltage regulator that my computer is plugged into, and when the printer was turned on, it flipped the breaker. I called Brother and was informed that the printer pulls a lot of amperage, and should have its own electricaloutlet. In fact, the customer service representative told me it should ideally have a dedicated circuit. That seems a lot to ask. It's working fine now, but my office lights (home office) do dim, whenever I turn it on. I think that's kind of offputting about it, but not enough to return it.

I'm very pleased with the Brother HL-2040. It's fast to warm up & print. I share it on a WIN XP home network among three PCs.


This is the second Brother HL-240 I have purchased, and couldn't be happier with the printer. It's fast and reliable.

I spent some time researching budget laser printers and found the Brother HL-2040 to be the best value. With rebate, its cost rivaled that of many ink jet printers. The print quality and speed and both very good. My only complaint, as mentioned by others, is the fact that the printer slightly curls the paper when printing. If you are thinking about replacing your old and expensive-to-operate ink jet printer, this is a good choice. Your basic ink jet printer will cost an average of 10 cents per b&w copy, whereas this printer will run you 2 cents a copy. I would recommend this printer for light duty home use.

This is a fine printer to buy if your old one dies in the middle of a critical project. The print quality is good, and it's so inexpensive that it will pay for itself quickly -- in the short term. Also, the software permits a "toner saver" mode if you print lots of drafts or stuff for internal use. I did find the power consumption and paper curling issues that other reviewers have noted. But aside from some occasional mishaps doing two-sided copying, I grew to ignore these despite heavy use over a few months.

The HL2040 printer is less attractive after your "starter" toner cartridge runs out. For some of its other printers, like my old HL1240, Brother offers high-yield (6000-page) cartridges. But the cartridge for this printer (TN350) maxes out at 2500 pages. At Amazon's current prices, that comes out to almost 2x the price per page compared to high-yield. Also, the TN350 can be hard to find even at office superstores, so be sure to order some spares online before you need them.

I love love love this printer. I am a college student always printing out papers, and at the end of this school year I still have ~10000 (92%) pages left to print on the drum. It is a little bigger for a desk, but well worth the FAST printing time. And it is a little loud (esp. on the powerup). My only problem was when I broke it trying to fix a paper jam (my bad), and the store just replaced it for me for free.

Try it!!

I love this printer. Although it is louder than my older HP that died, this one is extremely fast. I just printed a 65 page paper in less than five minutes. On my old printer, that would have taken a half-hour. And I like the paper tray. 250 pages allow me to print even the largest job without having to load more paper. So far, I have had no paper jams or misfeeds. Envelopes print very easily. For less than $100 (after rebate), this machine has my whole hearted recommendation.

The printer definitely curls the paper, no matter what quality paper you put into it. I have put the cheapest paper and the best quality resume paper into it, and it curls it all the same. I've found the curling to be bad when it first comes out of the printer, but then straightens out a bit to only a slight bow. If you can live with some curling, it's a wonderful printer.

Has yet to jam from the paper tray (I accidently jammed it when running notecards through and stuck 2 in at a time because I was impacient, but it took 2 seconds to unjam and get back on track). I'll take the blame for user error on that one.

I dinged it a star due to the curling and power usage (it is a power hog), but it definitely isn't a fatal flaw in a cheap laser printer if you know what you are getting.

This was one of the fastest installations I have ever seen. Crazy!

I was going to buy a new drum unit to replace my HL-665 when I looked at the price the HL-2040 was less expensive and had a $[...] rebate to boot. Print quality is excellent. You have to get the manual feeds correct in Word. But, this is an excellent value.




I purchased five of these printers, in brand new condition, for light office use and strangely, all five units died around the same time (~3 months after purchase). All units currently power up but fail to print. Brother's tech support also failed to resolve the issue. As I only paid about 50 dollars for each after rebates, I guess I shouldn't expect much but this printer's high rate of unreliability has forced me to consider other brands.

I bought five Konica-Minolta 1350W printers to replace the faulty Brother 2040s and the Minoltas have been working great since day one with no errors whatsoever. I will no longer purchase any Brother products.

Very nice laser printer. Much smaller and lighter than previous Brother model (HL-1440), plus it has more memory and prints faster. Easy to set up. The advantage over many other personal laser printers on the market is that the HL-2040 has a totally concealed paper tray as well as a feed slot for envelopes, stickers, or manual duplexing. The only two minor gripes that I have are (1) the paper curls a bit when it comes out of the printer and (2) the warm-up/start-up noise is a little irritating. Overall, though, it is a very good value for the money. It's an even better value if you can take advantage of the mail-in rebates that are occasionally available. The HL-2040 is currently #2 on PC World's list of top monochrome laser printers.

wake up very quick, quite fast printing. No problem found yet.

I'm a college student and was looking for a high-quality printer that was cheap and small.

This one is perfect: easy to install and connects via USB to my computer, I don't have to spend lots of money on ink cartridges, and it fits under my bed.


I purchased this printer yesterday. I printed some materials that I could not very well have printed on my old inkjet printer, and so far this Brother is doing well on these tests.

So far so good. But I had a terrible time trying to install the driver on my Mac Power Book G4. The CD that comes with the printer simply would not install the driver on my computer. In fact, trying to use this software disabled my Power Book, and it took the better part of an hour, with the help of Apple Care on the phone, to bring it back to life. Instead of trying to use the supplied CD once more, I was able to download the driver from the Brother website. But even here there were difficulties, because the instructions were confusing and contradictory.

If you have A LOT of patience, go ahead and (try to) install this thing on your computer. If you want peace of mind, you better desist.

This printer has not skipped a beat in the month I've used it.
This is replacing a Konica/Minolta PagePro1350W, which was complete junk.
I'm a Brother user for life!

I bought this for my wife to use at work (she works for a non-profit, so cost is the main issue). I figured for US$87 (refurbished) if it was a mistake, it wouldn't be an expensive one. We already have a Brother 5 in 1 and it's done well, so I wasn't going into this totally blind.

For what it does, print black and white without the expense of ink, it does it really well. My wife hooked it up to her PowerBook, it indicated it needed a driver which installed from the CD no problem, and she started printing. It's fast, makes nice prints, and is relatively small. Some people indicated they had fuser issues right out of the box. Maybe that's why this was a refurb, but no issues in about 900 pages so far.

For $90-$100, it is a great printer. The replacement toner isn't that expensive either, though it doesn't include the drum, but that's rated for 12,000 prints I believe. By then, we'll have gotten our money's worth.

I have only used the printer for two weeks. I bought it to be used with my laptop, and it is unplugged almost all the time. When I need it, it heats up in a matter of seconds (really), and prints extremely fast compared to my inkjet. It has become my printer by default. It is quite solid and easy to maintain. I am an engineer, so I have the habit of performing all the tasks in the manual the first time I open a product, just to make sure everything is in order. This printer will not give you trouble that way. Pages do come out slightly curved, but I guess that depends a lot on the paper used, and the pages settle to a straight plane once they are allowed to cool. I cannot tell you about how long the toner lasts, and certainly nothing about long term reliability, but