Brother HL-5240DN Laser Printer

The Brother HL-5240DN aims a bit higher up the pecking order, and seeks to serve the printing needs of small workgroups with its 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and large, expandable paper capacity. The unit ships with two 250-page paper trays and a 50-sheet multi-purpose tray, and will accommodate a third 250-page paper tray as well. It also includes built-in duplex capability and can print on both sides of a sheet of paper if instructed to do so.

Two paper trays comes standard with the HL5240dn model, and a third will set you back another $135.

This printer comes equipped with an RJ-45 for 10/100 Ethernet access, plus parallel and USB 2.0 ports, as well as 32 MB of RAM (with an additional 144-pin DIMM slot that can handle 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB or 512 MB of RAM). Prices for this printer range from about $190 to $240, but given the unit's capacity, a duplexer, expandable RAM, 30 ppm output and 20,000 pages-per-month duty cycle; you get a lot of printer for the money (and even more if you spend $200 or so on accessories). It's a bit bigger than the HL-2040, with dimensions of 14.6" x 15.1" x 9.7" (37.08cm x 38.35cm x 24.64) and weight of 21.6 lbs (9.8 kg).

Consumables for the HL-5240DN come in several forms. You can purchase a regular toner cartridge that's good for about 3,500 pages for $74, a high-yield cartridge that's good for 7,000 pages for $98 or a drum unit that's good for up to 25,000 pages for $178.

This is a great laser printer for higher-volume users, or for those who wish to make a printer available on the network.