Looking for a cheap but reliable mono laser ( Black and white ) printer for you home, office or small business? The Brother HL L2305W could be the right choice for you. The current price for this robust little printer is around $95 - $100 and at this price it represents great value and it should provide several years of cheap and reliable printing.
Before purchasing any printer we strongly recommend that the buyer do a little research into the cost and availability of printer cartridges and also the yield of the cartridges. Many of the modern Brother laser printers can only use toners with a yield of 1,000 pages. These printers are definitely not recommended as 1,000 page toners will need changing quite frequently if you are doing lots of printing.
This is one of the reasons I chose this great little printer as it utilises 2,600 page toners and even better we now have a Brother TN 2350 High Yield toner which does 5,200 pages. This makes the Brother HL L2305W printer a very cheap printer to run and the end user will not notice any difference in print quality using our Premium generic toners.
Brother HL-2305W Specifications
Price: between $90 to $105
Consumables: Brother TN 2350 Toner ( 2,600 pages ), TN 2330 ( 1,200 pages ), Drum Unit - DR 2325 ( up to 12,000 pages )
Memory: 32Mb
Print Speed: Max 23 pages per minute
Warm up time: Less than 9 seconds from sleep mode
Paper Capacity: 250 sheets A4
Software Compatibility: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2102, 2008 and 2003, Mac OS X 10.7.5 or greater, Linux Cups, LPD/LPRng.
Connectivity: Full WiFi and WiFi Direct Capabilities.
Mobile and Web Printing: iPrintScan, Mopria and Google Cloud Print
Physical size: 356(W) x 360(D) x 183(H)mm, Weight - 5.7kgs
Why buy the Brother HL-L2305W Printer?
Okay so we've taken a look at the basic specs for this printer so why am I recommending it? There are several reasons, first of all the physical size of this printer is quite smal making it ideal for anyone not wanting a huge monstrosity sitting on their desk.
Secondly Brother laser printers have stood the test of time as reliable work horses that will guarantee you at least a couple of years of reliable printing without too many issues. There is very little to go wrong with these basic mono laser printers other than drum units needing replacing every 12,000 or so pages.
One of the other big pluses is the fact that this printer is very cheap to run providing that you are happy to use geneic toner cartridges. Let me stress however that there is a huge variation in generic toner quality and if you dont use a high quality toner from a reputable supplier then you risk running into problems.
We purchased this printer in the office here at Ink Hub for printing on our eParcel labels. We selected this printer for all the above reasons and also for the fact that a laser printer actually uses heat to bake the toner powder onto the paper so the labels wont smudge or run if they were to get wet or moist.
Why not to buy the Brother HL-L2305W Printer
There is really no outstanding bad points about this printer although it is limited in it's capabilities. Obviously it wont print in colour hence the name "Mono Laser". This printer is not a multi function printer so you can't scan or copy documents.
Also if you are not willing to use non genuine toner and drum units then this also makes this printer less attractive in terms of operating costs. Be warned however when buying non genuine toners as low grade generic toners tend to leak which eventually contaminates the drum unit and you end up with either poor quality prints or a grayish, dirty background.
The common problem with cheap, generic toners is that often they simply re manufacture a genuine toner and they don't always replace the wiper blade and various other parts. This always results in a less than satisfactory printout or the inability for the wiper blade to remove excess toner which ends up contaminating the drum and rollers. Be warned that this WILL happen if you go for a cheap, low grade toner, I can guarantee it. For more details read our article on compatible toners for Brother Printers.
Final thoughts on this printer
If you are after a cheap, reliable printer which prints out a heap of documents at high speed and you want to use non genuine consumables then this printer is a great buy.
I strongly recommend this printer in terms of reliability, economical printing and physical size. We have used several Brother mono laser printers in our office over the years and I can certainly vouch for them. They are great for printing invoices, labels or any black and white documents especially if they may be in contact with any form of moisture.
For a more detailed overview of the Brother HL-L2305W you can check it out on the Brother website:
https://www.brother.com.au/monochrome-laser-printers/hl-l2305w-detail
To see a full video overview of what the printer can do take a look at the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6v9oCVXR54