Brother lasers 2030/2040 vs 5130/5140

[John Fryatt]

I am after getting a mono laser printer and have been looking at these
Brother models. Does anyone have any experience of these?
What would I gain by getting the more expensive 5130/5140?

Things I've seen so far:
5140 drum costs about twice as that for 2030 much but only does 2/3 more
pages.
5140 toner cart costs a little more than that for the 2030 but does 50%
more pages
5140 is not GDI, whereas 2030/2040 say GDI 'emulation'. Does GDI
emulation mean it's is *only* GDI?
5140 can be networked and has faster processor/more memory.

Are these advantages of the 5140 worth the extra cost, do you think. Are
the 5130/40 built better?

Is their any difference in the quality of the output. Specs suggest that
they are the same.

My usage will be for letters, mail-shots, instruction manuals, invoices,
etc. Not a lot of graphics.

All advice gratefully received.

John

 

[Mark]

I am after getting a mono laser printer and have been looking at these
Brother models. Does anyone have any experience of these?
What would I gain by getting the more expensive 5130/5140?

Things I've seen so far:
5140 drum costs about twice as that for 2030 much but only does 2/3 more
pages.
5140 toner cart costs a little more than that for the 2030 but does 50%
more pages
5140 is not GDI, whereas 2030/2040 say GDI 'emulation'. Does GDI emulation
mean it's is *only* GDI?
5140 can be networked and has faster processor/more memory.

Are these advantages of the 5140 worth the extra cost, do you think. Are
the 5130/40 built better?

Is their any difference in the quality of the output. Specs suggest that
they are the same.

My usage will be for letters, mail-shots, instruction manuals, invoices,
etc. Not a lot of graphics.

All advice gratefully received.

John

I support several Brother laser printers (approx 70). All seem pretty
rugged. I'm buying 5140's now, most of the units are the now discontinued
HL-1440. Haven't had any trouble with the 5140. Most are printing about
15-20 pages per day, 5 days a week and keep chugging right along. The
2030/2040 are GDI printers and only GDI printers and as such wouldn't fit my
main application, so I didn't even test one

I hope this helps

Mark

 

[John Fryatt]

I support several Brother laser printers (approx 70). All seem pretty
rugged. I'm buying 5140's now, most of the units are the now discontinued
HL-1440. Haven't had any trouble with the 5140. Most are printing about
15-20 pages per day, 5 days a week and keep chugging right along. The
2030/2040 are GDI printers and only GDI printers and as such wouldn't fit my
main application, so I didn't even test one

I hope this helps

Hi Mark,

Yes it does, nice to hear positive comments.

I've been looking up the Linux support and I'm a little confused abotu
support for Linux from Brother. Do you happen to run these printers
under Linux?

Rather than buy the network adapter I was thinking of hooking the
Brother up to an old PC I run as Linux server.

John

 

[Mark]

[snipped]

Hi Mark,

Yes it does, nice to hear positive comments.

I've been looking up the Linux support and I'm a little confused abotu
support for Linux from Brother. Do you happen to run these printers under
Linux?

Rather than buy the network adapter I was thinking of hooking the Brother
up to an old PC I run as Linux server.

John

John-

Yes and no. I have several of these hooked up to a linux server, but not in
a way you would want to . One of the reasons a GDI printer won't work for
me is I dump ASCII text to them though a serial line and a buffer/parallel
convertor (It's a long story....). Most of this text comes from a Linux
box. But really the printer is acting as a generic text printer.

Mark