Brother HL-3045CN

Brother HL-3045CN

All but identical in its core features to the Brother HL-3075CW ($300 street), the Brother HL-3045CN ($270 street) offers essentially the same combination of fast speed, acceptable if unimpressive output quality, and paper handling suitable for a micro, small, or home office. It's also less expensive than its near twin, which helps make it a good choice. However, it leaves out some extras you'll want to make sure you won't need, given that you can get them with the HL-3075CW for only a small additional cost. The two printers are built around the same LED engine. (LED printers work the same way as lasers, except that they use LEDs rather than a laser to draw the image of each page on a drum before printing.) Having the same engine gives them the same raw speed, at a rated 19 pages per minute (ppm) for both color and monochrome output. Sharing the same engine also gives them the same paper handling, with a 250-sheet tray, which should be ample for most small offices, and a 1-sheet manual feed, so you can switch to a different kind of paper for a given print job without having to change the paper in the tray.