Labs

Brother was renowned for word-processing machines before the widespread availability of the PC. Its brand name, however, has lost its resonance in the past decade in the field of office equipment.The HL-2060 takes the lead from where Brother's competent personal mono lasers leave off. Incorporated are networking options with a full complement of I/O ports including RJ-45 and BNC (10/100BaseTX and 10Base2 respectively) with corresponding status lights, while local connectivity is supported by the obligatory parallel and serial ports.

The review unit was pre-configured for network use with the full array of protocols supported - TCP/IP, NetWare, DLC and NetBEUI to name but a few. It doesn't follow the crowd and feature an embedded Web server, however. In a departmental setting the latter is a useful utility to assist system administrators in fault reporting

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and usage tracking. However, the HL-2060 does have a network security feature where print access can be denied on a per IP address basis.

As a 1,200 x 1,200dpi-capable laser, we found the HL-2060 poor in output quality compared to its higher profile competitors. The photograph in the quality test was too dark, transitions from light to dark were moderately smooth but banding was obvious, and in the 24-page mixed text and graphics test a number of photo images developed streaks across the width of the picture. This adds up to an overall quality ranking of second from last.

Our perception of the HL-2060 declined further as our timed speed results showed it to be the slowest printer in the group. Despite it being at the less vigorous end of the speed spectrum as a 20ppm-class unit, it's out-performed by the Minolta-QMS PagePro 18N, an 18ppm unit. The 50-page test revealed a 17ppm actual throughput, which is well short of the claimed 20ppm.

On paper the HL-2060 ought to be able to hold its own when you consider that it's kitted out with a Fujitsu SPARClite 100MHz processor, but it's held back by a paltry 8Mb of RAM. The maximum memory capacity is 72Mb so it's well worth getting an extra 8Mb at the time of purchase. Perhaps the only distinguishing feature of the HL-2060 is the two PC Card slots at the front, but even these seem an unnecessary luxury. Ill-equipped and lacking in performance, the HL-2060 is difficult to recommend.