Brother HL 1230 Laser Printer

Pros: Starter drum & toner LASTS, good value for money
Cons: Poor support, printer is heavy & somewhat noisy.

We bought our Brother laser printer about 4 years ago. At the time, I believe it was selling for around US$125-150. We wanted a replacement for our inkjet as the print quality just wasn't there. Since that time I'm guessing that we must have printed ...

Pros: Razor sharp dense black printing and a very low price.
Cons: Price of the drum unit, single sheet feed problems and the 'toner film'!

We bought a brand new HL1230 back in October 2002 and for the price it's been an excellent little printer... UNTIL it started printing a thin 'film' of toner over everything. SO... after 11 months faithful service, we took it back to the shop, got a refu ...

Pros: Great reliability, quality, paper capacity, usability, printer parallel port
Cons: Integrated drum, no built in colour, no extra feeder available

The Brother laser printer line for personal/SOHO use is definately the way to go for people with small to medium duty cycle needs (1000->2000 sheets monthly per printer). The printers chassis seems to be a carry over from the past few years of ...

Pros: High printing quality
Cons: Drum life shorter than specified

We bought our Brother HL-1230 in 2001, for an excellent price at the time, and have enjoyed its printing quality for five years. Recently, the drum failed, with grey unclear pages printing (45% of drum life, with 8750 pages printed - I replaced the toner, but this had no affect and the problem is therefore due to the drum).

It is hard to rate this printer package: the printer performs, but for a shorter time than promised. The price was right, but the drum and toner expensive (compared with buying a new printer). The printer is therefore not as good a bargain as its price and specifications promise.

Pros: not expensive for a laser printer
Cons: the drums are very expensive to replace

I bought this printer in March '03 because I was tired to pay to replace ink jet cartridge each months because ink dryed. The printer was approximatively the same price that ink jet printers. Since I use my HL-1230 I had no problems except only one paper jam. This printer has a manual duplex with on-screen directives to show how to put the paper in the bin. This printer is OK for the usage I made.

Pros: price
Cons: reliability

Like many, I found the HL1230 to be a good buy for the money so I bought 2 !

Now both are having the exact same problems. The drum becomes dirty and smears all pages with toner. Both have done the same after less than 2000 copies. (drum life should be 10 000 prints.

The drum was declared "dead" by tech man... Replacement is fairly expensive. You might want to consider another option for a printer.

Also noted, problems with the feeder, it's always on "alarm" as if there's no paper... Need to reset almost after each print... It's getting pretty NON user friendly.

Pros: Looks nice at first
Cons: Short lifespan, jams a lot.

This is one of the cheaper laser printers out there. Mine is about 2 years old, and printed excellent printers for the first year or so.

Most aggravatingly, the printer doesn't recover from paper jams, and I get lots of them. Especially if there's any humidity outside. You'll have to unjam the printer, throw away 45 of your 49 sheet print job, and start again.

As any google search will reveal, the printer suffers a common toner problem, causing a gray haze to develop on the sides of the print. Over time, printed text is reduced to the same greyness along the sides of the print.

The solution is to replace your drum, which will cost a significant portion of the printers original price.

I tried a replacement toner with no luck. Now, it doesn't even print well enough to give it away.

Off to the trash she goes...

Pros: cheap, reliable, great quality
Cons: none

Like others, I resented the overpriced inkjet cartridges and the compatibles were never as good; paid £80 ($US130) for a brand new item. From day one, it's churned out everything, excellent print quality for text, graphics and illus. No hickups, jams, stalls and it's been in daily use for six months!!
Roll on BROTHER!