Brother HL-5250DN Network Ready Laser Printer with Duplex
by BROTHER
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Our Price: $649.88 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $148.00 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Brother HL-5250DN Network Ready Laser Printer with Duplex
Customer Review: Works but the paper curling issue is awful.
Summary: 3 Stars
Mac-user here (MacBook Pro), and have been using this printer (duplexing with networking) heavily since early January for our church's printing needs. Here's my view of the pros and cons of this printer:
Pros: The printer and networking is fairly simple to set up. I use a wireless usb print server by D-Link over our network, and it prints fairly quickly.
It is a pretty good workhorse--usually no problems with feed (unless papers curl).
The print quality while not the best is satisfactory for basic small/home office needs.
Duplexing is simple to use for a Mac. Like the other poster said, click print >copies and pages >layout> two-sided. Under this click "long-edged binding" (depending upon your page layout), and duplexing is enabled.
Space-wise this printer is mostly compact for what it produces, and not too noisy. It wakes up from sleep fairly quickly via a wireless router.
Toner replacement is fairly reasonable compared to Lexmark, Canon, etc.
Cons: It would be nice if more pitch-adjustments were available for the Mac. It's important to know what kind of needs you have before purchasing.
Paper curling--this is the deal-breaker for this user. If you are using certain kinds of paper and printing a larger colume, the heat causes the paper to curl and wrinkle the copies. I've tried various weights from 20 to 24 lbs., and they all react differently. This issue adds another 45 minutes to an hour each week to my time "babysitting" the printer to make sure it is feeding correctly. That is not acceptable IMO.
Overall I really do like this printer, but the paper curling issue has forced me to look for another printer (probably the HP 3005dn). It is Mac-compatible, too.
Customer Review: Faulty Drums and Bad MAC Driver for Duplex!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
Got this printer and the first test page that came out had streaks across the page due to faulty drum. These units have a high rating of faulty drums - it is one of the top FAQ questions for this model on Brother's site. I have had brothers before and always hated the poor quality of the drums, since they are expensive to replace and always end up with these streak issues.
So now I haven't even printed off one good page from it and have to take it to a local repair center open only during business hours, since Brother's policy doesn't allow you to take it back to your vendor!!!
On top of all this, I specifically purchased this printer because it stated it supported the MAC, and had duplex. However, they fail to mention that you cannot change to/from duplex easily on a MAC. In Windows, you can change the duplex setting via the printer driver (or when you are printing via the printer settings). On a MAC, you can't do this! The only way to print duplex via the MAC is to login to the printer web admin, turn duplex ON (permanently). So everytime you want to go to/from duplex on a print job, you have to login to this thing and make a permanent change. At least it is doable, but very non user-friendly and not for the technically challenged.
Also note that Brother doesn't tell you anywhere what the webadmin credentials are! The login name is "admin" and the password is "access". You'll have a fun time trying to figure that out without calling them (I found the password on the other utilities pages, and guessed at the username).
I hope other people out there will make complaints to Brother about the poor quality of the drums / high number of faulty units shipped out, as well as the poor MAC driver support.
Customer Review: Great printer!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this printer because I have a home office and was using an an all in one inkjet printer to print lengthy documents. Not only did the print run when I used a highlighter on printed documents, but printing was very slow, especially the duplex printing. I also went through printer cartridges like crazy.
A colleague recommended this printer and it's great. I have had it about 8 months and use it as my default printer now. I have not had to replace the toner cartridge yet (although I am purchasing one today since it has been so long and I want to have one on hand).
Speaking of printer cartridges, the price looks pretty reasonable (~$40). I think that's how much I pay for the one of the two cartridges I need for my inkjet.
The printer was easy to set up, so easy in fact that I don't really remember doing it.
At first I was a little worried because the printer runs a short while after it prints, but then it automatically goes into stand-by mode and it doesn't make a sound. Also, I usually sit about 4 feet away from the printer, so I am in close proximity to it. I'm really sound sensitive and if it was too loud, I would have sent it back. It's not a deal breaker at all. Just an FYI.
My only regret is that I didn't buy this printer with the second printer trays. It'd be nice to have regular paper loaded all the time in one tray, and envelopes loaded all the time and ready to print in the other.
Oh, the only thing I can mention is that I have a home finance software package (Quicken) and I can't print to the Brother printer from their software. Quicken says it's a known and ongoing issue with some Brother printers. It's not that big of deal for me, but it could be for some people.
Customer Review: Nearly perfect
Summary: 4 Stars
I first saw this printer at the MacWorld Expo and I was impressed by its output, its networkability, and its price. I literally bought one the next day to replace my old HP Laserjet 4M which was finally becoming erratic.
I've been very pleased in almost all respects, with just a few minor criticisms. On the one hand, it is quiet and unobtrusive in energy-saver mode. On the other, when it is sleeping there is no indication that it is still on, short of looking at the on/off button. See what I mean by minor? I didn't run into the power supply issues that another reviewer had complained about.
The duplex function is handy and works well, which is something I can't say about my other printer, an HP Officejet 7310xi All-in-one, which came with a duplexer and a little notice saying that you have to do duplexing manually. The Brother's duplex function can be set as the default, which may have inadvertantly been the case where another reviewer griped about it doing the duplex shuffle, even for a single page. I've not had that problem.
The only aspect that has given me a bit of trouble has been trying to print files directly from Adobe InDesign CS with clear (not screened) type. Whether it is the Brother's emulation of Postscript or its PPD or some mismatch between it and InDesign, I've not yet figured out, but I've had to do a workaround of exporting a PDF and printing from that. (And then only after turning off the "Brother Photo" mode in the Print Settings which seems to be the default for some reason.) For printing from MS Word or the Web, the printer has been speedy and flawless.
So, the InDesign matter aside (for which I dock it one star), it is nifty printer for the price.
Customer Review: Decent printer with unknown lifespan
Summary: 3 Stars
The printer seemed to be a great buy from Costco. Comparable network printers were at least twice the cost. The printer is moderately loud but not annoyingly so. It worked almost flawlessly until just now, 10 months after I first installed it, when the duplex printing (double sided) stopped working and the status light (usually green or yellow), turned red. Pressing the "Go" button, allowed printing to proceed but it only printed on one side, despite repeated confirmation that duplex printing was set. As far as I know, no changes (significant or insignificant) were made and it is in a locked office (mine, shared with an officemate). A quick search on Google provided similar problems with users saying something about the "fuser" being bad in some way. Previously, the annoyance was that every so often, the IP number of the printer would change (presumably due to network changes?) and we'd have to printout the new IP address and reset it in Windows.
Update - Calls to Brother's customer service was fruitful. They were helpful and didn't treat me like an idiot. It turns out that one of the trays accessible only from the back of the printer not out of alignment, meaning that it had popped out backwards a few millimeters or so. This caused the printer to sense that something was wrong and refuse to proceed. This was accidentally discovered, but I was led there by the customer representative who was guiding me along different things to check. I give Brother high marks for their patience and service. The printer has performed flawlessly up date (May of 2008). I would change my rating to 5 stars (*****), however, the rating scheme doesn't seem to let me do that at this moment.