Brother HL-1440 Laser Printer

Rating:
Summary: The best/fastest/cheapest printer for writers!
Review: This printer is great for printing really long text documents such as novels and screenplays. I have it set up on two computers--my old Dell Latitude LM and my new Mac G4--via the parallel and USB ports (thank God they started making printers that were PC and Mac compatible!). My 133 megahurtz PC will print a 130 page Final Draft document in 13 minutes 40 seconds (yes, I timed it). My 500 MHz Mac will do a fifteen page Word doc. in 55 seconds. So, I think that on a faster computer, you'll get the 15 PPM that the company advertises. The 600 dpi text is outstanding for both Times New Roman and Courier Final Draft. And the paper tray holds 250 pages! This is one of the first printers I've ever bought that lives up to the hype. I just got rid of a new Epson 870 Photoprinter that was supposed to get 8 PPM but only did 2 PPM on the "draft" setting! I ordered the Brother from Amazon... It took me ten minutes to get it set up and printing. For [the money] this printer kicks butt. A note for those of you who are using Final Draft: Some annoying printers, like the Epson, cut the "continued" text (at the bottom of the page) in half; and you are forced to select the "print maximum field" button every time you print which can be really annoying. No problem with the brother. It prints the entire page in FD docs.

Rating:
Summary: This is a GREAT option for the home user.
Review: I have a two computer "network" at home in which I previously used two average quality inkjet printers (one for each pc). With laser printers having cost so much in the past, I never bothered to put one in at home. I was surprised to see that this model is not only affordable at its regular price of 99 dollars, but I found it at Office Max for 79.99 (they are no longer going to carry it)!

Because I have had great success using the Brother HL5170DN at work, and because a friend has the 1440 and loves it, I decided to give the HL-1440 a try for home use. I can say without a doubt that this is one good printer. I would think that even if I had paid twice as much as I did (which makes it all the sweeter). The print speed is very fast and the quality is great. I am still impressed with how crisp and clean this machine can produce images and graphics.

I am told that the toner cartridge that came with the printer (#430) is good for about 3,000 pages. By factoring that plus the cost of replacement cartridges, I feel that this printer is a fantastic choice for home use. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Some advice on using this very good printer
Review: I have long experience supporting laser printer users and would like to add the following comments to the other favorable reviews-- all worth reading, by the way.
1. The toner cartridge that comes with the printer is good for about 3000 pages of normal text. A new replacement cartridge of the same size costs around $50, or about 1.7 cents per page. The larger TN-460 cartridge usually runs about $60 - $65 and prints about 6000 pages, or about 1 cent per page. Clearly, large volume printing means that you should buy the larger cartridge. Used or reconditioned cartridges significantly reduce that cost, but may well cause trouble.
2. The print drum is good for about 20,000 pages. When it goes, check the price of a new HL-1440 (or its successor). You will probably be able to buy a new printer with a new 3000-page cartridge for very little more than the cost of the drum, unless the price of a replacement drum goes down drastically before yours wears out. And you can of course use the toner cartridge that is in your discarded printer in the new printer if it your old cartridge still has toner left in it.
3. Phantom print jams/misfeeds: I help support an HL-1440 in a small shop where the workers use the printer daily, but know nothing about printers. Recently, they reported paper jams, according to the LED's on the front of the printer, but there were none. The problem turned out to be that they had failed to get the paper in the tray tight up against the front of the paper tray-- the paper stop in the back of the tray had moved and they hadn't noticed it. With the paper just a 1/4 inch or so away from the front of the tray, the printer refused to print at all, and they didn't notice to problem.
4. As other reviewers have said, the HL-1440 works fine with Mac OS X, version 10.2.1 and later. It also works as a wireless printer if you have the Apple Airport Extreme wireless network base station, which has a USB printer port in it. (You use the printer as a "Rendezvous" printer.) OS X users who don't know which version they have should got to the "Apple Menu", open it and click on "About this Mac." It will tell you plainly what version you are using. (...)
5. I am delighted with the two Brother HL-1440's I use regularly. I never expected such an inexpensive printer to behave so beautifully.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful home laser at very low price, few quibbles
Review: Unlike many reviewers who spill out their thoughts after a few days with their new toy, we've had our "new" Brother HL-1440 about six months -- and the short form is that we are highly satisfied. This is our third laser (the prior two being HP 4P and 5P -- typical home models) so we're used to good quality printing. No exception is the output of the Brother and the speed is quite decent as well. Best of all, we have not yet had a jam, despite printing probably about 2500 pages or so since putting it into service. We're still on the original toner as well!

