Dan Littman

Brother HL-2460N

This printer has almost everything going for it: At $1000 it costs less than most corporate models, and its 16.1-ppm text-printing speed--though not the fastest we've seen--ranks near the top of the heap. We liked the way the HL-2460N printed text and narrow lines--both looked a bit light overall in our tests but were very clean and distinct throughout. The printer has good paper capacity, with a 500-sheet feeder and a sturdy 100-sheet auxiliary tray; and it provides ethernet, USB 1.1, and old-fashioned parallel and serial ports as standard equipment. It has an unusual storage feature, too: When you add a CompactFlash card to its CompactFlash slot, you can store fonts and reprint jobs. We found the HL-2460N easy to use, whether we were inserting and removing the toner cartridge and imaging drum or navigating menus on the control panel's backlit LCD.
In its standard configuration, the HL-2460N carries only 16MB of RAM, so the printer's buffer is likely to overflow when network traffic builds up. (On the other hand, the printer can use as much as 272MB--much more than even a big department is likely to need.)
You can increase the HL-2460N's paper capacity up to 2100 pages by stacking it on top of a maximum of three 500-sheet paper feeders ($329 each), and add a five-bin ($700) or ten-bin ($1300) stacker/mailbox to handle the increased output. Or you can add a duplexer ($400) to encourage people to save paper. A 6GB internal hard disk ($600) can store frequently used print jobs and templates in the printer, as well as run Brother's utility that monitors and bills for printer usage.
Brother's HL-2460N provides the features, speed, and print quality a workgroup demands from a laser printer, but buyers should plan on bumping up the RAM.

Buying Information

Brother HL-2460N Rated 25 ppm text, standard 16MB RAM, 2400-by-600-dpi maximum resolution, 600 sheets input, 500 output. $ 1000 Rated 25 ppm text, standard 16MB RAM, 2400-by-600-dpi maximum resolution, 600 sheets input, 500 output. http://www.brother.com/usa/printer/printer_cntr.html 800/276-7746