Review: Brother HL-3070CW Laserjet Printer

This small affordable Brother Laserjet printer is exactly the sort of thing Small Businesses should be looking at moving to if they are currently using Inkjet/Officejet style printers. Colour, Wireless and a Laserjet, and the model we supplied came in at under £180 including V.A.T. (Although the printer is listed as £216 inc. V.A.T. on the Brother website).

The printer looks and feels sturdy and not at all as "Budget" as the price suggests, and although not really small enough to share a desk with a computer/monitor, it is still smaller than the traditional HP Laserjets which are so popular in office environments.

Set up was relatively easy, although it is slightly frustrating that you have to use the supplied CD to set the machine up on a wireless network - although it does support Secure Easy Setup and other 1-touch wireless setup technologies such as AOSS. Once on the network, the drivers were simple to install on the computer as well, and a real plus is the "Driver Only" option, which will only install the required printer drivers onto the computer, and no unwanted Third Party applications that will never get used.

Print quality was good, producing bright colours although blacks aren't quite as deep as you would expect from a higher end Laserjet. Finally, one of the most impressive things about this machine from a budget perspective is the Pages Per Minute statistics, traditionally very poor when you dip below £250 for a Colour Laserjet. Not here, with equal speed for colour and black & white of up to 16ppm.

All in all, a very impressive offering from Brother at an equally impressive price, my recommended option for any small business looking for a new colour printer without big bucks to spend.