The Brother HL-5100DN monochrome laser printer is a budget business laser printer focused on raw throughput. Its print speed is extremely high for its price, it packs a high capacity paper tray to further make use of that print speed, and its average running cost is low; these features all work together to make it great for printing off text-based documents rapidly, making it a strong contender for the best printer for small business in the budget sector.
Related: Also read our Brother Hl L2350dw review
Why We Like It – Brother HL-5100DN
The Brother HL-5100DN is a great budget laser printer with solid print quality, blistering print speed for the price, and support for useful features like duplex printing (two sided printing). It’s also environmentally friendly and cost-conscious thanks to its Energy Star certification and high yield toner cartridge.
- Multi purpose tray gives it versatility for printing on alternative media types
- Very high print speed for price
- Good looking text
- Poor for printing graphics
- No wireless capabilities
Related: If you want better quality prints, read the Brother Hl l8260cdw review
Speed
Speed is the Brother HL-5100DN’s claim to fame. Its rated speed of 42 pages per minute holds up when printing single-sided text documents, and it holds up well enough in more complex prints; it’s considerably faster than the Epson WorkForce ET-4750, which chugs along at a fraction of the speed, though its print quality is markedly worse. It’s slightly faster than Brother’s own Brother MFCL2750DW, though this speed difference is negligible in the real world and its print quality is worse, which makes sense given it’s a cheaper printer.
Print Quality
Quality is merely so-so on the Brother HL-5100DN. Text looks good at larger sizes, but falls off on smaller prints, while graphic quality is middling at the best of times. The Canon imageCLASS MF445DW offers better overall text quality (especially smaller fonts) and significantly improved graphic quality; it struggles with gradients, but prints a much nicer image than Brother’s offering. If you won’t be printing small fonts it’s a good printer for printing text, but it’s lacking in its ability to reproduce finer details.
Efficiency
With a cost of 1.8¢ per page, the Brother HL-5100DN is fairly efficient. It’s cheaper overall to run than its higher end contemporaries, and its low running costs just overall make it a very solid value pick. Its toner is reasonably priced to replace, its cost per page is low, and it’s of course well-priced itself.
Advanced Features
Ethernet capabilities, an LCD display, and a litany of security features make the Brother HL-5100DN a feature-rich printer. It unfortunately lacks the ability to connect to a wireless network though; you have to spend extra to get a slightly higher end SKU in the form of the Brother HL-L5200DW. Lack of Wi-Fi is fairly forgivable at this low price point, though it would have been nice to have the option to add a wireless USB dongle or something of that nature to it to add Wi-Fi functionality without having to step up to a higher end SKU.
Value
Value is the Brother HL-5100DN’s bread and butter. It comes in at a very low price, and it doesn’t use that low price to obfuscate inflated long-term costs; its toner is reasonably priced and lasts a while overall, making both the upfront cost and long-term cost of the Brother HL-5100DN very low. While this does come at a sacrifice to quality, it’s still fine for printing out most text and it’s not entirely unusable for printing graphics out.
Brother HL-5100DN Wrap Up
The Brother HL-5100DN is a printer with mediocre print quality and absolutely phenomenal value. Its upfront cost is very, very reasonable, and Brother doesn’t nickel-and-dime you for toner replacements, making it a very affordable offering with adequate but unexceptional print quality. It’s unfortunate that it struggles with very small text, and it’s baffling why Brother eschewed wireless networking entirely without stepping up to a more expensive unit, but even with those two drawbacks it’s a very compelling offering just by virtue of its incredible value. If ethernet is an option for you or you can just directly hook it up to your computer, it’s a phenomenal purchase that’ll be wallet friendly both now and later.
