Brother HL-4070CDW Colour Laser Printer

We recently reviewed the Brother HL-4040CN colour laser printer, and generally impressed by this £ 300 offering in the SOHO market. It is more expensive sibling, HL-4070CDW, has three updates on the proposal to hold a further £ 200 in their asking price: duplex print, wireless and emulation PostScript, as a brother, BR-Scenario 3 page description language.

Physically, printer, two are very similar, although HL-4070CDW has cream front panel, for HL-4040CN in dark blue. Both machines have 250-sheet paper trays and pull down 50-sheet tray universal, as well as use the built-colour laser engines, so black and coloured page should take same time to print.

Two-line LCD display uses three color lights, which turns green when the printer is ready or print, orange, when you make changes and the establishment of an error in the red states, such as when the covers are open. Four-way area of control buttons complemented go and "Cancel" buttons and two for Reproduction and direct the press, about which more later.

HL-4070CDW has four different ways to connect to the PC: USB, parallel, cabled network and WiFi, with sockets for the first three sets on the back panel. Installation and setup is quite simple, especially on the physical side of consumables. Open the front of the printer, and you can slide from the tray holding four toner cartridges. Each of these windows down in the tray and their pens again until they lock into place.

The software installed with the supplied CD as easy, although there are several different ways to set up the printer for wireless networks. You can temporarily connect it to your wireless router; using SecureEasySetup router supports it or run the built-in wizard with the printer's control panel. We found this last method is especially easy, as a printer found in our network immediately and made the necessary changes settings.

There is no software comes with the printer, except for the driver and wireless support, although BR-3 Script does allow print any file PostScript, as an alternative to using a dedicated driver.

There are two functions of the printer deserved special mention. Direct press allows print files from the USB memory drive or PictBridge camera, while Reprinting doing what he said and again passes the last work directed machine. This is particularly useful function if you want to print one copy to check the results, then trying to leave the fold with the printer without the need to work again with the PC.