Brother HL-5470DW

By M. David Stone

The mono laser Brother HL-5470DW monochrome laser is the sort of printer that's most likely to wind up shared, but that you might also have designs on for personal use. On the one hand, the ample paper handling, reasonably good speed and output quality, and both Ethernet and Wi-Fi support make it good fit for a micro or small office or workgroup. On the other hand, its small size makes it a strong contender for a particularly busy home office or a power user's personal printer. Either way, it can easily do the job.

In many ways, the HL-5470DW comes in as a close second to the more expensive Editors' Choice OKI B431dn , with a similar but slightly larger size, similar but slightly slower speed, and similar but slightly less capable paper handling. That's not a bad tradeoff for the lower price.

The printer's paper handling in particular counts as a plus, with a 300-sheet capacity divided into a 250-sheet drawer and a 50-sheet multipurpose tray, plus a built-in duplexer (for printing on both sides of the page). That should be ample capacity in most cases, but if you need more, you can add a 500-sheet second drawer ($209.99 list) for a total 800-sheet capacity. You can also save about $110 by buying the HL-5470DWT ($350 street), which is the same printer with the second drawer already included.

Setup and Speed
At 10.1 by 14.6 by 15.1 inches (HWD), the HL-5470DW actually has a smaller footprint than many inkjets, but it feels more massive because of the height and shape. That puts it on the verge of being too big to comfortably share a desk with, which means you may want it near, rather than on, your desk.

For my tests, I connected it to a network using the Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system. Set up was absolutely standard for a mono laser.

Brother rates the printer engine at 40 pages per minute (ppm), which is close to the speed you should see when printing text files with no graphics or photos. On our Business Applications suite, I timed it (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 10.7 ppm. That makes the HL-5470DW slower than some printers with lower engine ratings. The 30-ppm Canon imageClass LBP6300dn , for example, managed 14.5 ppm on our tests. On the plus side, however, 10.7 ppm still qualifies as reasonably fast, and it makes the printer essentially tied with the B431dn, at 11.1 ppm.

Output Quality and Other Issues
The HL-5470DW's overall output quality is par for a mono laser. Text quality is at the low end of the range where the vast majority of mono lasers fall, making it easily good enough for any business need, but a touch short of what you'd want for serious desktop publishing applications.

Graphics are at the high end of par, with output that's good enough for any internal business need. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may or may not consider it good enough for, say, PowerPoint handouts. Photos are also par, but at the low end of the range. They're good enough for printing Web pages with recognizable photos. Whether you consider the quality suitable for photos in a client or company newsletter depends, once again, on how much of a perfectionist you are.

One other plus for the printer is a low running cost, at a claimed 2.1 cents per page. As a point of comparison, the LBP6300dn claims 2.6 cents per page. The 0.5 cent per page difference works out to $5 more in running cost for every 1,000 pages, or $50 more for every 10,000 pages. As always, how important the difference in running cost will be depends on how much you plan to print, which is something you should consider when comparing prices.

Add up all its strong points and the Brother HL-5470DW offers enough to put it on your short list, but not enough to be a slam-dunk choice. If you care more about speed and output quality than cost, you should be looking closely at the LBP6300dn. And if you don't mind paying more, the B431dn offers a bit more capability on most counts, including a lower running cost. Even so, the Brother HL-5470DW is a more than reasonable choice, with an attractive balance of speed, output quality, paper handling, running cost, and price.

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