MWSF: Brother launches new laser printer line

by Dennis Sellers, MacCentral

Brother International Corp. has introduced its new HL-5000 Series line of laser printers that includes the HL-5040, HL-5050 and HL-5070N) models. The new line replaces the HL-1400 Series models and boast faster print speeds, higher print resolution, and paper handling than the previous line.

The HL-5040, HL-5050 and HL-5070N will have estimated street prices of US$299, $349 and $499, respectively. They're slated to ship late next month.

Each of the new units offer a print speed of up to 17 pages per minute and a first-page out speed of less than 12 seconds. All three printers offer up to 2400 x 600dpi print quality. All also offer improved paper handling, according to Don Cummins, Brother's vice president of marketing. In particular, the HL-5040 now includes a single-sheet manual by-pass tray for handling card stock, letterhead and envelopes. Another improvement includes the option to add a second 250-sheet lower paper tray to expand the paper input capacity to a total of 500 sheets.

What's more, the HL-5050 and HL-5070N offer a fold-down 50-sheet multipurpose tray for handling custom media. This tray increases the total paper input capacity of the HL-5050 and HL-5070N to 300 sheets.

The entry-level, HL-5040, comes standard with 8MB of memory that can be expanded up to 136MB using DIMM. The HL-5050 and HL-5070N both come standard with 16MB memory and can be expanded up to 144MB. The standard yield toner cartridge offers up to 3,300 page capacity and the high-yield toner cartridge offers up to 6,500 page capacity. The drum is rated at up to 20,000 pages.

The new printers come with drivers for Mac OS X (10.1 and higher) and Mac OS 8.6-9.2. PCL6 emulation is standard on all three printers with BR-Script 3 (PostScript 3 emulation), IBM Proprinter, and Epson FX emulations standard for both the HL-5050 and HL-5070N.

The HL-5000 Series includes USB and parallel interfaces. An optional external 10/100 BaseT Ethernet print server is available for the HL-5040 and HL-5050, and the HL-5070N comes standard with a built-in 10/100 BaseT Ethernet print server.

The HL-5040 printer will be available in February and is expected to have a street price of US$299. The HL-5050 is due in late February for $349. The HL-5070N, also due late next month, will cost $499.