Smaller businesses looking for a mono A4 laser printer for single-user or small workgroup environments are likely to find devices like the Xerox Workcentre 3550 prohibitively expensive.
A far cheaper, but still very capable solution for those firms comes from Brother's new range, with the HL-2270DW sitting at the top of the pile.
Brother claims 26ppm output and the HL-2270DW has a 250-sheet tray, a small footprint, and duplex printing over wired and wireless local area networks.
The HL-2270DW is a no-nonsense business laser, and on the outside all you'll find is a series of LEDs along with a single control switch.
Most of the printer's setup and operation is controlled remotely, and while this shouldn't present problems for most people, there are a couple of hurdles to jump before it's up and running.
The inherent simplicity of the HL-2270DW means that network setup is not quite as straightforward as it could be.
A preferred connection method must be chosen during the installation routine and, in the case of wireless, if your access point supports WPS or AOSS this needs to be enabled on the printer and router to complete the process.
Otherwise the connection can be made manually by temporarily connecting the device via USB and following the on-screen prompts to select a network and enter a password if required.
This is a bit awkward, but it shouldn't take too long and the instructions provided in the manual are clear enough to follow if you don't have much experience in this area.
During our tests, a single-page print (including warm-up time) took 15 seconds to arrive, although things do improve dramatically for larger jobs where a 10-page document arrived in just under 30 seconds (around 20ppm).
Enabling the automatic duplex mode for the same document (which must be done through the printer settings of the source application) increased the print time to just under a minute.
So, while there is some overhead here while the printer retrieves the pages en-route, we were still quite impressed by how quickly it can fly through documents with the automatic duplex unit enabled.
Quality is excellent, with subtler shades in graphics picked out nicely and text remaining crisp and clear throughout. In fact we struggled to detect any drop in quality when compared to high-end devices like the aforementioned Xerox.
In terms of running costs, the particular model on test comes with a 1,200-page starter toner. Replacements cost £42 for 1,200 pages (3.5p per page), while a high yield alternative costs £70 (just 2.6p per page), making upkeep fairly reasonable.
Brother has aimed its new range at the less demanding small or home business environment that requires a no-fuss solution for document output, and clearly there is a fair market for these requirements. High speeds and impressive quality make it very capable in this light.
It's a bit more expensive than some of its more basic rivals but, if you'll benefit from the wireless connectivity and duplex mode, there's very little not to like.
