Unbelievable value: The going rate on the printer is plus minus US$200. However, if you want all those optional extra’s to make your printer fancy, you will have to dig deep in your pockets as the accessories such as memory, additional paper tray’s and network requirements, per individual items costs almost twice the price of the printer itself.

Control Panel: The printer comes with a nifty and easy to understand control panel. Toner, Drum and Paper status is indicated by lights and 2 buttons are also situated on top of the unit to Cancel Print and the other Go, for waking the system from sleep mode or print continuation after errors and jams.

Paper types and sizes: The Brother HL 5140 Printer is a super speedy piece of equipment with amazing 21 pages per minute capacity, ideal for multi-taskers who have lots more to do than sit around and wait for printing to finish. Almost all paper types are compatible with this printer including Letter, transparencies, envelopes, labels and plain paper types. Envelopes and transparency as well as single paper prints will unfortunately have to be hand fed. Letter sizes supported are executive, legal and letter as well as A4, A5 and A6. The sheet output tray has 150 page capacity and sheet main tray with 250 page capacity. Optional 250 page tray is available at cost nearly as much as the price of the printer. A disadvantage is the printers tendency for paper jams specifically with standard 8.5×11 multipurpose.

Graphic tests: The printer boasts with 2 400×600 dpi maximum print resolutions. However in terms of graphics, the Brother HL 5140 Printer, uses the Brother HL 5140 Toner and is very average as gradients contained horizontal and vertical banding flaws and deep shadow reproduction on photographs is terrible. The printer is not recommended for photo printing. Uneven print quality seems to be the a feature of this printer. Text printing, however is crisp and impeccable, easily legible, bold characters without any jagged edges and character outline is very good both in plain and italic format even with low almost microscopic, two point font size.

Available memory: The printer comes standard with 16 MB’s memory. SD-RAM memory adding options up to 144 MB is available via third party suppliers as Brother does not sell memory. Upgrading with more memory is recommended for small network runners who have possible large print jobs.

More technical details: The printer has 133 MHz processor with 16 MB RAM standard with expansion possibilities of 144 MB’s. The printer is Personal Computer, Apple Mac and Linux compatible. Interfaces employed are Parallel and USB with wireless and Ethernet optional extra. Your minimum system requirements are Microsoft DOS, Windows 1995, 1998, 2000, NT4.0, Millennium and XP as well as Linux and Apple Mac OS and x 10.1

Many multifunction machines have the ability to work in only one environment; purchasers are forced to choose between machines that will work in only a Windows or Mac environment. The DCP-1000 has both parallel and USB ports allowing both Windows and Mac users to choose it.

When utilized as a printer, this laser printer that has the ability to print 10 pages per minute. Printing resolution is 600 X 600 DPI. The paper supply will hold 200 sheets of paper. There is an automatic document feeder that will hold 30 sheets of paper enabling the user to insert multiple documents and leave the machine in full confidence that the copy job will be completed.

The DCP-1000 along with being a high quality printer and copier also provides the ability to scan documents. A 9600 X 9600 dpi interpolated resolution flatbed color scanner completes the abilities of this machine. When scanning is initiated, a dedicated scan key automatically initiates the proper PC application to run a scanning program.

As with any other printer, toner cartridges eventually run out of toner. There are machines that cause the owner difficulty in replacing the toner cartridge. Brother has eliminated that difficulty making the DCP-1000 one of the easiest machines to replace toner cartridges available. Brother has included a “low toner” indicator. This LED will come on when the toner in the cartridge becomes low. Many users have found that when this light comes on, the printer still has enough toner to print over 100 pages. These owners use the “low toner” indicator as a reminder to purchase a new toner cartridge.

Many printer or copier owners are reluctant to leave the machine during the course of the printing or copying job due to paper jams. Paper jams are a headache for many owners causing delays in a print or copy job. Brother has provided a machine that seldom jams allowing the owner the ability to not have to babysit the machine during a job.

While there are higher resolution multifunction machines on the market, the Brother DCP-1000 will provide more than adequate results for general use in the home office. Scanning complex subjects such as photographs provide adequate images for printing. This general purpose machine can be compared to the utility infielder in baseball, it does everything very well, yet is not exceptional in any one thing.