Brother HL-L2400D Compact Monochrome Laser Printer

This is a lazer printer using older and similar technology designed by people who use the KISS principle. Older CAN BE better. I used it for a Win7 machine… yes, it needs a chord, but given how many printers are a nightmare to setup to wireless print… I will take a chord and a dvd setup disk any day over that nightmare. GREAT printer.
Review for Brother HL-L2300D (NOT the wireless model L2305W)
2023 Tried several other Laser printers before this one. All failed, didn’t work with Win7 (even though they said they did), and the mega challenges of setup made them not worth keeping them. With the ‘old school’ HL-2300D, setup was breeze. Connect the USB/Printer cable, Pop in the CD, remember those? 🙂 run the setup, a few minutes later I was printing. While the L2300D is technically not a wireless printer, you CAN set it up to print wirelessly from other machines. I attached the L2300D on my Win7 laptop, and connected to my home wireless. Set up a home group with the printer SHARED…. and voila! All other machines in my home, can print to the Printer attached to the Win7 laptop… WIRELESSLY. I have the other (Win10, Win11) computers connected to the SAME wireless connection, they download the needed drivers… and it works with zero problems. Some Pros: +Works with Win7 +EASY setup. +Can print wirelessly, although you do have to have the “home” computer that the printer is attached to on, and setup to share that printer on the home group network. +IT WORKS! and produces a quality output. +You will not have brain melt as you would if you attempt to setup other Laser printers Cons: -As with most printers sold by the corporations, the scam is to buy the printer, then overpay for TONER that limits how many copies you get for each toner. (A scam, but as long as monopolies are allowed, it’s the game.) -Rumor has it, that how many copies you ACTUALLY get, is different than what is advertized. (given the number of reports on this issue, it is likely true, but I can’t say for sure, as I am not going through the hassle to tracking that going forward.) -The chord you need, doesn’t come with it, fortunately, you can often pick these up at garage sales / thrift stores, etc for about a buck… or even free. – Had to press the Off/On switch and HOLD it for ~5 sec before printer will turn off / which is odd. -Built in power chord is a negative. -Reports of questionable functionality with Linux… though I guess that if the printer is connected directly to Linux machines they might work fine. (Didn’t bother testing this, as I am only needing it for Win machines.)
Neutral: As with all printers, things wear out, and there is need for two basic things: more toner (solvable) and a new drum (they often last, but they do need to be replaced sometimes ~5+ years -Most products produced by the Corporate Elite, are designed to malfunction after a time, so you will forced to buy a new replacement. (A common practice) — I will mention that some printers have a way of resetting the toner counter, AND a way to reset the need to replace the drum… I am not sure that applies to this printer, though I will mention it, just in case one of you gets into that scenario. 🙂 Had a Lexmark in the past, that this worked for, and knowing how to do that, saved needless toner/drum replacements. (Likely the corporations have disabled this feature on new models.)
Rating: Fantastic. It works, setup is EASY, and you can print wirelessly if you set your WIN computers up to do that. Compared to the options on the market, cost, and the other Wireless printers that being sold now, this machine is smoking hot, pun not intended. 🙂

This is a perfectly designed black and white printer that actually works. In the past, I purchased several purportedly higher end printers. They could only connect to your computer via a convoluted process of setting up and linking a new wifi network- and they literally never worked.
I specifically ordered this printer because it physically connects to my computer with a literal etheret cable, then the new printer simple appears as an option in my computers print menu, without any additional installation required. You do have to buy the ethernet cable separately. I ordered the type with a helical connection on one end – linking into the printer, and a USB head on the other – for the computer.
This printer has worked 100% of the time for me. It prints a huge volume of pages in basic black ink, extremely rapidly, fairly noisily, but that’s what lots of pages printing sounds like. The lettering is printed completely dry, no splotches or smearing. I used it to print several hundred pages for a critical housing matter, with no issues.
The physical design is perfect for printing many pages – the printed documents securely emerge on the wide top of the printer with no risk of falling to the floor, with plain paper securely loaded into the base. It isn’t like many others where the printed documents also spit out over an unstable extending piece liable to fall. In summary, this is perfect for someone who actually needs to rapidly print lots of organized documents, without any jammed, misplaced, or smudged documents, without any bells and whistles. It is also extremely cheap with high life cartridge. I hope they keep making these solid, simple, and reliable models.

So far this printer works great! It was a replacement for a Cannon, which crumpled almost every sheet of paper and then jammed. The only drawback is that it only prints with black toner, no color, but that’s mostly what I print anyway.

Great value. I wanted a black and white printer that prints dual sided. This does the job well. As good as my old much more expensive HP.