The Brother HL 5050 printer is a low cost and straight to work type of printer. There are a number of factors which are going in the correct direction for this laser printer.
The first is its rather low prince tag which makes it affordable for almost every small office. The relatively small footprint which makes it easy to place and setup in tight congested work environments. This printer is capable of blazing fast print speeds and excellent quality monochrome print. Its network capability makes it easy to connect the printer to an existing home network or office network.
Out of the box I would say that this printer is a winner especially for those people who are looking for a bargain. This is a bargain size printer with lots of good printing ability. The text printed were surprisingly good and crisp.
The Brother HL 5050 arrives factory fitted with a 250 sheet in the bottom. There is yet another tray in front that can hold another 50 sheets of paper. This can be used for two purposes either feed paper or to stack envelopes for printing.
I did notice however that there isn’t a rear exit available for the printer so chances are that the paper will be creased. This is probably a rare printer at this prince that has a built in duplexer. If you want to increase the paper holding capacity of this printer you can add two more trays. Each tray can hold up to around 250 sheets of paper each.
If you look closely towards the output bin you should find a control panel that has four lights and two buttons. Even though the printer does not have an LCD menu its not difficult to enter in network parameters. The booklet that comes with the printer is colorful and well illustrated. This makes setting up the printer and troubleshooting it easy. Apart from this booklet you get a CD Rom that has an electronic booklet. This booklet is in PDF format and illustrates how easy it is to set the printer up. If you think you need more help just visit Brother’s website and download network administration tools for free.
This printer can output excellent quality text that is both crisp and sharp thanks to the Brother HL 5050 Printer Toner Cartridge. However we did notice a few oddities in a few of the characters. Line art and other types of light graphics printed out perfectly. The printer has excellent monochrome text capability which is what really sets this laser printer apart.
Replacing the Brother HL 5050 Toner Cartridge was as easy as pulling out the drum assembly. The drum assembly is located in the front of the printer. The printer comes pre-fitted with a standard capacity HL 5050 Toner Cartridge which should last you for over 3000 pages. However you can save some money if you purchase a high capacity cartridge for an extra $100 which can print around 7000 pages.