Very solid performer - low cost

We have a clinic and we often make our own marketing materials, teaching aids for work with children, etc. The cost for using inkjets is just plain crazy. We've owned the Oki C5150 and liked it but kept having trouble with staff changing the toner and getting it inside the unit thereby ruining the PKU units.

I searched online for a lower cost, solid performing, color laser from a well-known brand. We've owned HL-1450 and other mono lasers from Brother and have been extremely satisfied for the past 5+ years with their performance and reliability. After looking at the output and the reviews on professional sites I took a chance with the HL-4040N.

We've been running it since January 08 (4 months or so) and its printed ~2500 pages. We haven't had a single paper jam (and we've used hard stock, low cost bulk paper, and other papers in it). It worked on the network without ANY fuss at all. It powers up quickly and the first page is being printed in less than 30 seconds on average. It has a straight pass through (4 color toners but the page goes through once) which seems to help with both the ease of use and the speed for first page production.

-21ppm black
-2400x600 dpi
-Network and USB ready
-PictBridge port for direct printing from USB source
-Compatible with Window, Mac and Linux operating systems
-Flip up control panel is terrific
-Toner status on all the time
-Work light EASY to see from across room
-Easy to install cartridges
-Cancel button ACTUALLY WORKS!
-Comes with regular (not trial) toner
-PCL6 emulation
- 66 scalable fonts, 12 bitmap fonts, 13 bar codes (PCL)resident on the printer
- 300 MHz processor