We use both the manual feed slot a lot (for envelopes and special paper or card stock) as well as the high capacity tray with excellent results. Our only quibble is that the feed slot can be a little tricky to get the paper straight, so sometimes the printout is crooked. The printer is a little slow to startup and print first page if it had previously been in "sleep mode" but nothing that unusual. Sometimes our lights dim a little when it fires up, so we're guessing it draws some pretty good power at that instant!

Incidentally we used the parallel interface at first and now use the USB connection -- no problem with either. The software was easy to install and stepped you through the startup proces quite clearly.

Bottom line, we've been totally delighted with the product -- and consider it almost unbeatable at the low price we paid!

Rating:
Summary: Cheap, efficient, networkable :)
Review: Dont hesitate! If you are looking for a cheap networkable printer then this is for you.

This good looking Laser printer hooks up to my mixed network (with PC's and MACs) via a Linksys wireless G print server and a wirelss G router/switch.

Brother has a great website (far better than most) and fully supports MAC OSX and Unix printing. They have a CUPS driver for download and its a cinch to install! I installed it using the IP printing option on MAC. On Windows just run the installation disk.

This printer cost me a hundred bucks & thats with a 3,000 page toner cartridge. It attached to my existing Linksys print server without a problem and functions just like an expensive network printer.

One note, if you get a gray cast over the paper its time to change the toner! Be careful not to expose the drum unit to direct sun or room light as well when you replace the toner (so close the blinds and use a dim light!). The "replace toner" light is not accurate so use your eyes - if the print quality goes "gray" just change the toner! I had the previous model (HL-1240) for three years before I upgraded.



Rating:
Summary: Nothing but trouble
Review: I have bought hundreds of items from amazon.com, but this is the first that has inspired me to write a review. I bought this printer about a year and a half ago and had print quality problems with it from the start. To their credit, Brother replaced my original drum at no charge, since it was apparently bad when I bought it, and I have replaced the toner cartridge once since then, as well. The print quality has never been very good, even when the drum and cartridge were new, but it has been getting even worse over the last couple of months--the pages are now all gray, apart from the lovely vertical streaks of white that run down through the text. The drum light is not on, but even if I knew that was the problem I wouldn't replace it. I'm not buying anymore replacement items for this. I give up on this printer.

Rating:
Summary: Setup of printer can be difficult.
Review: I am using a Mac computer with the OS X operating system, the software provided would not load. Had to down load from the Brother site, you have to choose between 2 or 3 drivers. Not being a computer genius, I down loaded the wrong driver. I called their customer support line for help, they have a support system that hangs up on you if they have too many calls pending. I find this unacceptable, plus not providing software that will run on the Mac OS X system is totally unacceptable. For the computer novice trying to get the printer up and running could be very frustrating. The print quality is great, and the speed is wonderful. I have had this printer for less than a week.

Rating:
Summary: Brother, where art thou!
Review: I too made a mistake and purchased a Brother HL-1450 laser printer. These printers consistently garner rave reviews and unfortunately I got suckered. All one has to do is check the customer reviews at Amazon.com or Epinions.com for the HL-12XX and HL-14XX printers to determine there are some significant print quality issues with any Brother laser printer utilizing the DR-400 image drum. Factor in the $120-$150 cost of a new drum every 2000 copies or so and you've got some serious operating expense. As advised by Brother technical support, I replaced the image drum to rectify the dreaded "gray background" problem, only to have it reappear roughly 2000 copies later. Imagine, a laser printer with a toner supply that outlasts the image drum. Needless to say, I will defer another drum replacement and use the money to purchase a new non-Brother laser printer.

Rating:
Summary: Good Prtinter but Image Problems
Review: This is a very nice printer but there are real problems with the toner and drum going "all gray." It is very expensive to repair; usually better to replace.

Rating:
Summary: Good at first, downhill to VERY BAD!!!
Review: At first, the printer seemed too good to believe. Fast, no jams, just perfect for lots of printing. Within 6 months, it started cranking out GREY PAGES. Like everyone else, I bought new toner but that didn't help. The grey pages obliterate any printing I try to do. A new drum costs at least $130. Be very careful of the reconditioned ones because they can hide the grey page problem for a short while but it's the drum that is bad. All in all, Brother took me for $250 and the new toner which is full but unusable. When someone posts on here after having a printer a week, you do everyone a disservice because you say great things without any experience to back it up. I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER BROTHER.