The Brother HL-2070N is an update to the previous Brother HL-2040, with a slimmed down print driver and networking. It builds on the qualities of its predecessors and improves on all of them.
Like the HL-2040 the HL-2070N is aimed at the light duty home or small office. It isn’t designed or built for heavy duty use. Saying that, we tested extensively and the HL-2070N rose to the occasion each time.
The printer is slim, and has quite a low profile, thanks to the slimmer printer driver. There is a 250 sheet paper drawer at the bottom and a single sheet multipurpose feeder above it. The paper feed is smooth and doesn’t seem to jam, even when we tried to simulate one, the paper was pushed out and re-fed correctly.
Print quality is good, if a little light. With the default settings, black looked more like charcoal, and images came out a little light too. This can easily be addressed in the configuration though, by setting it a little darker. There was some banding seen on images, but again, nothing that would cause the prints to be wasted. Bearing in mind that this printer costs less than $200, the print quality is good. Print speed was also more than acceptable at a rated 20 pages per minute for a text sheet. Response is good, with the first page appearing at around 10 seconds after being ordered. These are almost commercial printer speeds for a third of the price.
Toner is also reasonably priced at around $30 for a 2500 page version, with drums at $58, which are said to last for 20000.
Controls are simple, with a single Go button and four lights above it to indicate paper, toner, drum and power states. They change color, depending on the state which makes checking on the HL-2070N from a distance a breeze.
Surprisingly for this price, the HL-2070N also includes an Ethernet connection and a print server. While this is a welcome addition to any machine, this is aimed at home users. The whole family will be able to share the resources without having to buy many of them.
The upshot is that the HL-2070N is a solid, well built printer that will serve families or small workgroups well. The convenience of laser printing far outweighs that of inkjet, and this printer is a product of that.
